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Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumption was from renewables

bbc.com

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Re: Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumption was from renewables

#51

Post by londons_explore »

pydry wrote: post #45
martinald wrote: post #11

Really misleading article IMO. What this actually means is Scotland sometimes generated 200-300%+ of its demand from wind (and "exported" the rest), and sometimes low %age points and used other sources/imports. It makes it sound like Scotland is wind powered 97% of the time (only 3% more to go!), which is very different. There is an increasing crisis in the UK of negative electricity prices (typically when it is sunn…

>There is an increasing crisis in the UK of negative electricity prices It seems like an opportunity more than a crisis to me. There are tons of potential applications for "free" electricity. * Storage heating/cooling that's basically free * Manufacturing carbon neutral jet fuel * Cheaper aluminium production It could also lead to onshoring of certain industries which previously moved to locales with access to cheap…

Sadly these 'negative' prices aren't available to regular people. Only a select few who can trade on the spot market can use them.

If regular people could get paid to switch on space heaters, the negative prices would soon go away.

Re: Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumption was from renewables

#52

Post by Glench »

neom wrote: post #5

"Not only do renewables reduce the impact of our electricity use on the climate, they are also generating jobs and income for communities around the country." I wish everyone thought that way, all I hear in Canada is "oh the jobs, oh the jobs, what will happen to the jobs...???"

Yeah, great point. I like this report showing that rapidly decarbonizing will create 25 million jobs, save the average American household $2000 per year, and improve the quality of life of everyone:

"How to create 25 million jobs by decarbonizing the economy" - https://www.fastcompany.com/90533448/how-to-create-25-millio...

Re: Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumption was from renewables

#53

Post by danjac »

lightgreen wrote: post #6

Unlike most places in the world, Scotland is sparsely populated (5M) and mountainous, so they have an option of using hydro. Good for them, but let’s not jump to conclusion that their approach is for everyone. And yes, the article is only about electricity, not heating.

Oh dear.

You do realize the Scots mostly don't live alone in little cabins in the mountains like in the movies, don't you? Most of the population lives in the (densely populated) Central Belt:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_Scotland

Re: Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumption was from renewables

#54

Post by VBprogrammer »

IAmEveryone wrote: post #25
VBprogrammer wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the most part electricity isn't used for heating in the UK, generally gas central heating is preferred. There are obviously some exceptions, houses built in the 70s with electric ceiling heating (this is as bad is it sounds) or electric storage heaters.

Electric heating in a country like Scotland is simply unconscionable. There is natural gas infrastructure. And where it’s not, even oil is better than electricity.

Unconscionable is a strong word. Ground source heat pumps powered by renewablely generated electricity is pretty close to an ideal scenario. Resistance heating from electricity generated by gas is pretty bad though.

Re: Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumption was from renewables

#55

Post by missedthecue »

eldaisfish wrote: post #30
IAmEveryone wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electric cars are perfect for this. Connect them to the grid and the internet, and they’ll charge but also feed back as needed.

Have you heard of Tesla's batter in south Australia? It was recently expanded to 193 MWh. Care to guess how long it'll run at full power? Around 60-100 minutes. At its rated power of 100 MW, it can power around 25% of South Australia's lowest demand. That's it. At peak demand, the fraction is lower still. Cars have a fraction of the energy storage capacity of a single battery site and not all cars are connected to th…

I don't know if there's enough lithium in the world to stabilize a global renewable grid and make 100 million electric cars per year forever and make 1.5 billion phones a year and all the other things we use batteries for.

Re: Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumption was from renewables

#56

Post by wcoenen »

pydry wrote: post #45
martinald wrote: post #11

Really misleading article IMO. What this actually means is Scotland sometimes generated 200-300%+ of its demand from wind (and "exported" the rest), and sometimes low %age points and used other sources/imports. It makes it sound like Scotland is wind powered 97% of the time (only 3% more to go!), which is very different. There is an increasing crisis in the UK of negative electricity prices (typically when it is sunn…

>There is an increasing crisis in the UK of negative electricity prices It seems like an opportunity more than a crisis to me. There are tons of potential applications for "free" electricity. * Storage heating/cooling that's basically free * Manufacturing carbon neutral jet fuel * Cheaper aluminium production It could also lead to onshoring of certain industries which previously moved to locales with access to cheap…

It might work, but it's not necessarily going to be very profitable. The equipment that sits around waiting for low or negative electricity prices represents locked up capital, and ongoing maintenance and depreciation costs.

For the same reason, it's not a good idea to have bitcoin mining equipment sitting around waiting for cheap electricity. The hardware becomes obsolete very quickly, so there's only limited time to earn back the investment.

Re: Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumption was from renewables

#57

Post by circlefavshape »

martinald wrote: post #11

Really misleading article IMO. What this actually means is Scotland sometimes generated 200-300%+ of its demand from wind (and "exported" the rest), and sometimes low %age points and used other sources/imports. It makes it sound like Scotland is wind powered 97% of the time (only 3% more to go!), which is very different. There is an increasing crisis in the UK of negative electricity prices (typically when it is sunn…

Better batteries may not be the answer. Possible other options

- electrolysis of seawater https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S258929912...

- scrubbing carbon from the atmosphere directly https://cen.acs.org/synthesis/catalysis/Electrochemical-meth...

Neither of these is energy-efficient, but if the energy is negatively priced they don't need to be

Re: Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumption was from renewables

#58

Post by pydry »

martinald wrote: post #40
aclelland wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen this suggested often but I don't think I've ever seen any information about how it'd actually work in practise. Do the car companies actually want to do it, how is the car owner compensated for the battery wear and tear and who'd be in control of the management (government regulators, energy companies, car manufacturers). Are there any examples of pilot schemes that have used cars in this way?

It isn't the silver bullet some people say it is. Firstly, as others mentioned it really hammers the battery life. Secondly, it requires cars not being full so they can be topped up, which means less range. Not to mention I don't think the local grid to houses can support loads of cars suddenly getting charged at once, which is what you want for big wind spikes.

You could at least program the cars to adjust their charging based upon cost - e.g. if you leave it overnight and between 2-5am electricity prices go negative it could try to charge most of the battery during this period.

Additionally you could program cars to feed into the grid when the price goes high enough to justify the cost of cycling the battery. This would help deal with unexpected events.

Re: Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumption was from renewables

#59

Post by Tycho »

pydry wrote: post #45
martinald wrote: post #11

Really misleading article IMO. What this actually means is Scotland sometimes generated 200-300%+ of its demand from wind (and "exported" the rest), and sometimes low %age points and used other sources/imports. It makes it sound like Scotland is wind powered 97% of the time (only 3% more to go!), which is very different. There is an increasing crisis in the UK of negative electricity prices (typically when it is sunn…

>There is an increasing crisis in the UK of negative electricity prices It seems like an opportunity more than a crisis to me. There are tons of potential applications for "free" electricity. * Storage heating/cooling that's basically free * Manufacturing carbon neutral jet fuel * Cheaper aluminium production It could also lead to onshoring of certain industries which previously moved to locales with access to cheap…

Mining cryptocurrency seems like a win-win

Re: Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumption was from renewables

#60

Post by tda »

piokoch wrote: post #35
sandworm101 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Once this comes online, wind generation will often be over 100% of demand UK wide Which is exactly what I would expect from island nations. The UK has lots of coast, which means lots of wind. That is a resource to export. The cornerstone of free trade is that some things are worth more in some places and less in others. UK has lots of wind. Maybe they can trade that for imports of luxury goods from elsewhere. If o…

Yes, the point with selling electricity is that you need to guarantee that you will deliver some fixed amount of electricity. If you depend on wind power plants how this guarantee can be given? What if wind stops. Maybe it would make sense to build huge bitcoin mining data centers and mine bitcoins in case of surplus. Hardly useful, but given current coins rush could be profitable. Better than paying producers for no…

You can get a better price if you can guarantee availability, but there is also a market for variable supply.
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