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The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain

wastedwind.energy

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Re: The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain

#241

Post by jjkaczor »

grumpy-de-sre wrote: post #198
gambiting wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live about a mile down from two large wind turbines and you can absolutely hear them, especially at night - it's a low droning noise that especially on quiet nights and in the summer when you have your windows open it actually bothers me to a point where I considered selling the house multple times already - but decided that rolling the dice on noise pollution and ending up with something even more annoying just is…

I'm assuming it depends a fair bit on the model of the turbine. The park near us is rather new so I'm sure they are using the latest options.

May also depend on the age of the people nearby - am reaching an age with some level of hearing loss and I don't hear many low frequency - or high-pitch noises much anymore (drone of insects, or mosquitoes - squeaky voices of small children, etc.), so I probably wouldn't hear the turbines as much as a person with better hearing.

Re: The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain

#242

Post by mapt »

shawabawa3 wrote: post #239
mapt wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a rational reason to do that?

The idea behind it is that everyone who supplies energy gets paid the same E.g. it would be unfair to pay wind farms 10p/kWh and gas turbines 20p/kWh when the electricity they supply is the same and fungible If there was enough grid storage this wouldn't be an issue, but because there isn't, there are always times where we need gas turbines to top up and those turbines won't turn on for less than it costs them, which…

If that's the case, doesn't it make a huge amount of sense for the utility to tell the silk incinerator selling it 0.001% of its electricity for 40p/kwh, "Bugger off, we'll buy batteries"? Cutting its overall power costs in half for a tiny operational shift.

You don't actually need the 0.1%. There are easy ways to make it up. There AREN'T easy ways to make up 7%, though.

Re: The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain

#243

Post by boringg »

mixedbit wrote: post #32

I wonder how practical it would be to build a system that would let home appliances cheaply overuse energy when there is a peak in wind or solar production. For example: * Let heat-pumps heat homes to say 23C instead of 20C * Let freezers decrease the temperature to say -30C instead of -18C * Let electric water heaters heat water to say 70C instead of 50C, such water can then be mixed with more cold water Such overus…

Already have thermostats that move based on signals from the utilities. There were some early pioneers in this stuff over 10 years ago in the bay area. They also aggregated the power to bid it, but I imagine they could aggregate to buy as well.

Re: The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain

#244

Post by zerkten »

grumpy-de-sre wrote: post #172
arethuza wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can see a lot of windmills from our house - probably at least 60 in a few different windfarms. They are all nearly 40km away, but I actually like seeing them. There are others much closer, which I also rather like seeing (closest is about 2km) but you can't see them from where we live.

Yeh I'm about 2km from a large wind park, it's the least obnoxious thing imaginable. Jogging through them at night with their dim red blinking strobes or watching them work overtime on a windy winter day is great and gives you a sorely needed feeling of optimism and hope for the future. Yes directly underneath them there is some gentle swooshing noises but I think beyond 500m it's basically imperceptible. Nothing I'd…

>> feeling of optimism and hope for the future.

I thought I was strange for feeling this when I brought my US-raised kids back to Northern Ireland this spring. Some would have been visible from my childhood home had they been built earlier. It made me think that maybe these people can get something right for the future.

Re: The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain

#245

Post by pancakemouse »

grues-dinner wrote: post #30

Something like 400,000 people are opposing the Norwich-Tilbury power lines to bring wind energy to where it's used. Including a Green Party MP: https://www.dissmercury.co.uk/news/24840985.green-mp-adrian-... . And you'd better believe wherever they buried the lines they'd have objections and expensive consultations about the disruption and the HoUsE VaLuEs caused by trenching, drilling and service structures. Like th…

> And you'd better believe wherever they buried the lines they'd have objections and expensive consultations about the disruption and the HoUsE VaLuEs caused by trenching, drilling and service structures.

But those are temporary disruptions. Overground lines are permanent.

The reason utilities and the Grid prefers overground is: it's cheaper. It's not better. It's cheaper.

Don't blame NIMBYs for that.

Re: The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain

#246

Post by throwaway34564 »

gambiting wrote: post #195
Forgeties79 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saw multiple people on HN literally 2 days ago complaining about how noisy solar is. Absolutely baffling.

What's noisy about them? The transformers? Or something else?

I have a residential solar installation, and the inverter makes some noise when the relays are switching between import and export. I'm not complaining - although it was indeed surprising

Re: The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain

#247

Post by jansper39 »

grues-dinner wrote: post #30

Something like 400,000 people are opposing the Norwich-Tilbury power lines to bring wind energy to where it's used. Including a Green Party MP: https://www.dissmercury.co.uk/news/24840985.green-mp-adrian-... . And you'd better believe wherever they buried the lines they'd have objections and expensive consultations about the disruption and the HoUsE VaLuEs caused by trenching, drilling and service structures. Like th…

I live close to the route that this will be built and regularly get cheap/free energy from my energy provider, partially because I live close to the wind generation in question.

People in the area will have to deal with the construction of new power lines for years, then live with having to look at them after that - at the cost of more expensive energy for the benefit of those not in the area.

I'm not hugely opposed but I can see why people would be. Equally while I know burying the lines is likely more costly and damaging, the public doesn't appear to have even been consulted with different options. It seems the only option on the table is to accept the plan as it is.

Re: The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain

#248

Post by grues-dinner »

perilunar wrote: post #220
lmm wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean just read the link and they're objecting to a 120m-wide trench being dug through their countryside. Which is easy enough to sympathise with.

Why do trenches need to be dug across the countryside? Put them alongside existing roads and rail lines. Same with above-ground power lines. It might make them a bit longer, but the ‘eyesore’ is already there, and we can avoid making new ones. (Re rail lines — if you build power lines over existing rail lines you could also electrify the rail route at the same time, and get rid of the diesel locomotives).

To be fair to the National Grid there - a 400kV power line is substantial: it has to have phase separations and be buried deep enough, plus space for reactive compensation from being buried.

Roads also go to places with buildings and have junctions, plumbing, foundations and are generally hard to dig past. But there are places where they do follow motorways: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:M6_motorway,_northbo... (also canals).

Rail lines go though towns by design, and as you see from comments even here, the one thing people really hate the thought of is power lines near houses.

Re: The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain

#249

Post by londons_explore »

amiga386 wrote: post #154
grues-dinner wrote: post #30

Something like 400,000 people are opposing the Norwich-Tilbury power lines to bring wind energy to where it's used. Including a Green Party MP: https://www.dissmercury.co.uk/news/24840985.green-mp-adrian-... . And you'd better believe wherever they buried the lines they'd have objections and expensive consultations about the disruption and the HoUsE VaLuEs caused by trenching, drilling and service structures. Like th…

This is all true, the NIMBYs are real and we must construct additional pylons... but the largest part of curtailment costs come from the UK energy sector's project mismanagement. 1. We have two undersea cable projects (EGL1&2) to provide transmission capacity between all the new windfarms in Scotland, and SE England where it's used. Both projects are years late. 2. But we keep approving and switching on more windfarm…

The solution to NIMBY's seems simple... "We would like to put a power line through your village. Here are the plans. We will to give every resident £400 to compensate them for the trouble, and it will only happen if at least half the residents vote yes. If the plan goes ahead, all voters will be eligible for the £400, even if you vote no.".

It turns out most people don't really care about a power line, but do like money. You won't have to offer much money to have a majority saying yes.

Re: The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain

#250

Post by shawabawa3 »

AstralStorm wrote: post #82
radu_floricica wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't "build" such a system. You change the metering to follow supply, and everything else will follow naturally. You'll have enthusiasts that'll do homebrew systems to take advantage of the economy, then you'll have companies catering to their (tbh, hobby), then you'll have products that are actually useful, then you'll see mass adoption. Like in everything else. Trying to plan a huge strategy from the onset fee…

Yeah right. Because building a freezer that goes to -30 C is as cheap as going to -18 C. It's much beefier hardware with a lot more insulation. Likewise a heat pump can only boost so much. This, like other environment related changes never happen by market forces. Not once. And small tweaks even on large scale produce small effects, insufficient for our needs.

Most normal home freezers have a way of setting temperature, e.g. mine can go from -16 to -24

So maybe -30 is difficult but it wouldn't be that hard to have the existing temperature range on new models be dynamic based on electricity pricing

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