Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Quiet Driving Force Behind Rising Curtailment Costs in Great Britain

ukerc.ac.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 79 posts

Re: The Quiet Driving Force Behind Rising Curtailment Costs in Great Britain

#21

Post by eggfriedrice »

pjc50 wrote: post #18

The B6 boundary: https://www.neso.energy/publications/electricity-ten-year-st... The power lines follow the two main road links, the A1 and the A74/M6. I suppose that's not surprising from an access point of view. What is surprising is that the solution to NIMBY opposition is to route offshore and underwater, at considerable expense - and still getting opposition at the landing points. Fortunately one of the landing…

I recall at the Torness tour that the guide, who's a local, remembered at public the planning meetings that they were told the building wouldn't really be visible from the A1!

At least they painted it grey to match the sky...

Re: The Quiet Driving Force Behind Rising Curtailment Costs in Great Britain

#23

Post by edent »

mishagale wrote: post #14
thelastgallon wrote: post #8

There are two things we can do with energy, move it across space or move it across time. Moving it across space requires transmission infrastructure (which is state owned or rapacious corp owned -- very slow to build or upgrade; rent seeking, regulatory capture). The other option is to move across time, which is using batteries. Cars are rarely driven more than ~20 mins/day which make them the ideal energy storage de…

Bear in mind that in the UK, a large chunk of the populations lives in either rented accommodation, high-rise flats, or both. And also, standard housing policy in London is for new developments to have fewer parking spaces than homes (to encourage public transport use over cars). For many people in the UK, having an EV charging port on the side of your house isn't possible, because they don't have a house, or they do…

Well, lots of terraced houses and flats do have a garage or off-street parking. Mine certainly did.

Depending on which research you believe, only 25% of homes don't have a dedicated space - https://www.field-dynamics.co.uk/25-drivers-no-off-street-pa... and https://www.racfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/standing_st...

Lots of local authorities are installing on-street charging.

Basically, the vast majority of people in the UK do have off-street parking. Running a cable to a garage or from a street-lamp isn't overly expensive. Those who park on public streets also have lots of options for charging.

Re: The Quiet Driving Force Behind Rising Curtailment Costs in Great Britain

#24

Post by mytailorisrich »

RobotToaster wrote: post #20
throwawayben wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain more? It appears economically self evident to me that it would improve the situation but I'm not in the industry and there's probably much I don't understand. I would say that improving transmission seems like a much better solution but again I think zonal pricing can help there as it could then be more easily sold to the public as being able to import the cheaper (say) Scottish energy to your local…

The majority of the population live in regions that would become more expensive. Additionally the majority of Scottish constituencies vote for their nationalist party, so the major national parties don't have any chance of getting seats from Scotland, where energy prices may fall slightly under such a scheme.

> The majority of the population live in regions that would become more expensive.

Yes, and if you are an individual, family, or even the vast majority of businesses you aren't going to move to Scotland over this, you are going to pay, no choice. So effectively this would have increased bills for most people, so bad politically, with only a marginal change to demand.

Re: The Quiet Driving Force Behind Rising Curtailment Costs in Great Britain

#25

Post by subscribed »

pjc50 wrote: post #18

The B6 boundary: https://www.neso.energy/publications/electricity-ten-year-st... The power lines follow the two main road links, the A1 and the A74/M6. I suppose that's not surprising from an access point of view. What is surprising is that the solution to NIMBY opposition is to route offshore and underwater, at considerable expense - and still getting opposition at the landing points. Fortunately one of the landing…

I don't understand why borders have to be considered unspoilt if most of it is the shore soaked with untreated sewage, so with limited allure to the tourists (considering that taking a swim can land you in the hospital).

Re: The Quiet Driving Force Behind Rising Curtailment Costs in Great Britain

#27

Post by jillesvangurp »

jayflux wrote: post #15

Transmission is a real problem and just like Nuclear, we haven’t improved it in the past 30 years. So both eastern green link projects (offering more capacity) are due to be finished in 2029, “ok” I think “but surely we’re doing some work onshore to improve the existing network in the meantime..” > Due to ongoing project work for increased power flow from North to South across two Transmission Owner (TO) regions and…

The real problem isn't curtailment but misaligned incentives that subsidize curtailment. In short, wind providers are being payed royally (many billions) to NOT produce wind energy. There's no incentive for them to be more efficient. Worse, because of the incentives, energy companies are just installing wind wherever they can without regard for the local infrastructure and demand. They get guaranteed pricing regardless of whether their energy is used. Not their problem if they have to throw double digit percentages of their energy away. They get paid anyway.

Re: The Quiet Driving Force Behind Rising Curtailment Costs in Great Britain

#28

Post by arethuza »

eggfriedrice wrote: post #21
pjc50 wrote: post #18

The B6 boundary: https://www.neso.energy/publications/electricity-ten-year-st... The power lines follow the two main road links, the A1 and the A74/M6. I suppose that's not surprising from an access point of view. What is surprising is that the solution to NIMBY opposition is to route offshore and underwater, at considerable expense - and still getting opposition at the landing points. Fortunately one of the landing…

I recall at the Torness tour that the guide, who's a local, remembered at public the planning meetings that they were told the building wouldn't really be visible from the A1! At least they painted it grey to match the sky...

Many years ago I used to work with a very senior project manager from Scottish Nuclear who was responsible for Torness - he had some great stories about various accident scenarios they considered. One was that the refuelling machine would fail causing it to act like a gun shooting irradiated fuel rods into the sky - every time I go past Torness on the train I check for flying fuel rods....

Re: The Quiet Driving Force Behind Rising Curtailment Costs in Great Britain

#29

Post by actionfromafar »

subscribed wrote: post #25
pjc50 wrote: post #18

The B6 boundary: https://www.neso.energy/publications/electricity-ten-year-st... The power lines follow the two main road links, the A1 and the A74/M6. I suppose that's not surprising from an access point of view. What is surprising is that the solution to NIMBY opposition is to route offshore and underwater, at considerable expense - and still getting opposition at the landing points. Fortunately one of the landing…

I don't understand why borders have to be considered unspoilt if most of it is the shore soaked with untreated sewage, so with limited allure to the tourists (considering that taking a swim can land you in the hospital).

I guess the shores don't have right-wing lobbies.

Re: The Quiet Driving Force Behind Rising Curtailment Costs in Great Britain

#30

Post by movpasd »

throwawayben wrote: post #3

it is insane to me that they rejected moving to zonal pricing. zonal pricing would give incentive to move power demand closer to production, create costs to nimby-ism, and give the benefits of lower costs to those who live closer. but it might make energy cost more down here in the south east and (in particular) London while benefiting the North and Scotland so we can't have that

This is covered in the article. The uncertainties brought about by zonal pricing are not really worth it, given that the main obstacle is the need for network reinforcement. The UK is just not that big! Introducing a complicated market reform which will be obsoleted within a few decades doesn't make sense.
Post reply on HN