The madness of the UK's energy system is summed up in the £55m paid to wind farm operators in the last couple of months to cease generation (temporarily) because the energy interconnection (distribution) system was unable to handle the electricity transfer from generation to use; at the same time £217m was paid (mainly to gas-based generators) to make up the shortfall in renewable energy the congested network caused.
The network build-out needs to be accelerated!
#energy
h/t Observer
@ChrisMayLA6 Transmission rather than distribution in the main, I think.
This shows it very nicely in real time with the "Curtailment Filter" on:
@ChrisMayLA6 BTW, there is some turn-*up* on a couple of English windfarms at the moment, which is new to me!
@Havoc_online @EarthOrgUK @ChrisMayLA6
Absolutely
The Tories went full NIMBY with onshore wind in England when in power creating a de facto ban thru planning regs. It has distorted the location of wind generation so much that multi-billion £ transmission cables are now needed to move excess capacity south.
@Havoc_online I live in Peebles, and the main barrier to building transmission infrastructure is NIMBYs who insist that the new transmission lines have to be underground.
@krans @Havoc_online @EarthOrgUK @ChrisMayLA6
And there are more efficient routes that run underwater along either coasts.
All of the seabed survey's were completed in the late 1980's for the Pan-European International Power Grid.
Running a transmission line along the East Coast of Scotland from Aberdeen to Hull would be way cheaper.
This could be integrated with the planned power lines running between England and Holland, and the potential power lines from Scotland to Norway.
Scotland could be selling wind-generated electricity to all of the EU.
@Havoc_online @EarthOrgUK @ChrisMayLA6
Remember that the UK nuclear power stations are always part of the UK's nuclear weapons programme.
They are not electricty-generating plants that produce nuclear waste as a by-product. They are plutonium factories that produce electricity as a by-product.
The designs that are used are completely in-efficient at both because of the pretence.
There are more efficient routes towards generating electriucity with radioactive materials that does not create fissile material, and there are more effective ways of manufacturing plutonium that does not waste energy making electricity.
Do one or the other, not make a dog's breakfast of both.
And, No, I do not like nuclear weapons, but if we do not have them, we'll be at the mercy of the countries that do have them.
Look at Ukraine and Iran.
@BillySmith Agree with you mainly, Billy - but surely we must work hard to continue the work started with the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and to eradicate both nuclear weapons and nuclear power everywhere?
Nuclear is a failed 20th century technology that should go the way of coal and steam.
@Sarahw @ChrisMayLA6 I don't. But this is also interesting:
https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/live/fifteen_minutes?signal=renewable-energy
Yes, fair point & one I have made in the past myself... but failed to do today 😉
@bjn @ChrisMayLA6 ☝️This, all day long.
Plus other benefits in network stability and regional power used regionally.
The madness of the UK's energy system
May i politely add, UK has a dangerous doctrine, the least vunerable energy system would be distributed over homes or towns and villages.
A massive powerline and the required step up and step down systems are soft targets for Putin or terrorists.
For anyone who can, solar panels and non mains dependent storage are the sanest options. Only purchase when the weather is really bad. Plan to be able to bridge a 2 or 3 day mains outage
Yes, a fair point; localised generation for many is the best solution to this problem... but it is also one that (at least currently) requires up-front personal investment that for many in the current economic climate is just not possible, or feasible (depending on where they live * whether they own their own dwelling)
Yes, a fair point; localised generation for many is the best solution to this problem... but it is also one that (at least currently) requires up-front personal investment that for many in the current economic climate is just not possible, or feasible (depending on where they live * whether they own their own dwelling)
Sadly true.
A sane government would empower the population rather than bow to demands of the powerful energy conglomerates.
In the end it is all about profits
A lot of work is underway with upgrading the interconnections.
Essentially the network needs to now need to work in reverse from how it was designed 😕
More local battery storage would solve this faster, probably.
Maybe - but likely not an either/or but both!
Both. Battery storage would be useful for a black start situation anyway 🙂
There was a recent report on a project in Australia that was sighted adjacent to existing HV power lines so that addition infrastructure could be minimised.
That's about the same situation in Germany: Compensations are paid to renewable energy producers when the power grid is not able to process their production - because the expansion of the grid was delayed for like decades.
The latest fix for this issue by our conservative government is to speed up the power grid enhancement … wait, just kidding … the planned fix is to scrap these compensations for new projects to force renewables (esp. wind) to plan around available grid capacity.
I nearly forgot it: "the renewable energy sector is to pay fees, depending on the region and the stage of grid expansion, to ensure that its plants are connected to the grid".
Historically consumers had to pay fees for their grid connection. But according a new draft bill renewables'll have to pay fees for their grid connection too.
I mean, the same infrastructure renewables have to pay for in future was provided for fossiles by the state for decades.
https://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/energie/reform-ausbau-erneuerbare-energien-100.html
@stekopf @ChrisMayLA6 How exactly does the govt expect to plan the wind around grid demand?
Actually, there could be a solution to that, if the govt built gravity batteries in all the old abandoned mines for local power storage, avoiding the longer distance bottlenecks.
The issue here in Germany is that we had a lot of fossil/nuclear power plants in the middle and south. But now wind power comes from the North sea, Baltic sea and rural areas in the north. Because of available wind. This was predictable, but grid expansion was delayed.
Whilst making use of existing infrastructure – eg. for batteries or other energy storage types – makes sense, it does not solve the problem of a lack of capacity at new sites for electricity generation.
I just love pumped storage - more would be great
@ChrisMayLA6 @stekopf What particularly annoys me about Westminster ignoring mines as gravity batteries is that all the capital cost, excavations, surveying, etc. is all done already, just sitting there, spread out across lots of the country.
Plus free thermal difference heat pumps running on the deep-warmed replaceable water.
Lacks the superhumanising grandeur of the big pumping stations, though.
@bjn @BashStKid @ChrisMayLA6 @stekopf
You can store 5MWh in a single 20' container BESS.
https://ffdpower.com/5mwh-bess/
That's similar to having 2000 tonnes of gravity storage with a 1000m shaft.
Further, because the UK is moist, most mineshafts will flood if not actively pumped. You're unlikely to find a dry 1000-metre-deep hole; 100 metres might even be a stretch.
(The energy needed to pump a tonne of water out of a shaft is the same as the energy stored by a tonne at the same depth ...)
Discover FFD Power’s 5MWh BESS compact 20ft battery container designed for utility-scale energy storage. Flexible configurations, high safety LFP batteries, and scalable solutions for grid and renewable projects.
@sheddi @bjn @BashStKid @ChrisMayLA6 @stekopf
I've just been doing the guzintas for sodium cell batteries and about 🇨🇦 $10k worth would give me a day's power on my worst, windiest, winter's day; a week or so in the spring or autumn. The temperature tolerance, cycle count and resource-friendlier chemistry is a big bonus.
I can get power at 🇨🇦 $0.03/kWh overnight, so payback vs full rates is still ~8 years.
With most of Ontario's power coming from wind, nuclear and hydro (90% at the moment), full-on DIY solar+battery remains something of a hobby choice. (And I'm still waiting for permission for it from the household planning committee. 🤔)
@sheddi @bjn @BashStKid @ChrisMayLA6 @stekopf
Gravity storages have their places in the mix. But regarding longevity and maintenance costs are IMO inferior to the pure lead-acid batteries we can install anywhere under the surface. The BESS and BEGS avaliable are so far LiFePO4 based. So at most a couple of decades in commision, dirty production, yet dirtier recycling.
That said, thanks for promoting _any_ alternatives to the fossil fuel "backups".
@sheddi @bjn @ChrisMayLA6 @stekopf Shafts and seams will indeed flood, left to their own devices.
One could use the heat differential to power heat pumps to drain/recycle the water, possibly augmented by thermoelectric couplings.
It’s probably simpler to design the lower travel of the winched loads to be submerged in normal operations. No effect apart from buoyancy on the load.
@bjn @ChrisMayLA6 @stekopf Completely agree. But, on the positive side, very low-tech, hard to fail, minimal setup cost, and you wouldn’t stick to a one-tonne weight. Also mines come in multiples, never singly, so a cluster is quite a resilient thing. Taking Dinorwig off for maintenance is a much bigger problem.
Also the social aspect; it would make a change for socially deprived areas to get some longterm jobs and future cheap power from a community energy scheme.
Good Q. likely at the margins unfortunately
@ChrisMayLA6 The fundamental problem is that we live in a system where corrupt deals allow renewables to be sold at the spot rate for fossil fuel generation.
JD Vance may be a total shite, but even people like him say true things sometimes, as we he commented on UK energy prices recently. If even he can see it...
See how it should be:
https://mastodon.nz/@nickofnz/116390605062278492
@pa27 @ChrisMayLA6 my understanding is the UK system was set up decades ago, with extremely long contacts. With the aim to encourage gas. Renewables weren't factored in, not due to corruption, but because they weren't a viable alternative at the time.
The turning off of renewables and paying for gas is due to the grid being designed a long time ago around power stations in strategic locations. Even if the dated payment mechanism was updated, we'd still need to fix the grid.
under consideration, but possibly now being downplayed due to the curse of media misunderstanding of how zonal pricing might actually work
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