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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

#291

Post by arichard123 »

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…

I'm on the octopus agile tariff that has 30 minute pricing and an API to query it. Prices for tomorrow published at 4pm today. So the pricing bit is sorted. Just need to make the devices understand it now.

Re: The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain

#292

Post by corint »

Angostura wrote: post #46
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 kind of in place. I’m on the Octpus agile tariff that gives different electricity tariffs every 30 minutes - with 24 hour notice if tomorrow’s prices. Whenever electricity prices go negative I have automations to force-charge my solar batteries from the grid, turn on hot water heaters in my hot water tank (normally heated by gas etc. ).

You might find the crossover for hot water heating is higher than 0p; your boiler is likely only around 70% efficient. So at 6p/therm for gas, you'd break even with resistive electric heating at around the 10p/kWh mark.

You should absolutely re-run these numbers to be sure, but you might find you can use electric heating far more often than you might currently be doing.

Re: The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain

#293

Post by samrus »

bee_rider wrote: post #287
StopDisinfo910 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if they could price down a bit they could just run fossil fuels out of the market entirely What do you propose we do when the intermittent sources don’t provide enough energy and all the other power sources have gone bankrupt?

I feel like I discussed that in the second half of my post, so I’m not sure how to respond to this question.

How would users make their demands dispatchable? The demand is the demand. The supply has to match

Re: The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain

#294

Post by fooker »

robocat wrote: post #113
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…

> You change the metering to follow supply, and everything else will follow naturally. Tell me your wonderland where this has happened . . . There are whole countries with wireless meters. There must be papers showing how much effect it has on consumer consumption? Ignore one-off examples, I'm interested in population level effects and statistics.

> Tell me your wonderland where this has happened

Plenty of grids had started paying consumers for excess solar generation exactly in this manner.

Re: The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain

#295

Post by [deleted] »

bee_rider wrote: post #287
StopDisinfo910 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if they could price down a bit they could just run fossil fuels out of the market entirely What do you propose we do when the intermittent sources don’t provide enough energy and all the other power sources have gone bankrupt?

I feel like I discussed that in the second half of my post, so I’m not sure how to respond to this question.

[deleted]

Re: The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain

#296

Post by fooker »

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.

> Because building a freezer that goes to -30 C is as cheap as going to -18 C.

For small sizes, yes it is.

But also, capex vs opex. Even if it's twice the cost, you only pay it once.

Re: The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain

#297

Post by ErikCorry »

vidarh wrote: post #211
bee_rider wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder why somebody doesn’t open a datacenter in Scotland. Sounds like they have too much power… also it is a bit chilly, right?

What makes you think they haven't? At least half a dozen operators have more than one data centre in Scotland, and many more have one.

Are you sure?

> Despite campaigning for more data center development two years ago, not much has come to fruition in Scotland. In December of 2021, Oracle closed the Sun Microsystems data center in Linlithgow, Scotland. DataVita has opened a new data center in Glasgow in its parent company’s office development, as well as expanding its Fortis data center in August 2022. No major construction projects have been announced since the campaign began. https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/scotland-continue...

Why would you open a datacenter in Scotland when the UK rules mean the electricity price is the same throughout the UK, regardless of supply and demand? This is precisely the issue that OP highlights - the UK electricity auction is at a national level, but transmission is limited and the actual supply and demand is not evenly distributed, causing huge curtailment payments to have to be made.

Re: The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain

#298

Post by ErikCorry »

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…

It's easy to blame project mismanagement, when it was always well known that undersea cables are much more expensive and difficult than the on-land cables that the Nimbies scuppered.

And it's unsurprising that windfarms in Scotland keep getting planned when the operator can collect these payments while switching off their turbines to reduce wear and tear.

Re: The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain

#299

Post by Moldoteck »

cedilla wrote: post #45
Phil_Latio wrote: post #20

Germany pays about the same each year: Wind is turned off, but the investors get their guaranteed profit from the tax payer. Meanwhile wind is aggresively expanded. They even go so far to now build wind in the south of Germany and then offset the lower average wind speed by increasing subsidies...

Why wouldn't you build wind turbines in Southern Germany? "Generally less wind" does not mean "wind power is infeasible", which it is absolutely not. There are fewer good spots, but that's why, say, the state of Bavaria aims for less than one fifth of the total capacity than the state of Lower Saxony, despite being almost twice as large. It's also not "aggressively" subsidised at all. It's actually about 0.3 cents pe…

German nuclear did provide for about 4-5ct similar to the swiss one https://www.kkg.ch/de/uns/geschaefts-nachhaltigkeitsberichte...

Or alternatively merit order data https://www.ffe.de/en/publications/merit-order-shifts-and-th...

And this includes everything. No subsidies were given per bundestag. In fact if subsidies were so high as some claim, govt would have just needed to cancel them instead of banning. The only ones that are trying to picture a different reality are some orgs like FOS/Greenpeace.

Wind in southern Germany is unprofitable because of solar(solar is almost always universally cheaper vs wind) and transmission cost, as well as nimby from all parties incl greens. You get much less output vs north while solar is cheaper and eats your share. This is why despite higher incentives not much is built. Currently the bid ceiling is in 7ct/kwh range. But final price is determined by other factors too, like how often you pay this guarantee or curtailment. EEG is projected to rise despite most expensive contracts being over, because it's paid more frequently.

Offshore is in a worse situation since it's even more expensive to deploy there- recent tender got 0 bids, just like in DK and UK in the past. That's also why UK rised compensation in AR6/AR7

New nuclear for Germany is pointless to discuss. Nobody except maybe afd wants it. The CDU promised to do a research about restarting some older units during elections - guess what- nothing got done.

Germany is currently paying about 18bn/y for transmission, 18bn/y for eeg and 2-3bn/y on curtailment and 18bn/y on distribution. All except maybe distribution network are depending on renewables expansion - the more you deploy - the more you pay, at the tradeoff that merit order will be cheaper when wind blows and sun shines. If they don't, like today https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/DE/live/fifteen_min... merit order gets super expensive - partly because fossils are expensive, partly because firm power is asking more to compensate periods when wind/solar are strong, partly due to co2 tax. And per bnetza/Fraunhofer ISE gas needs expansion to have sufficient firming

Re: The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain

#300

Post by Moldoteck »

cedilla wrote: post #137
Phil_Latio wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wrote aggressively expanded. It doesn't make sense to build wind in a region where it's only profitable due to subsidies. > Wind power is so cheap Germany has the highest energy costs in the world. The alledged price points for wind and solar do not account for the total cost: Negative electricity prices when there is too much demand, increased costs managing the grid (redispatch), the need for a double-infrastruct…

Electricity prices are only very tangentially related to production cost. As you say yourself, grid costs are a factor. > France has lower electricity prices France has incredibly high subsidies for nuclear power, and it's still not enough. And their newest power plant cost 20 billion just in construction for a paltry 1.6GW, and to even begin new ones they need to subsidy them with 100€ per MWh (which is about thirty…

France doesn't have high subsidies for nuclear. EDF financial reports are public, please don't spread misinformation. In fact they have an additional tax for it called arenh.

You could consider nationalization a subsidy(albeit it wasn't) but that was a one off 9bn payment. Germany spent double of that last year alone on EEG ren subsidies and still had highest household prices in EU.

German wind gets about 70€/MWh.

New french nuclear CFDs aren't clear. Fla3 doesn't have cfd and has a prod cost of 90-120€/MWh. But that's a failed project which got delayd and had supply chain issues. If EPR2 will have the same problems - yes, it'll cost similarly. Otherwise it'll be cheaper, like eg building a unit in 10y instead of 20

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