[HN Gopher] The UK is wasting a lot of wind power
___________________________________________________________________
The UK is wasting a lot of wind power
Author : RobinL
Score : 212 points
Date : 2023-01-12 19:08 UTC (3 hours ago)
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(TXT) w3m dump (archy.deberker.com)
| adrianmonk wrote:
| > _evidence from Texas suggests that windfarms do not end up near
| population centres even in markets with locational pricing and
| liberal planning laws_
|
| The windy part of Texas is not the part where most people live.
| The western part of the state and the panhandle are windy but
| also pretty dry. Most of the people live more toward the central
| or eastern part of the state where it's greener but less windy.
|
| Pricing incentives may just not be enough to overcome that.
| mikaeluman wrote:
| The UK seems to have a very interesting situation. We also have a
| proposal for curtailment in Sweden for wind power producers, but
| for a different reason.
|
| In the UK, curtailment seems needed due to power transfer
| capacity issues.
|
| In Sweden it is purely due to grid stability reasons. As wind
| does not work as a baseload power source this becomes problematic
| as too much wind power generation can then negatively affect
| profitability for nuclear and hydro which are baseload power
| sources.
|
| I would be interested to see how stable wind power production is
| across all hours and throughout the year in the UK. I imagine
| it's better than here, but is it good enough to support an
| industrial nation?
| tupac_speedrap wrote:
| https://gridwatch.co.uk/demand/percent
|
| It's been very windy recently so we are hitting around 40-60%
| wind power at the moment but there were moments last year where
| we were only getting 3% from wind power if it isn't very windy
| and unfortunately that means using more gas turbines for power
| which is an expensive source of energy at the moment.
| kerblang wrote:
| I'll pose the argument that if Texas can, the UK can:
| https://www.texastribune.org/2013/10/14/7-billion-crez-proje...
|
| And yeah that was a long time ago
| nateguchi wrote:
| One thing that I find hard to understand is how the electricity
| prices in the UK have gone up so dramatically (blaming gas
| prices) when a large amount of the electricity is not generated
| from gas. Is the price being artificially inflated?
| anamexis wrote:
| I would imagine that as gas prices shoot up, demand
| dramatically increases for electricity.
| balderdash wrote:
| No, first understand the concept of market clearing
| auctions[1], then understand that the there is a dispatch stack
| (that looks like something like this [2]), and that gas plants
| are the marginal producer required to balance the market, as
| they are not baseload (nukes) and not intermittent (renewables)
| but are dispatchable (ramp up/down capacity as need to balance
| the market).
|
| [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_clearing [2]https://w
| ww.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1105055/000110465912...
| foota wrote:
| A couple possibilities. It could be competition from other
| countries with a different mix (e.g., the price in the UK has
| to compete with other countries or it'd be exported to the
| degree possible)
|
| Power is also sold (ok, not sure about the UK) at the market
| price. So the most expensive generation needed to meet demand
| determines the market price. So even if gas is a small portion
| of the generation it could still determine the price.
| cjcartlidge wrote:
| The price of electricity in the UK is linked to the most costly
| supply in the entire mix. So if gas is the most expensive then
| we pay all other power-producing suppliers, regardless of means
| of generating, the wholesale price we'd pay for gas. It's a
| strange system.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| It makes sense to extract honest bids. The lower you bid, the
| more likely you are to be paid. So in the long term, it leads
| to cheaper prices.
|
| If for example you had a cheap source of gas when others put
| their price up, it would reward you making that info public.
|
| Short term global fuel price spikes are a weak point, though.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| There's a couple reasons. A small amount of electricity may be
| generated from gas, but that small amount is often crucial and
| in a lot of demand. Furthermore, peaker plants will produce
| less and less electricity as more renewables reduced their duty
| cycle. But the overhead cost of maintenance remains: reducing a
| gas plant from running 10 hours a day to 2 hours a day does not
| result in a 5x reduction of cost.
| archydeb wrote:
| Author of the article here
|
| Electricity prices in the UK (and most other places) are set by
| the marginal unit, which is the most expensive unit that needs
| to be turned on to meet demand. All other generation for that
| time period gets paid the same price. The marginal unit in the
| UK is usually gas, hence the sensitivity to gas prices
| grey-area wrote:
| Is that a good idea? It doesn't sound very sensible to price
| everything at the cost of the most expensive unit, why do
| they do that?
| sampo wrote:
| How would you decide, who has the right to pay at the cheap
| price, and who has to pay the expensive price?
| nawitus wrote:
| The reasoning is that it incentives electricity producers
| to offer max amount of electricity at low prices without
| speculating how to maximize profit (as their sell offer
| will practically speaking have zero effect on the spot
| price). Nuclear plants, wind power, solar can just offer to
| sell at everything at around 0c/kWh.
|
| It's claimed that another type of market would cause
| companies to speculate with their sell offers and thus
| generate less electricity. It would be interesting to see
| how this kind of market would work in reality, though.
| tialaramex wrote:
| What price do you think we should pay for the electricity?
|
| Suppose we insist we'll pay _less_ than the price you agree
| to sell for. Obviously that 's not a sale, that's robbery.
| This problem arises even if we agree to pay everybody the
| average, because some suppliers didn't bid _average_ ,
| their bid was higher, but we still claimed their
| electricity, so we are stealing from them.
|
| OK, suppose we decide we'll pay all accepted bids at their
| bid price regardless of the marginal unit cost. If we do
| this the supplier is incentivised to _guess_ the bid we
| will accept, so as to collect the difference between their
| actual price and the price we 're willing to pay. If
| they're _very good_ at this, we pay exactly the same as
| now, but, regardless of whether they 're good at it the
| grid is significantly destabilized by the increased
| uncertainty due to lack of efficient price signals.
|
| What other ideas do you have ?
| ta545 wrote:
| My understanding is most wind was bought at a guarenteed
| price by the government at the time of construction, so a
| wind farm producing 1MWh gets paid say PS40 regardless of the
| cost of electricity on the grid - even if marginal cost was
| PS20/MWh
|
| As users are then paying PS90/MWh for gas, does the excess
| PS50 go to the government or to the wind far owner?
| RobinL wrote:
| See here! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33922390
| tialaramex wrote:
| The government. The mechanism is called Contracts for
| Difference, and as the name implies they work by ensuring
| the _difference_ between an agreed strike price and the
| actual price - in either direction is paid
|
| However, notice two further considerations:
|
| 1. Such contracts eventually expire. Exactly when varies.
| But the wind farm is still there, just now the energy price
| all goes to the operator.
|
| 2. Older government subsidies were not CfD. Ten years ago
| if you built a wind farm you got a direct subsidy. The CfD
| schemes come into existence from about 2014. They're one of
| a small number of _good_ ideas the Tories had. They 're in
| line with Tory ideology, but they also actually make sense
| in the world that actually exists.
| luuurker wrote:
| [dead]
| bee_rider wrote:
| The whole system as detailed in the article seems pretty
| artificial and not great. For some reason prices appear to be
| set at the national level, ignoring the fact that Scotland has
| an excess of wind energy. If consumers could see that the price
| difference on their end, I guess there'd be more incentive to
| upgrade the infrastructure and get it down to England more
| efficiently.
| zdragnar wrote:
| If gas is setting the price as the most expensive form of
| energy, then it acts as an incentive to build cheaper forms
| of energy because your margins are that much higher.
|
| Alas, England doesn't allow on-shore wind power, and there's
| not sufficient capacity (in terms of HVDC lines) to transfer
| enough power from Scotland down to England to move all of the
| excess energy.
| bee_rider wrote:
| That seems like a good way to spur early development. I
| wonder, though -- if consumers could actually see the cost
| benefit of the wind power, might gas have been just priced
| out of the system by now? (Or relegated to some backup
| status). (Supposing the transmission infrastructure were
| upgraded to allow for the higher flow, or England changed
| its laws to be more in line with economic realities).
| Analemma_ wrote:
| The marginal price of electricity (i.e. the price of the most
| expensive source) is what drives the retail cost, because it's
| a liquid commodity that can't (to a first approximation) be
| stored. Imagine 90% of your electricity comes from wind and the
| last 10% has from gas because there is nothing else - the price
| of electricity is going to equal the price of gas because the
| wind providers can raise prices until they're just under the
| price of gas, since there are no other options. The most
| expensive form of electricity sets the price until it isn't
| needed anymore and is booted off the grid entirely, but once
| you cover that last 10% with wind then the price falls
| dramatically.
|
| In theory this is what we want: the windfall profits on cheap
| power during periods of expensive energy are supposed to
| attract the market to build more of these plants and chase
| those profits, thereby accelerating the green transition. But
| it's possible what we saw last year was too much, and that the
| damage to the economy (nothing strangles economic growth like
| expensive energy) does more harm than this incentive does good.
| People are talking about renegotiating power agreements in
| Europe to pay fixed prices for renewables so this wouldn't
| happen again, but I haven't heard how likely this is to
| succeed.
| grey-area wrote:
| Sounds like a dysfunctional market that would be better
| nationalised and run for the public good.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| You can't base your electricity prices solely or even mostly on
| an unpredictable source of generation, which is nearly absent
| one day and generates more power than is needed on another day.
| Efficient storage is a long-term fix for this, but it ain't
| here. Natural gas is the most flexible source of on-demand
| power, so it (disproportionately even to its share of 1/3rd of
| all generated power) affects consumer electricity rates.
| simongray wrote:
| The way it works in the EU--not sure if the UK participates in
| this market still?-- is that every energy source is priced
| according to the most expensive energy source until demand is
| covered by supply.
|
| So, for example, on particularly windy days here in Denmark, we
| pay almost nothing as our entire demand will be covered by wind
| energy. On other days we might pay a lot since we need to
| import energy produced from gas or other expensive sources.
| walthamstow wrote:
| Funnily enough the price the consumer pays right now is much
| lower than the price of energy because of badly thought out
| government subsidies
|
| I am in the 95th percentile for income (though not wealth) in
| the UK and here's my energy bill for December:
|
| Daily grid charges PS20
|
| Energy used @ market price PS315
|
| Truss govt unit price subsidy -PS98
|
| Johnson govt flat subsidy -PS67
|
| Total bill before VAT PS170
| RobinL wrote:
| It's quite complicated, but there's a good explanation here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33922390
|
| (I recently asked the same question!)
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Curtailment, like negative prices, seems like something that it
| is hard for people to have constructive conversations about.
|
| Probably the cheapest and best option is to build more wind and
| not care too much if it increases curtailment.
|
| Yes, all the things mentioned should be looked into and done when
| it makes financial sense but "wasting wind" is much less a thing
| to worry about than "burning gas", and I'd rather waste wind than
| waste money.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| The solution is to upgrade the national grid.
|
| This is needed anyway because it is already maxed out and
| demand will dramatically increase with the transition to EVs.
| scrlk wrote:
| Tell that to Ofgem. The latest price settlement for
| electricity transmission and distribution networks (RIIO-T2
| and RIIO-ED2) has cut the amount of investment the networks
| are allowed to carry out.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| I bought a petrol generator even before Covid.
| redleader55 wrote:
| Balancing a nationwide power grid is very complex. Some energy
| sources can be started and stopped instantly, but are limited -
| water. Others are plentiful, but unpredictable - wind. Others
| are predictable, but take a long time to start and stop - gas,
| coal(several hours), nuclear(1 day to start, fast to stop, but
| very expensive). A balanced grid will need all of them, will
| need them in quantities which can cover faults in the big
| producers(a nuclear reactor makes 700-800 MW). They will need
| them built in the right place, because while more power cables
| can be built, you can't transfer a lot of power on very long
| distances, for cost and grid stability reasons.
| entropicgravity wrote:
| HVDC is now a thing. Collecting solar in Northern Austrialia
| and sending it to Singapore over a 3800km long transmission
| line. Under construction now.
| bamboozled wrote:
| The project has stalled due to the two billionaires funding
| the project having a "spat".
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Thank you. People laughed when I suggested an HVDC link
| between North America and Europe.
|
| Nordstream 1 _was_ 1222km, and Britpipe now, is 60km
| shorter.
|
| Boston to Lisbon is 5100km. Churchill Falls (home of a
| giant hydro dam project in Labrador Canada which got
| screwed by Hydro-Quebec because the only via transit was
| through Quebec), would be just under 4000km subsea.
|
| The transit contract expires in 2039 I believe...
| fmajid wrote:
| There's this incredible project to build a 10GW solar farm
| in Morocco (1/3 of UK peak consumption) and bring the power
| to the UK via HVDC cable. Amazingly they estimate only 10%
| losses despite being over 3800km long:
|
| https://xlinks.co/morocco-uk-power-project/
|
| Surely HVDC links between Scotland and England could be
| built?
|
| And then there are pumped hydropower storage project like
| this one with a proposed storage capacity of 200 GWh and
| 1.5GW of power:
|
| https://www.coireglas.com
|
| In the worst case, couldn't the excess power simply be used
| in electrolyzers to generate hydrogen? They may not be very
| efficient but it's better than throwing free energy away.
| blibble wrote:
| > Surely HVDC links between Scotland and England could be
| built?
|
| why would this be necessary when the entirely of Great
| Britain is one synchronous grid?
| Scoundreller wrote:
| The dumb thing is that electricity transmission and
| distribution are usually fixed. This already doesn't make
| sense because it's peak demand that drives the capex.
| Opex is peanuts.
|
| But the retail buyer doesn't usually see the negative/low
| electricity prices of high-supply+low-demand time periods
| for their "inefficient" uses that should still be
| economic.
| _visgean wrote:
| > Others are predictable, but take a long time to start and
| stop - gas, coal(several hours), nuclear(1 day to start, fast
| to stop, but very expensive).
|
| The start time is long but that does not say much about the
| overall operations.
|
| > Modern nuclear plants with light water reactors are
| designed to have maneuvering capabilities in the 30-100%
| range with 5%/minute slope, up to 140 MW/minute
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load-following_power_plant
|
| and https://thundersaidenergy.com/downloads/power-plants-
| cold-st...
|
| > In France, with an average of 2 reactors out of 3 available
| for load variations, the overall power adjustment capacity of
| the nuclear fleet equates to 21,000 MW (i.e. equivalent to
| the output of 21 reactors) in less than 30 minutes.
|
| https://www.powermag.com/flexible-operation-of-nuclear-
| power...
| gehsty wrote:
| You can transmit a lot of power long distances with HVDC
| systems. 2GW systems are in development (TenneT 2GW platform
| & 525kV DC cables) & HVDC interconnectors can be several
| hindered km long...
| midasuni wrote:
| But it's expensive and takes a long time. The U.K. isn't
| building enough quickly enough to take benefit of
| production in the north.
|
| Maybe if variable prices encourages energy intensive demand
| to shift to Scotland that will help, but that's not quick
| either.
| paranoidrobot wrote:
| > Others are plentiful, but unpredictable - wind.
|
| I think it depends on how you define unpredictable.
|
| Wind power forecasting[1] is used pretty extensively as I
| understand it by all major windfarms.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_forecasting#Unce
| rta... [2] https://www.cerc.co.uk/forecasting/wind-
| energy.html [3] https://aemo.com.au/en/energy-
| systems/electricity/national-e...
| jahewson wrote:
| I think "intermittent" is what was meant.
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| I believe GP meant by predictability "power is available
| for generation whenever we want it".
|
| What you are saying is that its possible to map out in the
| future when power is available for generation.
| tialaramex wrote:
| > but take a long time to start and stop - gas
|
| Despite the insistence that Closed Cycle Gas Turbines can't
| react quickly, because they're by far the largest component
| that we _could_ start and stop the UK does in fact very
| quickly increase and decrease output from the CCGTs. For
| example this morning 2.79GW at 0600 to 3.89 at 0700.
|
| There are much faster options, batteries, import, even the
| pumped storage is seconds instead of minutes - if available,
| but CCGT is just not that slow to change compared to the
| weather. In that same period the wind power went from 10.9GW
| to 11.4GW. 500MW is a lot of power but it's not _more_ than
| 1.1GW
| radiowave wrote:
| An interesting complicating factor here is that much of the
| UK's installed base of CCTG stations were built during the
| 90s with the intention of replacing many of the smaller
| coal-fired stations, which would typically be doing 2-shift
| operations (i.e., day and evening). Now, those CCGT
| stations are increasingly used to counterbalance
| renewables, and (as you point out) are now running on much
| shorter cycles than they were designed for.
|
| A report from a few years back (which I'm afraid I've
| utterly forgotten the source) examined the data on this,
| and argued that as a result of this changed pattern of use,
| these CCGT stations were now not achieving nearly the kind
| of efficiency figures they were designed for, which from a
| carbon point of view is not good news - we might still be
| emitting lots of the stuff, but just not getting as much
| practical benefit from it as we used to.
|
| Now, I'm not meaning to suggest that this is a disaster, or
| that is somehow invalidates the entire of concept of
| renewables, but it does point to the need to be careful
| about _what_ we take to be a useful measure of progress -
| and that merely the quantity of supply to the grid in GWH
| isn 't necessarily it.
|
| And the article under discussion here is of course picking
| away at another strand of this same idea - when we connect
| these generators together, it gives rise to system-level
| effects, and we need to be thinking about the outcomes,
| both beneficial and harmful, in system-level terms as well.
|
| (Edited for spelling.)
| Reason077 wrote:
| It won't be long (perhaps in the next 2-3 years) before
| the UK grid will be able to operate for periods without
| any CCGTs running at all. We've already come quite close
| this winter, with record low CCGT output and record high
| wind turbine production.
|
| Wind turbine output, although variable, is also fairly
| predictable: so good modelling and scheduling should
| ensure that when CCGTs do operate, they can run as
| efficiently as possible and not be spinning up and down
| too frequently.
| midasuni wrote:
| Only if the interconnects are there. Scotland can operate
| without gas for periods now, but it can't get enough
| power where it's needed.
| seb1204 wrote:
| The statement that we need all of them is not correct. Grid
| forming inverters and large battery storage will replace gas
| peak plants in the future. First to go are however the old
| coal and nuclear plants as they become unprofitable.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Nuclear power plants can vary their output faster than most
| people think, see
|
| https://www.oecd-
| nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2021-12...
| ... most of the modern light water nuclear reactors are
| capable (by design) to operate in a load following
| mode, i.e. to change their power level once or twice
| per day in the range of 100% to 50% (or even lower) of the
| rated power, with a ramp rate of up to 5% (or even
| more) of rated power per minute.
|
| One trouble is that changing the power output does put stress
| on components because of thermal expansion and contraction,
| potentially shortening their lifespan, but it something that
| can be designed for.
| Gwypaas wrote:
| The problem is taking the most expensive power source with
| a large portion of the costs being the initial investment
| and then not running it 100% is economical suicide.
| Reason077 wrote:
| Most reactors in service operate at a constant load, and
| don't vary output according to demand. Certainly in the UK
| they do not. Sometimes reactors are operated for extended
| periods at reduced load for various reasons (eg: to
| conserve fuel and extend the time before a refuelling
| shutdown is required), but they don't vary output day-to-
| day.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Ramping it up is likely the problem, since all plants can
| reduce power on a dime by just varying the generator coil
| current I think.
|
| You could just keep it spinning nonstop without a load I
| suppose, but for anything but nuclear it's not gonna be
| economical.
| Reason077 wrote:
| A nuclear power plant can't just "keep spinning without a
| load" - all that energy has to go somewhere! If a nuclear
| plant is disconnected from the grid (tripped), the
| nuclear reaction must be stopped (eg: by inserting
| control rods into the core).
| moffkalast wrote:
| Of course it can, just short the generator coils and you
| have a free brake. The turbine should then still have
| resistance and shouldn't overspeed. Or just idk, use it
| to pump some water in a loop or discharge through some
| resistors. Getting rid of power isn't that hard if you
| want to do it. Simplest solution would I suppose be to
| just have an outside radiator that brings the steam to
| cooling tower levels of manageability so you can throttle
| the turbine with just a valve.
|
| The thing is, they don't really want to do it if they can
| save fuel by shutting down.
| Reason077 wrote:
| > _" just short the generator coils and you have a free
| brake"_
|
| You'll soon end up with a burning/melted generator.
|
| > _" pump some water in a loop"_
|
| OK, but you're going to need huge pumps (1000+ MW!).
| Expensive.
|
| > _" or discharge through some resistors"_
|
| Again, you'll need extremely large resistors, and a way
| to dissipate an awful lot of heat. We're talking about a
| huge amount of energy here!
| moffkalast wrote:
| Pump water in a loop through a radiator to cool the
| braking generators and the resistor bank :P
|
| Could try also melting some salt on the side.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| sadly, my searches for "gigawatt resistor" and "gigawatt
| electric load" have been fruitless.
| Reason077 wrote:
| > _" (a nuclear reactor makes 700-800 MW)"_
|
| 1.6 GW per reactor for the latest ones under construction
| (Hinkley Point C) and in development (Sizewell C). Each site
| has 2 reactors for a total of 2 x 2 x 1.6 GW = 6.4 GW.
|
| Although this is largely just replacing the UK's existing
| fleet of reactors, almost all of which will have shut down by
| the time Hinkley Point C comes online. Of the current 5
| operating UK nuclear power stations, only Sizewell B is
| scheduled to operate beyond 2028.
|
| > _" They will need them built in the right place, because
| while more power cables can be built, you can't transfer a
| lot of power on very long distances"_
|
| One of the reasons offshore wind has been so economic &
| successful in the UK is they can usually plug in to existing,
| redundant transmission lines left behind by decommissioned
| coal and nuclear power stations, which are often on the
| coast. It's relatively cheap to connect to the grid when the
| infrastructure is already there waiting: you just need to
| build the cables from the turbines to the shore.
| jamil7 wrote:
| I always thought gas was quite quick to start which made it a
| good complement to renewables.
| sbradford26 wrote:
| It depends on the type of natural gas plant. Some of them
| are designed for efficiency which takes longer to spin up
| and down while some are peaker plants which can spin up in
| a matter of seconds/minutes.
| fundatus wrote:
| Yep, 15 minutes to full load is not uncommon with gas
| plants.
| tomatocracy wrote:
| The quickest gas generation (gas engines) can go from cold
| start to fully ramped up in 4-5 minutes. A typical
| OCGT/CCGT is a bit slower and has a higher start cost (and
| a CCGT won't reach peak efficiency for hours). Pumped
| storage hydro takes 20 seconds or so.
|
| However, turning generation on or off isn't the only way
| the grid is balanced in the short term - turning up/down
| tends to be a big part of it too and most conventional
| generation can do that faster (sometimes a lot faster) than
| startup/shutdown.
| debacle wrote:
| I've worked in curtailment. It's a fraught shell game.
|
| I think it's a great idea, but the system needs better
| controls. Many companies sign up for curtailment for e.g. heat
| related reasons who have heat based energy needs. When they get
| the call, they eat the fine and _still benefit_ because the
| fine is less than the benefit for enrolling in the program.
| avianlyric wrote:
| From the article
|
| > the National Grid pays the windfarms to turn off, and pays a
| (typically gas powered) alternative generator, closer to the
| demand, to turn on.
|
| Curtailing wind means paying someone else to generate that
| energy in the "right" location, which usually means burning
| gas. So all the extra wind being built isn't reducing amount of
| gas being burned, it's just increasing the total cost of
| electricity.
|
| > Probably the cheapest and best option is to build more wind
| and not care too much if it increases curtailment.
|
| We can build all the wind we want, but if connected to
| consumers by nothing more than a long extension lead that
| barely run a kettle, then it's totally useless. The wind needs
| to be located so the energy generated can actually be
| transported to end users. Curtailment is basically a direct
| measure of the amount of wind we've built, that can't actually
| be used. Building more isn't helpful in the slightest.
|
| The article certainly doesn't advocate for reducing the amount
| of wind built, quite the opposite, they just point out we need
| it built in the right places so we can actually use the energy
| produced. Rather than built bunch of wind turbines that will
| forever be pointed out of the wind.
| benj111 wrote:
| But that presupposes we can actually supply enough electricity
| to where it's needed. We already hitting the limits, thus the
| curtailment and burning gas. Adding more capacity unless it's
| in the right place doesn't solve the issue.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| The example given was christmas day, when most industry
| stops, when the wind was blowing strongly. (UK heat is mostly
| gas, not electric).
|
| It's probably more typical for all available wind to be used
| and then gas burned on top of that.
|
| Building more wind, even in curtailed areas will probably
| help those cases, even if it leads to more curtailment on
| other days.
|
| It would be nice if their neat interactive graphs also
| clearly marked the "we burnt gas because we didn't have
| enough wind turbines" so we can balance the two costs
| correctly.
|
| Right now it's like a medical test that only reports false
| negatives and ignores false positives (or vice versa). Trying
| to reduce one to zero without reference to the opposing
| problem is probably making the other one worse.
| ta545 wrote:
| At some point there will be more bang for buck to increase
| the north/south capacity. The price they're talking seems
| to be very low compared with other infrastructure. Sure it
| takes 6 years to build two 2GW links, so build 4 or 6 in
| parallel.
|
| What amazes me is the footnote that the total spending on
| net zero is just PS50 billion. Lets assume it's more
| realistically PS100b. That's less than the cost of HS2.
| It's less than the cost of decommissioning the existing
| civil nuclear plants when they reach their end of life. Its
| the cost of 12GW of nuclear power generation. It's 14
| months energy subsidies.
| cm2187 wrote:
| The problem is that there was no wind in the coldest days of
| December when we needed electricity the most. Building more of
| something that goes to zero when you need it doesn't help. With
| huge storage capacity, maybe, but even the author of the
| article doesn't seem to think storage is particularly
| practical.
| SamBam wrote:
| I'm not sure I understand. Sure, letting turbines spin and not
| use the power, while burning extra gas, isn't worse for the
| environment than just burning gas in the first place (though
| it's significantly more expensive to triple-pay for the
| energy), but it's better is to turn that unused power into used
| power.
|
| The article wasn't decrying the existence of excess wind power,
| it was trying to describe the best solutions for using that
| power.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| The article says we pay three times, curtail wind and then
| burn gas. Which is bad.
|
| But all the solutions are aimed at reducing the curtailment
| of wind. Rather than reducing the gas burnt.
|
| If the money saved by building more wind (or solar) and not
| having to burn gas saves more money then who cares if more
| wind is "wasted"?
|
| It would be nice to use every last drop, but I dont want to
| actually spend money to achieve that goal when it could be
| used to e.g. build yet more wind, and burn even less gas.
| stdbrouw wrote:
| Again, that's not what the article is about. If more wind
| power gets built in Scotland to serve needs in England,
| then increasingly more of that output will have to be
| curtailed because we simply can't move the energy to where
| it needs to be, to the point where the only thing adding
| more wind farms would do is to provide a tad bit more
| energy when there's hardly any wind to distribute. In all
| other scenarios, having more capacity will _not_ translate
| into not burning gas!
|
| The article describes an entirely different problem than
| "oh no, it's very windy/sunny and we don't know how to use
| all of this energy" which is not solved with better
| distribution, but with storage and demand regulation.
|
| And actually, the article is in complete agreement with you
| that we needn't be overly worried: curtailment isn't the
| end of the world, but we can solve it and it turns out that
| some of those solutions are cheaper than just building more
| farms, or would incentivize building those farms closer to
| where the energy is needed.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| The article leaves an impression that curtailment is a
| problem that is costing us money. See most other comments
| here as evidence of that.
|
| I'm explicitly calling for more curtailment, because it
| isn't a problem and doesn't need to be solved.
|
| Burning fossil fuels is a problem to be solved. High
| electricity prices are a problem to be solved.
|
| Both of those problems can be solved by _building more
| wind power_ , which almost inevitably increases the
| amount of wind curtailed.
|
| To repeat, curtailment is not a problem and does not need
| to be solved. It's a normal part of running a renewable
| grid. Any low cost renewable plan will have some
| predicted degree of curtailment, because it's the
| cheapest way to meet our energy needs.
|
| See:
|
| "Reframing Curtailment: Why Too Much of a Good Thing Is
| Still a Good Thing"
|
| https://www.nrel.gov/news/program/2022/reframing-
| curtailment...
|
| > Video Explains How Having More than Enough Renewable
| Energy Capacity Can Make the Grid More Flexible
| midasuni wrote:
| How would building 100 times as much wind power in
| Scotland reduce gas usage in England/wales without
| building more north/south interconnects?
| consumer451 wrote:
| > To repeat, curtailment is not a problem and does not
| need to be solved.
|
| Agree 95%. The only valid question involving curtailment
| is how much must occur at each individual turbine or farm
| to make it a bad investment.
| avianlyric wrote:
| Curtailment is never a bad investment. If anything it's
| fantastic for wind investors. Someone is paying you twice
| for _not_ using your assets.
|
| You get all the revenue, and have zero wear and tear on
| your equipment. In an extreme scenario you could even be
| paid for _not turning on_ non-functional equipment. What
| a fantastic deal.
| avianlyric wrote:
| > The article leaves an impression that curtailment is a
| problem that is costing us money.
|
| That's because curtailment does cost us money. Someone's
| paying those wind operators to turn off the farms. We
| literally pay money to wind farms to explicitly make them
| produce _nothing_.
|
| How do you reconcile these two statements?
|
| > High electricity prices are a problem to be solved.
|
| > I'm explicitly calling for more curtailment, because it
| isn't a problem and doesn't need to be solved.
|
| Curtailment cost money, you still need pay the wind
| operators to the energy you told them _not_ to produce,
| plus pay someone else to produce the energy that's now
| not being produced by wind. That cost ultimately ends
| driving up the price of electricity.
|
| You want to reduce the cost of electricity, a good start
| would be _not paying people for electricity that can't be
| used_.
|
| > Both of those problems can be solved by building more
| wind power, which almost inevitably increases the amount
| of wind curtailed.
|
| Only if you can transport the energy. Otherwise you're
| just building turbines that can't be used, and paying for
| the privilege of _not using them_.
| hedora wrote:
| The article is saying that more transmission lines were
| needed to avoid wasting 9b pounds of electricity last year.
| An already approved grid upgrade will cost 4b pounds, and
| would mostly be adequate.
|
| Something had to get built first, and I guess they picked
| the wind turbines. This seems like everything working as
| intended to me.
| mattcoles wrote:
| I understand that curtailment is needed to incentivise private
| businesses to invest in wind when the output and demand can't
| be correlated, but if the government owned the wind farms then
| it wouldn't matter if we wasted right? We could just always be
| overproducing and wouldn't have to pay for it.
| morepork wrote:
| Assuming a competitive market, the outcome is essentially the
| same right? If the government builds more than would be
| economic for a private company they're paying the extra
| through construction costs/maintenance/financing that they
| would have been paying to incentivise the extra turbines.
| nicoburns wrote:
| > the outcome is essentially the same right?
|
| Nope, the difference can be found in the profits made by
| the company that does in fact own and run the wind farms.
| The government could capture that should it wish to build
| them itself. This has been a hot topic recently with regard
| to fossil fuel energy generators who have been making large
| profits (in the billions) at the expense of people's energy
| bills.
| adolph wrote:
| > We could just always be overproducing
|
| Depends on what you mean by overproducing. The energy put
| into an electrical grid must be balanced by demand or bad
| things will happen. I think the second answer in the below
| StackExchange is a good description.
|
| https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/117437/what-.
| ..
| jthirkle wrote:
| The UK government? Owning things? Surely you can't be
| serious...
| [deleted]
| alkjsdlkjasd wrote:
| They seem to be re-nationalising the railways:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_British_Railways
|
| Maybe not: "The Transport Secretary announced on 19 October
| 2022 that the Transport Bill which would have set up GBR
| would not go ahead in the current parliamentary session."
| Beltalowda wrote:
| It just got delayed AFAIK.
| blibble wrote:
| since covid it has been essentially nationalised: the
| government took on the risk and any pnl
|
| the franchising sysem won't be coming back
| smcl wrote:
| I'm sure TransPennine Express and Avanti West Coast
| passengers would love that but it's not quite true (yet?)
| blibble wrote:
| it is true
|
| TPE is still under covid arrangements and Avanti West
| Coast is under a new style management contract as I
| described above
|
| switching out top level boss doesn't suddenly improve
| underlying problems with the service
|
| in the UK this is almost always the infrastructure, which
| has been nationalised since 2002
|
| the government (DfT) had more control over the railways
| under the franchising system than they had when BR
| existed
|
| almost all of what the hated "train companies" consists
| of is putting a guy in the cab, the rest is down to the
| DfT
| HPsquared wrote:
| The actual railways (that is, the tracks and the
| stations) are already government owned anyway (Network
| Rail).
|
| Network Rail sells access to the network to train
| operating companies, which are private (though often
| state-owned by other countries).
|
| The network was originally built by private companies
| until nationalisation in 1947 (railway companies were
| bankrupt after WW2). It was private for a while in the
| 90s, then went bankrupt and renationalised in 2002. Seems
| to be quite the money pit!
| anotheraccount9 wrote:
| "wind power"...
| dahfizz wrote:
| > I'd rather waste wind than waste money.
|
| But doesn't wasting wind waste money if we have to pay so much
| for curtailment?
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| You have two problems:
|
| 1) a lot of wind means there's too much power... that has to be
| used somewhere, that's why you have negative prices, to get
| someone to take that power off the grid and use it for
| something, sometimes useless, and someone has to pay for that
|
| 2) no wind means you still need gas, hydro, nuclear etc.
| powerplants, because you need power even when there is no wind
| and sun, so you need all the power generating capacity covered
| even without wind
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| > I'd rather waste wind than waste money.
|
| How is paying wind farms hundreds of millions of pounds to turn
| off wind generation not wasting money?
| mjw1007 wrote:
| In a sense: because all it does is move money from one place
| to another.
|
| That's very different to wasting money in a way that actually
| uses up physical resources or people's time.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Because, overall the wind power is the cheapest energy source
| available, and has been for a decade (recently overtaken by
| solar in some markets).
|
| Something that is cheap can have some percent wasted and
| still be cheaper overall than more expensive options.
|
| Focussing only on the waste without that bigger context is at
| best a false economy, at worst fossil fuel promoting
| propaganda.
| avianlyric wrote:
| What good is cheap if you can't use it?
|
| Why would I want to pay for cheap wind energy I can't use,
| and also pay for gas energy that I can use? Unless the cost
| of the wind is PS0, paying for wind in addition to gas is
| just a waste of money.
| briffle wrote:
| you should see how much per MW/h it costs for power from a
| "Peaker" power plant.
|
| Looks like $150-$198/MWh
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaking_power_plant
| jonatron wrote:
| I like negative prices, I got paid to heat my hot water tank
| and have underfloor heating on last night for 1.5 hours.
| InCityDreams wrote:
| Paid for 1.5 hours underfloor, or just on for 1.5?
|
| *also where you are would be interesting. There's a big
| difference say between Scotland and Croatia.
| jonatron wrote:
| I'm in London, electric prices last night:
| https://nitter.nl/pic/orig/media%2FFmNAukVXgAEF6Ar.jpg
| KaiserPro wrote:
| which supplier are you with?
| jonatron wrote:
| Octopus energy, on the agile octopus tariff:
| https://octopus.energy/agile/
| archydeb wrote:
| For the brave!
|
| But seriously (author of article here) I think that agile
| tariffs and more demand flexibility are probably a big
| part of the solution
| KaiserPro wrote:
| I have the luxury of a 13khw battery, so it _might_ make
| sense. But I suspect that when I need to use the grid
| will be uber peak PS1.04 per kwhr.
|
| Edit: for those who are curious, here is some data on
| prices over the last month: https://agileprices.co.uk/
| midasuni wrote:
| I guess you can't have two suppliers, one on a
| traditional fixed contract and one on the octopus stuff,
| and choose the best one
| londons_explore wrote:
| If the UK were ruled, and all decisions made, by a benevolent
| dictator, then the solution to this problem is easy. Consider
| every option of where to build the wind turbines, and where to
| build power cables, add up the cost of every option, and choose
| the cheapest (environmentally and/or monetarily) that gives
| everyone the power they need.
|
| An ideal market would produce the exact same result right?
|
| Well not quite... And this is a classic example.
|
| With the current policy of location-independent markets, wind
| producers build in the best spots, and don't care about the
| massive expense (to the grid operator) of moving the power south.
| That isn't the ideal solution.
|
| With the new proposed policy of per-location markets, the grid
| operator 'makes money' by moving power from places of high
| generation (low prices) to places with high demand (high prices).
|
| But wait... That isn't the ideal solution either. The grid
| operator has an incentive to maximize their own profits, and if
| they ship too much power from north to south, then the price
| difference will be lowered, and their profits will decrease. So
| they will underbuild deliberately.
|
| But wait you say - this is an ideal market, so there is no
| monopoly grid operator. In this ideal market, there are many grid
| operators, each competing to move power from the north to the
| south, and if one operator deliberately underbuilds, then another
| will build more to capture that profit. The end result is cables
| will keep being added till the money to be made equals the cost
| of the cables...
|
| And that _is_ equal to the ideal benevolent dictator solution!
|
| But... That assumes a cable costs a certain PS amount per MWH
| transferred. But real cables have efficiencies of scale - one
| large cable is more money efficient than many competing small
| cables.
|
| And considering that, you're back to the single-cable-operator
| problem. In the market, they are a monopoly and will underbuild.
| If they aren't a monopoly, whoever has the biggest cable takes
| all the profit, and becomes a monopoly. And if you artificially
| force there to be 10 small companies competing, then there will
| be 10 small money-inefficient cables.
|
| There is no perfect answer, except a (non existent) benevolent
| dictator!
| ta545 wrote:
| Well there was a benevolent dictator in the recent past (upto
| 1995), when the grid was publicly owned.
| olivermarks wrote:
| Agree, but there have been some very expensive local
| authority disasters around solar.
|
| https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/the-chauffeur-the-leaked-tape-
| an...
|
| Publicly owned old technology is very different to attempts
| to publicly develop next generation power, which tends to
| require brave entrepreneurs historically.
| beepbooptheory wrote:
| You really don't see _any_ middle ground here? I feel like a
| rationally and centrally planned infrastructure not based on
| market incentives is not that hard to imagine, whatever your
| political beliefs are, why resort to some kind of philosophical
| thought experiment of the dictator?
| InCityDreams wrote:
| And who would have thought that any dictator/ political party
| (either lefty or righty, it doesn't really matter) couldn't
| come up with a decent solution ["vote for us, we will solve
| your problems"] like they always seem to promise? After 10+
| years....
| Zamicol wrote:
| TL;DR: "The UK is wasting a lot of wind power" because of high
| long distance transmission costs.
| singhrac wrote:
| That's not an entire summary, I think. The lack of local (or
| nodal, as it's often called in the US) pricing means that
| there's comparatively little incentive to build new
| transmission. The UK is not a large country, and we routinely
| build much larger transmission lines (if I'm not mistaken, the
| UK is the geographic size of Texas, where the exact same
| problem is being solved effectively).
| Zamicol wrote:
| My comment was somewhat of a critic of the terse headline.
| Adding a small amount of information to the cryptic headline
| removes a lot of perceived mystery.
|
| Your statement answers the question, "why is long distance
| transmission price high?"
| bhewes wrote:
| The UK grid needs spot instance pricing like the cloud.
| [deleted]
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| I have a tangential question (and I truly do not mean to be
| provocative with it, just curious): Has anyone put any effort
| into figuring out how much impact we have on air movement in
| general with windmills? Like, is there a scenario where we could
| negatively impact the environment by capturing "too much wind"?
| grey-area wrote:
| This is an interesting study in that topic, I would have
| thought the answer is no to your question, but possibly a very
| large wind farm could change wind velocity/temp and thus have a
| knock on effect.
|
| https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0406930101
| pleb_nz wrote:
| So does NZ.... Man this place blows especially in Canterbury
| where I am. Nearly every single day it's windy enough that it
| annoys and sometimes ruins being outside. I must say 3 to 4 times
| a week 'f** this windy hole' to someone.
|
| Sitting in the roaring 40s trade winds why doesnt NZ have more
| wind generation is baffling.
| teruakohatu wrote:
| The reason that all or almost all of the power you use is
| renewable. Adding more renewable generation in the South Island
| won't help the coal generation in the North Island.
|
| Right now, investment in infrastructure needs to be made to
| move power from Manapouri to the North Island.
|
| As to why we are not replacing the 1.8m tons of coal we import
| from as far away as Indonesia with wind or solar in the North
| Island? I don't know.
|
| Edit: If you take a look here, as of an hour ago we are
| generating 90+% renewable, but with 192mw of coal generation.
| Wind is generating at a fraction of capacity and this probably
| accounts for the coal.
|
| There is hydro capacity but that might be from dams far south.
|
| https://www.transpower.co.nz/system-operator/live-system-and...
| ta545 wrote:
| It looks like there's just one HVDC interaliand link capable
| of sending 1.2GW, and dating back to 1964.
|
| Why not install 7 more? That would allow the entire current
| demand for the entire of NZ to come from the south island.
|
| 10M USD per km, average 800km from centre of south island to
| Auckland, $8b in total. 43,000 GWh generation per years,
| that's just 2.5c per kWh over 10 years on your bill.
|
| https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Indicative-capital-
| cost-...
| teruakohatu wrote:
| > Why not install 7 more? That would allow the entire
| current demand for the entire of NZ to come from the south
| island.
|
| There is a very high bar for building infrastructure
| accross the Cook Strait due to environmental concerns.
|
| The problem is a lot of our power is far south, not center
| of the South Island, and our costs to build are likely
| multiples of what is costs overseas.
| morepork wrote:
| The current HVDC link has had a lot of upgrades from the
| original 600MW to 1200MW now, and there are proposals to
| upgrade it further, but not nearly to the scale you
| suggest, as there just isn't the need for such levels of
| transmission.
|
| Unless there were plans for major new hydro schemes in the
| South Island there's no particular reason not to just build
| new generation in the North. There is ample wind and
| geothermal in the North Island.
|
| This would all change if the Tiwai Pt aluminium smelter
| were to close as that would leave a huge amount of
| generation that would need to go north to be used.
| cycomanic wrote:
| Yes NZ is baffling. NZ is a place which could easily be 100%
| renewable with very little investment. There is plenty of
| wind, sun and the large hydro power station could serve as
| backup/storage. However I see dramatically less windfarms and
| solar installations than in a place like Germany which has
| much less sun and wind.
| morepork wrote:
| There is a lot more wind power than there used to be. Getting
| wind farms consented is hard because people always seem to come
| out of the woodwork and complain and ruining the scenery, or
| the noise, or whatever.
|
| But I think the bigger issue is that due to the amount of wind
| that has already been built, peak demand happens on cold still
| nights in winter. Building more wind without storage doesn't
| help there, and that's when they're forced to fire up all the
| gas and even coal turbines at Huntly.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| NZ already generates most of electricity from hydropower and
| geothermal, so wind isn't really necessary:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_New_Zeal...
| tablarasa wrote:
| Not to be pedantic, but the roaring 40s are by definition not
| the trade winds. The trade winds are easterlies- they originate
| from the east and blow towards the west. The "roaring 40s" are
| westerlies, flowing in the opposite direction and categorically
| not the trades. Incidentally, NZ is an amazing place to take up
| wind sports, so I'm with you on the larger point.
| antod wrote:
| There is more capacity on the way, but planning/approving these
| things is slow. The beauty of wind power in NZ is that the more
| you have spread around in different places, the more more hydro
| lake capacity you can keep up your sleeve for when it is
| needed.
| nfcampos wrote:
| This reminded me of
| https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/09/mining-for-cryptocurr...
|
| (I know this isn't storage, jk)
| stuaxo wrote:
| Our system favours England over scotland, with the national grid
| charging Scotland much more to move energy around.
|
| With all the electricity generated there it should be cheaper -
| this could incentivise accelerating the electrification of trains
| in Scotland, currently only 25% of the network.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_electrification_in_Sco...
| chris222 wrote:
| Very good article. As far as the options presented I think
| transmission lines are still the best bet, along with storage.
|
| Storage can come in many forms including at a customers residence
| via batteries or thermal storage. Not all of these options need
| to be cycled daily to make financial sense. In the U.S. we have
| an insane number of people that maintain days worth of storage as
| fuel for their generators only to be used infrequently when the
| power goes out.
| bjourne wrote:
| The North Sea Link is 720 km long and costed only PS1.6 billion
| and took only three years to lay:
| https://www.4coffshore.com/news/north-sea-link-starts-operat...
| So a new 440 km long cable for PS3.4 billion done in 2029 seem
| like a crummy deal.
| jayelbe wrote:
| A very interesting and well-written article.
|
| I'd love to subscribe and see what else the author has, but oddly
| their blog has no RSS feed. Oh well!
| archydeb wrote:
| Sorry about that! I gave up on RSS with the death of Google
| Reader. A Twitter follow is your best bet :)
| fiftyacorn wrote:
| I was hearing one of the things they are doing is pumping water
| up the hills at hyrdo powerstation's to reuse at peak periods
| seb1204 wrote:
| Yes this is what is commonly referred to as pumped hydro or
| often only hydro
| jl6 wrote:
| That 70% energy loss in round trip conversion to hydrogen doesn't
| look so bad if the alternative is 100% loss by not running the
| turbines.
| epistasis wrote:
| That really depends on the capex of the hydrogen equipment. It
| has to be extremely low to justify not curtailing.
| jl6 wrote:
| True.
|
| I suspect that grid-scale electrolysis is near the very
| bottom of the economies-of-scale-S-curve and will have a
| promising future not just in power2gas2power, but also in
| producing the green hydrogen inputs needed for synthetic
| hydrocarbon fuels for hard-to-electrify applications like
| aviation.
| kokanee wrote:
| Technically it depends on the levelized cost of hydrogen,
| which encompasses capex, opex, and a slew of other relevant
| inputs. Similar "levelized cost" formulas are used throughout
| the utility sector to make these kinds of decisions; what
| makes green hydrogen unique is simply that it is undergoing a
| spike in research and development right now that is
| drastically changing some of the inputs to the LCOH equation.
|
| https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy09osti/46267.pdf
| londons_explore wrote:
| So why are these undersea cables so expensive?
|
| Lets do a little Math... A cable that moves 4GW of electricity
| 450 km is say +-1 million volts and 2000 amps.
|
| Assuming we want no more than 3% losses in the cable at full
| load, then each conductor needs to be 40mm diameter aluminium, at
| a total material cost of $3.6M
|
| To insulate a 1 million volt cable, we need 100mm of PVC - total
| cost $60M.
|
| And we'll obviously need a few mm of steel + more PVC on the
| outside for protection from the environment.
|
| And now add in the manufacturing cost, and the cost to get it
| into place...
| z991 wrote:
| > and the cost to get it into place...
|
| Your comment reminded me of "No Time on Our Side," a book about
| a submersible laying cable near the UK that sunk after a hatch
| failed during recovery operations. The author (who was a pilot
| in the submersible) details the incredible rescue effort to
| bring them back to the surface alive over a period of about 3
| days.
|
| A wonderful book and also one that made me appreciate how hard
| it is to lay cable (in some places).
| zabzonk wrote:
| and the need for two of them in parallel to make them redundant
| from trawler and similar damages.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| and the control hardware. The things that stepup/down are not
| cheap.
| mariambarouma wrote:
| this is a remarkable achievement in itself.
|
| Years ago, renewables opponents kept making baseless claims that
| no grid would be stable with large amounts of renewables. It's
| now end of 2022 and for this year we've seen on multiple
| occasions power grids running perfectly fine on very large
| amounts of renewables with very little gas.
|
| Success, I guess.
| mikaeluman wrote:
| Did you look at the situation in Germany? The foremost country
| on renewables...
|
| And brown coal.
| bamboozled wrote:
| Ok so what's the difference ?
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| California is facing a similar issue dealing with its solar duck
| curve[1], where prices essentially go negative during periods of
| peak solar generation.
|
| As far as I know residential PG&E customers can't buy energy in
| spot market prices, or else there could be some innovative
| arbitrage opportunities, like only running bitcoin miners when
| power is cheap.
|
| 1. https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/confronting-duck-
| curve-...
| sh1mmer wrote:
| If only there were some actually useful use of excessive energy
| that weren't mining bitcoin.
| Symbiote wrote:
| One example is producing hydrogen from water with excess
| power. It can then be added to the natural gas network, or
| used by trucks or trains, or stored for a power plant.
|
| Orkney is trialling this.
| Dma54rhs wrote:
| Spot prices are the best in order to save the planet so to
| speak. People will waste energy when it's cheap aka pay with
| their wallets. A lot of EU household's pays market price for
| the electricity.
| neilwilson wrote:
| Sounds like a job for the Terraform Industries product from a few
| days ago
|
| https://terraformindustries.wordpress.com/2023/01/09/terrafo...
| iamkoch wrote:
| [flagged]
| oliwary wrote:
| Here is what I do not understand about these kinds of dynamics:
| Are they not the perfect way to encourage the creation of energy
| storage companies and technologies?
|
| It seems like there is a massive opportunity to purchase energy
| when it is cheap or even negatively priced, figure out some way
| of storing it, and then sell it back once the price is higher.
| Over time, this could stabilize the grid and encourage
| development and scale benefits in energy storage.
|
| Where are these companies? Are the technologies not yet efficient
| enough, even when the price of electricity is negative? Or is
| this technology being deployed already?
|
| EDIT: Well turns out this is covered in the article. Hoping there
| will be more development in this direction in the future!
| Raydovsky wrote:
| Because storage is hard and expensive.
|
| Generating energy is easy (with renewables).
| aliqot wrote:
| > figure out some way of storing it
|
| My hypothesis is this being the issue.
| xiphias2 wrote:
| One more thing that can be used for soaking up rarely generated
| free energy are cheap old inefficient Bitcoin miners.
|
| There are many places already using it for this. Bringing Bitcoin
| miners to a place at this point is just shipping a container.
| fencepost wrote:
| I think one of the most important elements is buried -
| electricity pricing is uniform across the entire UK. That seems
| nuts to me, and incentivizes building in locations that are less
| useful - it's likely cheaper to build in Scotland, higher
| production from more wind, you get paid _more_ (for expected
| yield plus curtailment apparently), _and_ you have less wear on
| the equipment when you adjust to lower output.
| Symbiote wrote:
| At least this shows different prices in different regions, but
| I'm not sure why. The article contradicts it.
|
| https://www.edfenergy.com/sites/default/files/r505_deemed_ra...
| TylerE wrote:
| Is the UK not a unified grid? Most of the US is. A kwh is a
| kwh.
| toast0 wrote:
| The US runs three major grids: East, West, and Texas. There's
| interconnections, but capacity is limited. Sounds like the UK
| is similar here with the bottleneck between Scotland and
| southern England.
|
| Within the US grids, there's really subgrids with
| interconnection and bottlenecks, too, but those interior
| bottlenecks aren't brought up as often as say overnight wind
| production in Texas being over local demand as well as
| interconnect capacity.
| zabzonk wrote:
| england and wales are run by national grid, who also have a
| huge us operation - scottish operations a bit less clear
| scrlk wrote:
| National Grid ESO are the system operator for the GB grid.
|
| National Grid Electricity Transmission operate the
| transmission network in England and Wales. The transmission
| network in the south of Scotland is operated by SP
| Transmission; in the north of Scotland, it's SSEN
| Transmission.
| timerol wrote:
| Even in the parts of the US that are unified grids, a kWh is
| not a kWh. Where you live determines how expensive your
| electricity is. Compare Cambridge, MA
| https://electricityrates.com/compare/electricity/02139/ with
| Philadelphia, PA
| https://electricityrates.com/compare/electricity/19101/.
| About twice as expensive in MA.
| TylerE wrote:
| GP was (I think) talking about what the grid pays the
| plants, not what consumers pay the grid.
| davedx wrote:
| I know quite a bit about most of the things discussed in the
| article from having worked for a renewables company and yet I
| learned quite some new bits I didn't know about, for example the
| intra-UK submarine HVDC connectors (and their eye watering cost).
| Not a very long article but packed with clearly written and
| valuable information. Great stuff
| vardump wrote:
| We need to figure out how to reduce long distance power
| transfer.
|
| Imagine a global power distribution network, the entire world
| could be 100% solar & wind. Perhaps one day...
| Atheros wrote:
| Imagine someone invents low cost high temperature
| superconductors which enable fusion reactors, to much
| fanfare. Until everyone slowly realizes that we can use those
| same conductors to balance low cost electricity globally for
| less money.
| Dma54rhs wrote:
| Not going to happen for geopolitical reasons ever, unless we
| have a one king for the whole planet.
| Atheros wrote:
| Why couldn't countries just keep dirty coal generators and
| coal delivery infrastructure mothballed such that if power
| delivery from the other country is cut, just spin up the
| coal plants for a while until it gets sorted out. The cost
| of all of that may be less than the cost savings of
| importing electricity from a far-away country.
| nerdbert wrote:
| I don't live in the UK nor work anywhere near the energy sector,
| and yet I found this a really fascinating, clear read that opened
| my eyes to many issues I'd never considered before. Thanks.
| user568439 wrote:
| Seems like factoring the location is the easiest solution. If
| energy were much cheaper in Scotland, some factories would move
| there, more people would move there as well and you would not
| need to transport so much energy across the country.
|
| But I guess there are more things to consider than the energy in
| that decision.
| pornel wrote:
| I'd also love to have real-time pricing as an option on the
| consumption side.
|
| It's so dumb that we have "smart" fridges that can tweet, but
| not smart to avoid their energy use during peak hours. It's a
| thermal battery!
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