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

UK Wind Farms Are Overstating Their Output

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 58 posts

Re: UK Wind Farms Are Overstating Their Output

#31

Post by notahacker »

rawling wrote: post #20
roomey wrote: post #6

Jacob Reese Mogg is involved, you know there's a bit of back scratching going on there then.

> Bloomberg News analyzed 30 million records from 2018 through June 2023 > Former UK Energy Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg said [...] JRM was Energy Secretary for 2 months in 2022. I'm not sure that justifies this comment. Is there a greater link that the article doesn't express?

Mogg's brief tenure as energy secretary was notable mainly for him proposing a cap on the profits of renewable and nuclear energy providers specifically, having previously been opposed to government intervention in energy markets when oil and gas company profits spiked.

That obviously doesn't mean there's any substantive link between his politics and the Bloomberg study (and he denies being a climate-change denier and supported other policies aimed at encouraging the expansion of renewables anyway) but the context might be helpful to people who don't know who Mogg is

Re: UK Wind Farms Are Overstating Their Output

#32

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

geraldhh wrote: post #29
pjc50 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tidal power involves machinery below the water, which then becomes as expensive as a boat to maintain. Wind power has just ridden the cost reduction curve so much better.

fwiw wind power also requires a generous amount of maintenance

But a salt water environment is nasty to equipment in a way that just being outdoors is not.

Re: UK Wind Farms Are Overstating Their Output

#33

Post by pydry »

simmerup wrote: post #30
martinald wrote: post #24

I think the UK by 2030 (or so) is actually going to have a really major problem with too much renewable capacity at times - not just not enough transmission capacity, just too much full stop. There's currently 30GW of wind in the UK (offshore + onshore), plus an ambition to get another 35GW of offshore installed in the next 6 years. I'm not sure whether that will be met, but I would project at least another 20GW of o…

Wouldn’t we just use more electricity? I know I cut back on my electric because it costs 28p per kwh, which is crazy high.

Yep, and start using electricity when it is cheaper. Already some of my friends have their car chargers hooked up to octopus agile.

I'm thinking of hooking my house up to it to take advantage of those periods of crazy cheap electricity.

I think we're so used to electricity being the same price all the time because we all emerged from the coal world that it blinds us to the options available to shift demand.

Re: UK Wind Farms Are Overstating Their Output

#34

Post by phatfish »

daniel-s wrote: post #21
roomey wrote: post #6

Jacob Reese Mogg is involved, you know there's a bit of back scratching going on there then.

There is not reference or context in your comment. Are you simply suggesting that someone is corrupt because you dislike their political position?

I suspect they dislike the person. JRM is the type to jump on any wedge issue like renewables that might appeal to his GB News viewers and boost his figures (crazy that politicians in the UK can have a permanent campaign platform, not even the US allows this nonsense).

It's very reasonable to take anything he says or implies with a massive grain of salt.

Re: UK Wind Farms Are Overstating Their Output

#35

Post by londons_explore »

simmerup wrote: post #30
martinald wrote: post #24

I think the UK by 2030 (or so) is actually going to have a really major problem with too much renewable capacity at times - not just not enough transmission capacity, just too much full stop. There's currently 30GW of wind in the UK (offshore + onshore), plus an ambition to get another 35GW of offshore installed in the next 6 years. I'm not sure whether that will be met, but I would project at least another 20GW of o…

Wouldn’t we just use more electricity? I know I cut back on my electric because it costs 28p per kwh, which is crazy high.

And only like 6.7p/kWh is the actual cost of the electricity. All the rest is government taxes, fees, eco incentive schemes, smart meter rollout schemes, etc.

Considering how critical the cost of energy is to the economic success of a country, it was a really dumb move to let anyone bolt compulsory extra charges onto the cost of energy.

Re: UK Wind Farms Are Overstating Their Output

#36

Post by CiaranMcNulty »

tyingq wrote: post #26
martinald wrote: post #24

I think the UK by 2030 (or so) is actually going to have a really major problem with too much renewable capacity at times - not just not enough transmission capacity, just too much full stop. There's currently 30GW of wind in the UK (offshore + onshore), plus an ambition to get another 35GW of offshore installed in the next 6 years. I'm not sure whether that will be met, but I would project at least another 20GW of o…

That's interesting, and looking at per-capita use graphs over the years...seems predictable. Are there any major sectors of "use" that would shift if electricity were cheap enough? Like, for example...in the UK, is any significant part of building/home heating, or industrial production still gas or fuel oil?

The majority of existing homes and hot water supplies use natural gas

Re: UK Wind Farms Are Overstating Their Output

#37

Post by s8s8discourse »

ta1243 wrote: post #25
martinald wrote: post #24

I think the UK by 2030 (or so) is actually going to have a really major problem with too much renewable capacity at times - not just not enough transmission capacity, just too much full stop. There's currently 30GW of wind in the UK (offshore + onshore), plus an ambition to get another 35GW of offshore installed in the next 6 years. I'm not sure whether that will be met, but I would project at least another 20GW of o…

Scope for the increase in electric use between electric cars (244b vehicle miles, or 60TWh) and moving from gas to heatpumps (250TWh of domestic gas usage, so 80TWh), that adds a constant load 24/7 of 15GW (if it were evenly spread through the year)

SME industrial production. Business electricity is/can be significantly more expensive than domestic electricity prices. It's a significant variable cost.

Consider a small CNC routing enterprise running 4 machines. Each machine averages 25kW, with extraction, air supply etc contributing another 50kw. Heating the space in winter (CNC routers lock out if the ambient temperature drops below 18c) is incredibly inefficient, because when the extractors are running you're emptying the workshop of air (that you paid to heat) multiple times an hour.

Pre-covid the hourly electricity run rate would be in the region of £45/hr (0.27p / kWh)

At the worst of the energy price crises, the run rate was > £180/hr (I know of one shop that was paying 111p/kWh for a period).

Now we're paying 0.38p / kWh or £70/hr. That's a baseline increase of >£10k a year...

SME workshops have died because their pricing model just couldn't flex to accommodate that.

STABLE energy pricing is equally important as CHEAP energy pricing.

Re: UK Wind Farms Are Overstating Their Output

#38

Post by [deleted] »

londons_explore wrote: post #35
simmerup wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn’t we just use more electricity? I know I cut back on my electric because it costs 28p per kwh, which is crazy high.

And only like 6.7p/kWh is the actual cost of the electricity. All the rest is government taxes, fees, eco incentive schemes, smart meter rollout schemes, etc. Considering how critical the cost of energy is to the economic success of a country, it was a really dumb move to let anyone bolt compulsory extra charges onto the cost of energy.

[deleted]

Re: UK Wind Farms Are Overstating Their Output

#39

Post by cjs_ac »

daniel-s wrote: post #21
roomey wrote: post #6

Jacob Reese Mogg is involved, you know there's a bit of back scratching going on there then.

There is not reference or context in your comment. Are you simply suggesting that someone is corrupt because you dislike their political position?

Jacob Rees-Mogg is a very strange politician.

Here's a short documentary about him[0]. Highlights include:

* Being the subject of a French television documentary when he was 12 years old[1];

* Campaigning against abortion (which itself is weird in the UK outside of Northern Ireland) while investing in abortion pills; and

* Campaigning for election in one of the most deprived areas of the UK, while accompanied by his nanny (as in, the person employed by his parents to raise him when he was a child) so that she could iron his shirts.

He has been described as a 'real life Dickensian villain' and a 'haunted Victorian pencil', and is frequently referred to on Reddit as 'the honourable member for the nineteenth century' (prior centuries are often substituted). He is also responsible for the first recorded use of the word 'floccinaucinihilipilification' in Hansard (the official transcript of Parliamentary proceedings).

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzfaC0tMFDM

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Bp0Szk19J8

Re: UK Wind Farms Are Overstating Their Output

#40

Post by wongarsu »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #32
geraldhh wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

fwiw wind power also requires a generous amount of maintenance

But a salt water environment is nasty to equipment in a way that just being outdoors is not.

And even offshore wind turbines have most of their complexity 300 feet above the water line. The air might be salty up there, but that's nothing compared to being submerged in salt water, in a strong current that drags along seaweed or abrasive sand.
Post reply on HN