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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

#61

Post by pyrale »

pjc50 wrote: post #41
jillesvangurp wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 woul…

> they're at the mercy of the transmission market

There is no such thing as a transmission market. The grid is a regional monopoly, and it doesn't "market" its capacity.

The issue here is that when too much power runs through a line, if you don't turn it off, it does [1]. Building more lines isn't exactly fast, or cheap, and it wasn't really a major focus of the people setting up subsidies for new production.

> It's not their problem because .. it really isn't their problem and they can't solve it.

It's not their problem because their subsidies scheme means they will get paid anyway.

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd....

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

#62

Post by appointment »

teamonkey wrote: post #40
benbojangles wrote: post #26

How do other countries cope

Different geography. The majority of the UK’s population is in the South; it has a lot of wind capacity in general but especially in the very North. So the problem is getting it from North to South, not helped by how mountainous Scotland is.

Not many countries where supply and demand are evenly distributed. Britain does have the significant difficulty of high population density in the Midlands and South England, but the main problem here sees to be in Scotland and North England, so this should be less of an issue.

Learned helplessness in the political class has more to do with it, I think.

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

#63

Post by myrmidon »

benbojangles wrote: post #26

How do other countries cope

Similar problem in Germany, also mostly on a north/south axis.

A mitigating factor is PV+storage coming online mostly in the south and balancing this out somewhat.

According to grid operators, total projected grid expansion costs of ~$250 billion until 2045, but the majority is required sooner rather than later (~$200 billion within the next decade).

See: https://www.netzentwicklungsplan.de/sites/default/files/2023...

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

#64

Post by dhx »

Generation curtailment is expected though in a 100% VRE power grid because it's necessary to overbuild, and this strategy is found to be economically viable almost anywhere on the planet.[1][2] Generation curtailment could be minimised though with demand-side flexibility (eg. turn on aluminium smelters when it's windy), not necessarily just with pumped storage hydro and/or lengthy transmission line builds to other regions where solar generation can be used to supplement wind generation.

Relevant quotes:

"this report infers that, almost anywhere on the planet, nearly 100% VRE power grids firmly supplying clean power and meeting demand 24/365 are not only possible but would be economically viable, provided that VRE resources are optimally transformed from unconstrained run-of-the weather generation into firm generation."[1]

"VRE overbuilding and operational curtailment (i.e., implicit storage) are key to achieving economically acceptable firm 24x365 solutions. Because firm power generation could be achieved locally/regionally in many cases with a small premium, optimum implicit storage solution could alleviate the need for major power grid enhancement requirements."[2]

[1] https://iea-pvps.org/key-topics/firm-power-generation/

[2] https://iea-pvps.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Report-IEA-P...

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

#65

Post by ZeroGravitas »

Generally fair take, though most of the comments here don't seem to reflect the article's take that it is high gas prices and ongoing work to upgrade transmission that accounts for much of the cost.

They don't mention the previous government effectively banning onshore wind in England which seems relevant. The current version of that party is abandoning net zero to win back gullible voters they themselves misinformed about renewables.

If we want to point fingers for mismanagement I'd start there and probably also allege corruption.

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

#66

Post by ViewTrick1002 »

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 trivial solution is to divide the grid into two zones along the bottleneck.

Then no redispatch is needed and building more capacity in the south is worth it.

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

#67

Post by db48x »

penteract wrote: post #57
pjc50 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect part of the foresight was exactly to create this situation, where the problem is framed as lack of transmission capacity. Because the alternative - building transmission capacity before it was needed - is even less politically feasible. Public money can only be spent when the need is so blatant it can no longer be ignored, and then everyone sits around and says "well why didn't we do that sooner".

From the article, it looks like the problem is partially caused by significant parts of the transmission network being temporarily shut down due to ongoing upgrades. These could probably have been started slightly sooner, but they are already underway, so I don't think your point is weel supported.

Except that if those upgrades had been started 10 years earlier then there would have been lower demand (10 years less growth in demand). The reductions in capacity would have had a much lower effect on prices.

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

#68

Post by friendzis »

dhx wrote: post #64

Generation curtailment is expected though in a 100% VRE power grid because it's necessary to overbuild, and this strategy is found to be economically viable almost anywhere on the planet.[1][2] Generation curtailment could be minimised though with demand-side flexibility (eg. turn on aluminium smelters when it's windy), not necessarily just with pumped storage hydro and/or lengthy transmission line builds to other re…

> Generation curtailment could be minimised though with demand-side flexibility

Demand-side flexibility is synonymous with surge-pricing, ensuring peak demand energy is a luxury good. Ensuring that energy availability is only mostly guaranteed to those able to outbid the bottom something-percentile: those using energy for economically productive work and otherwise rich.

This is quite opposite of an utility.

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

#69

Post by ZeroGravitas »

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…

You get a lot of this benefit even with one way charging.

The UK was ahead of the game with this, mandating chargers that could react to grid demands.

Now they have things were you plug your car in and the grid decides when to charge up for massive discounts.

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

#70

Post by epgui »

blauditore wrote: post #38
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.

All I keep hearing is that storage is crazy expensive. Otherwise this would be a very obvious solution to everyone.

I don’t know, apparently Tesla’s battery deployment in Australia paid for itself really quickly as one possible counter-example.
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