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The Quiet Driving Force Behind Rising Curtailment Costs in Great Britain

ukerc.ac.uk

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

#41

Post by pjc50 »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #27
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 regardle…

It's not a question of "efficiency"; as the original article points out, they're at the mercy of the transmission market. It's not their problem because .. it really isn't their problem and they can't solve it.

> installing wind wherever they can without regard for the local infrastructure and demand

Alternatively, installing it where the energy and topography is, and the local planning environment allows it. We wouldn't be in quite such a bad position if the Tory government hadn't banned onshore wind in England.

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

#42

Post by ZeroGravitas »

epgui wrote: post #22

It seems to me that a bigger issue is lack of storage. With battery storage acting as buffers we would normalize/smooth out required transmission rates.

Some of the largest batteries in Europe have been built recently beside these two grid boundaries.

There's a nice diagram of the Scottish side in this article:

https://www.zenobe.com/news-and-events/blackhillock-battery-...

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

#43

Post by mikeyouse »

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).

Not necessarily defending this branch of NIMBYism but contaminated beaches can be cleaned and made usable within a few years if there’s the will and funding to do so. Building energy infrastructure is much more permanent and will alter the landscape for several decades. IMO it’s still worth building the transmission but it’s not logically incoherent or anything to protest it (as it is to protest new infra in existing right-of-ways).

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

#44

Post by onraglanroad »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #35
adolph wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Capacity is constantly being hit by very large population growth. What population growth? https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/uk-population...

The UK has experienced the 2 largest annual growth on record in the last 5 years, with +755k mid-23 to mid-2024 alone [1]. Even your link shows about 11% growth since 2010 and higher growth rates since ~2004. So we can argue about what "very large" means, but population growth is significant. [1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populati...

> about 11% growth since 2010

So much less than 1% a year.

> we can argue about what "very large" means

Yeah, you can argue that less than 1% a year is "very large". I'm not sure anyone else will be convinced.

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

#45

Post by pjc50 »

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…

> EV charging port on the side of your house isn't possible, because they don't have a house, or they don't have a parking space near their house.

By a process of elimination, we determine that they must be using on-street parking other than near their house. Which is one of those sneaky subsidies that people don't even realise is a subsidy, a little area of publicly owned land that you can use without having to pay rent on.

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

#46

Post by fridder »

ZeroConcerns wrote: post #5

Yeah, this whole "let's sell off state-owned infrastructure on the Free Market" hasn't worked out so well: not only in the UK, but also elsewhere in Europe, the handsome profits of those moves have pretty much evaporated, investments in upgrades have been severely lacking, and now everyone is pointing fingers due to the inevitable capacity meltdowns. (Note that I'm not opposed to privatization in general, and it has…

For things where there is not a natural path for competition, state owned, or how it is done in the US state of Nebraska a separate political subdivision, makes more sense. You are not going to have multiple power lines and connections coming into your home to enable natural competition

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

#47

Post by scythe »

diklon wrote: post #12

Here is a really good write up of this topic from 2023: https://archy.deberker.com/the-uk-is-wasting-a-lot-of-wind-p...

Beat me to it. UK must construct additional pylons. Unfortunately this too is controversial:

https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-government-electricity-py...

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

#48

Post by willvarfar »

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

Sweden used to have a single zone even though most generation is in the sparsely populated north and most consumption is in the slightly more populated south. Then they had to move to a zonal model because of pressure from Denmark who complained of the unfair competition for industry wanting to be in nearby Sweden and there was a move to a (IIRC it was actually UK-inspired) "nord pool" 'fake auction' energy market. It sucks for consumers :(

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

#49

Post by subscribed »

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…

Very much yes, but I've seen PLENTY of the on-street parking spots around here (London), with the use of the adapted streetlamps.

Councils certainly would be easier to negotiate?

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

#50

Post by Quarrel »

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…

FWIW, rental rates are very similar between the UK & the USA.

For central London, where I've lived for most of the last decade, yeah, there aren't a lot of parking spots per household, but that's also going to be true in NYC or any other built up older city. As for newer developments, I suspect they get more parking than older ones. My Victorian block has none.

As always, London is not the UK. Outside London it seems good in well off areas for EVs, and, of course, bad in the neglected rest of the UK.

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