The Future of Power Generation in Great Britain

[Deesee]

PushedDover said:

And likely not a selection of a site by a developer / black list it.

The French sites (LeTreport & Fecamp IIRC) had an awful lot of rock below the surface that was underestimated a decade ago when the back to front leasing system the French used, to 'reduce risk', came about - giving huge headaches to the installation contractor (MPI Offhore / VAn Oord again IIRC) needing to drill loads of sockets not straight forward knocking pins in. This then led to the fisherman calling Zut Alors for noise and vibration effects etc.

Hope that helps

Both of those are not a million miles away from the greensand strip, so perfectly plausible.. personally I had no idea that it ran north into ‘dogger’….

In all directions from your named points will be ‘flats’ of the greensand..

I’ve happily funded deep soil before, now I’ll think twice

[NRS]

PushedDover said:

dickymint said:

hidetheelephants said:

It's a component of sandstone and shale, I don't see what impact it would have. I am not a geologist.

Neither am I but i've no doubt that Pushedover will enlighten us all about the ongoing problems with 'scouring' around turbine bases.

PS. I have no idea if Glauconite is an issue in our waters but that was the question that was posed earlier by NRS which then got ridiculed as "baloney"

here we go again. ladels of sarcasm are not required to have a conversation Dicky

I said the article was baloney and irrelevant. not a poster per se.

Particularly to the original query of why is Doggerbank progress slow "Do they have glauconite then?"
For what it’s worth, Foundation installation (the only plausible connection a windfarm could have with Glauconite) is ok. It is, as I have stated - " the immaturity of GE a mass volume Offshore Wind Turbine supplier."

No, my post about glauconite was in response to this:

PushedDover said:

Water depth of Doggerbank is average / not a challenge, nor the soils compared to say the likes of Moray East or NNG.

I was wondering if that soil challenge in Moray East or NNG was due to a glauconite problem, which will be a type of soil challenge.

[PushedDover]

NRS said:

PushedDover said:

dickymint said:

hidetheelephants said:

It's a component of sandstone and shale, I don't see what impact it would have. I am not a geologist.

Neither am I but i've no doubt that Pushedover will enlighten us all about the ongoing problems with 'scouring' around turbine bases.

PS. I have no idea if Glauconite is an issue in our waters but that was the question that was posed earlier by NRS which then got ridiculed as "baloney"

here we go again. ladels of sarcasm are not required to have a conversation Dicky

I said the article was baloney and irrelevant. not a poster per se.

Particularly to the original query of why is Doggerbank progress slow "Do they have glauconite then?"
For what it’s worth, Foundation installation (the only plausible connection a windfarm could have with Glauconite) is ok. It is, as I have stated - " the immaturity of GE a mass volume Offshore Wind Turbine supplier."

No, my post about glauconite was in response to this:

PushedDover said:

Water depth of Doggerbank is average / not a challenge, nor the soils compared to say the likes of Moray East or NNG.

I was wondering if that soil challenge in Moray East or NNG was due to a glauconite problem, which will be a type of soil challenge.

Moray East is deep relatively speaking at 68m IIRC- so water depth challenging

NNG they have lots of individual / large rocks in the various locations planned to drive the jacket pin pins - and needed drilling, that the Saipem lot fked up. - albeit it still relatively deep up to 55m.

[wombleh]

Not been paying attention really, what's the intention with this Govt GBN scheme:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/great-british-n...

Sounds like they've turned BNFL into GBN and are using it to build power stations? Buying the land and tendering for companies to build on it?

[Cobnapint]

If Labour get in they'll probably sell it all off again, like Gordon Brown did before.

[Gary C]

Cobnapint said:

If Labour get in they'll probably sell it all off again, like Gordon Brown did before.

It was Thatcher who sold the CEGB

[hidetheelephants]

Cobnapint said:

If Labour get in they'll probably sell it all off again, like Gordon Brown did before.

It was Westinghouse shares he sold; TBH it's as well he did as they went pop due to shenanigans.

[Cobnapint]

Gary C said:

Cobnapint said:

If Labour get in they'll probably sell it all off again, like Gordon Brown did before.

It was Thatcher who sold the CEGB

I was thinking more BNFL/BNG/Westinghouse/British Energy.

[tamore]

just watching a video about a company called highview installing multi GWh compressed air storage installations in the UK. would be a very scalable way of overcoming some of the intermittency problems renewables will bring as part of a storage mix. 60% efficient apparently.

[Evanivitch]

tamore said:

just watching a video about a company called highview installing multi GWh compressed air storage installations in the UK. would be a very scalable way of overcoming some of the intermittency problems renewables will bring as part of a storage mix. 60% efficient apparently.

Highview are nowhere near GWh.

I like Liquid air storage, but it does ideally need co-locating with a thermal plant as the energy release can be thermally challenging!

[dvs_dave]

tamore said:

just watching a video about a company called highview installing multi GWh compressed air storage installations in the UK. would be a very scalable way of overcoming some of the intermittency problems renewables will bring as part of a storage mix. 60% efficient apparently.

Have they built anything or got anything under construction? They come across as textbook greenwashing grant $ spankers.

[tamore]

Evanivitch said:

tamore said:

just watching a video about a company called highview installing multi GWh compressed air storage installations in the UK. would be a very scalable way of overcoming some of the intermittency problems renewables will bring as part of a storage mix. 60% efficient apparently.

Highview are nowhere near GWh.

I like Liquid air storage, but it does ideally need co-locating with a thermal plant as the energy release can be thermally challenging!

trafford park is 250 MWh and being built. 2 more in the north east and scotland are in the planning phase and sized at 2.5GWh, near renewable (wind) installations so they can take any energy which would normally be curtailed.

only time will tell to see if they are 'grant spankers';. hopefully not, like the CCS and SMR spankers.

Edited by tamore on Sunday 10th March 20:57

[Evanivitch]

tamore said:

trafford park is 250 MWh and being built. 2 more in the north east and scotland are in the planning phase and sized at 2.5GWh, near renewable (wind) installations so they can take any energy which would normally be curtailed.

only time will tell to see if they are 'grant spankers';. hopefully not, like the CCS and SMR spankers.

Edited by tamore on Sunday 10th March 20:57

And where is it? It's supposed to be using existing technology and easily scalable, but it's been over a year since the Manchester site was confirmed. And now a 1GWh battery storage system is hot on the heels.

Again, I think it's a great technology, but it does need an adjacent thermal plant to make best use. And I'm also not seeing the quickly deployable and scalable claims coming to market.

[tamore]

Evanivitch said:

tamore said:

trafford park is 250 MWh and being built. 2 more in the north east and scotland are in the planning phase and sized at 2.5GWh, near renewable (wind) installations so they can take any energy which would normally be curtailed.

only time will tell to see if they are 'grant spankers';. hopefully not, like the CCS and SMR spankers.

Edited by tamore on Sunday 10th March 20:57

And where is it? It's supposed to be using existing technology and easily scalable, but it's been over a year since the Manchester site was confirmed. And now a 1GWh battery storage system is hot on the heels.

Again, I think it's a great technology, but it does need an adjacent thermal plant to make best use. And I'm also not seeing the quickly deployable and scalable claims coming to market.

where is what? think they finally got permission in late 2023. think they've designed it not to need a thermal plant onsite.

[Gary C]

Evanivitch said:

tamore said:

just watching a video about a company called highview installing multi GWh compressed air storage installations in the UK. would be a very scalable way of overcoming some of the intermittency problems renewables will bring as part of a storage mix. 60% efficient apparently.

Highview are nowhere near GWh.

I like Liquid air storage, but it does ideally need co-locating with a thermal plant as the energy release can be thermally challenging!

Good idea, waste heat fed to the vaporisers, would make a lot of sense.

[tamore]

Gary C said:

Evanivitch said:

tamore said:

just watching a video about a company called highview installing multi GWh compressed air storage installations in the UK. would be a very scalable way of overcoming some of the intermittency problems renewables will bring as part of a storage mix. 60% efficient apparently.

Highview are nowhere near GWh.

I like Liquid air storage, but it does ideally need co-locating with a thermal plant as the energy release can be thermally challenging!

Good idea, waste heat fed to the vaporisers, would make a lot of sense.

ah! had an ignoramus moment. thought 'thermal plant' referred to a gas burning installation. they are have storage for heat and cold seeing how much of each ore produced in both main parts of the process.

high pressure cylinders, a turbine, pipework, compression and thermal stores. not exactly a tokamak!

[Condi]

It appears the government are going to look to introduce zonal pricing for electricity, depending on how close to the SE it is, with higher payments for generation closer to London, and less for generation further away.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/03/10/wi...

There are very few details as to how this would work, and who it would apply to. Is it going to be simply a change to the CfD rules which would mean higher payments for new renewable generation, or would it go as far as creating 6 different electricity pricing zones to include all existing generation (inc thermal)? The latter seems very unlikely, and would get huge pushback from industry as it would cause all sorts of difficulties around trading, liquidity, etc, but the former doesn't seem to be a big change and will do nothing to address the current constraint payments.

Lets be clear though, the whole reason why this is needed is because the transmission owners (mainly National Grid) have failed to invest in the infrastructure required, and like everything else in this country it has suffered from decades of underinvestment since it was constructed in the 1960s. A key, and very fundamental part, of the electricity market is that everything has one price, changing that would serve to hugely increase the value of the transmission wires (highly beneficial to NG who are a private company) and depending on how it is introduced, could be hugely detrimental to existing generators (also private companies).

What I think is most likely is simply that new generators get differing CfD prices depending on location, rather than any change which affects existing generators. It is also unlikely that the UK will have 6 different pricing zones, as it would kill the market dead.

Quite what this will do for Tory voters in the Home Counties who are suddenly going to see huge areas of farmland being bid on by wind farm and solar developers I'm not sure, it doesn't seem like something which will get them many votes! Even since changes last year to allow/encourage more onshore wind take up has been very very low.



On another point, 12 months ago Ofgem introduced a change to the transmission code which prevented generators buying off their units within day and charging NG a high price for them in the balancing market. This was done following negative headlines about the amount paid to certain units on very tight days. Now a further change has been proposed which would allow that to happen, and argues the current rules don't allow scarcity to be priced correctly. Basically, Ofgem bought in rules without fully considering the effect they would have on the market and now new rules are needed to try and sort out the problems created by the unintended effects of the previous rules. Knee jerk reactions are never very helpful, and while customers did pay a lot for their electricity and gas, the suppliers are companies who exist to make a profit in a competitive market. If NG need the last power station available then that power station is obviously going to charge a high price, because what other options do NG have?

Edited by Condi on Monday 11th March 11:52

[Gary C]

Condi said:

It appears the government are going to look to introduce zonal pricing for electricity, depending on how close to the SE it is, with higher payments for generation closer to London, and less for generation further away.

Maybe they should introduce a Zonal system for bills instead

the further away from London, the cheaper your electricity bills !

[Condi]

Gary C said:

Maybe they should introduce a Zonal system for bills instead

the further away from London, the cheaper your electricity bills !

Well yes, that's the other side of it. In countries which have proper zonal pricing then the customer pricing is different in each zone, which for the UK would be really good as it would encourage industry to set up in Scotland where the energy is cheaper. It remains to be seen how far the Government want to go, but the problem with introducing proper zonal pricing is that all the existing generators would need to be compensated for the amount they would lose from such a big change to the market, hence why I can't see them doing it. It would also make a complete mess of the trading and market side of the industry, as you're splitting the market into 6, and having to trade capacity across the zones. Liquidity is bad enough at times down the curve as things are, let alone splitting that into 6 parts - nobody would ever trade until day ahead.

The answer really is for the transmission network owners to spend money to move power from North to South. They have agreement to build a new high voltage underwater cable from Scotland to England, but the amount they're turning down in Scotland at the moment is already more then the capacity of the new line, and they've not even started construction yet. By the time it is energised we'll need a second one. I think NG and Ofgem have been very very slow to respond to new generation being built, let alone been ahead of it, which is very odd as the wind farms all go through CfD auctions, planning and construction. It can't be a surprise to NG that there is suddenly 10GW of generation in Scotland trying to fit down wires which only carry 6GW.

[Matthen]

Condi said:

Gary C said:

Maybe they should introduce a Zonal system for bills instead

the further away from London, the cheaper your electricity bills !

Well yes, that's the other side of it. In countries which have proper zonal pricing then the customer pricing is different in each zone, which for the UK would be really good as it would encourage industry to set up in Scotland where the energy is cheaper. It remains to be seen how far the Government want to go, but the problem with introducing proper zonal pricing is that all the existing generators would need to be compensated for the amount they would lose from such a big change to the market, hence why I can't see them doing it. It would also make a complete mess of the trading and market side of the industry, as you're splitting the market into 6, and having to trade capacity across the zones. Liquidity is bad enough at times down the curve as things are, let alone splitting that into 6 parts - nobody would ever trade until day ahead.

The answer really is for the transmission network owners to spend money to move power from North to South. They have agreement to build a new high voltage underwater cable from Scotland to England, but the amount they're turning down in Scotland at the moment is already more then the capacity of the new line, and they've not even started construction yet. By the time it is energised we'll need a second one. I think NG and Ofgem have been very very slow to respond to new generation being built, let alone been ahead of it, which is very odd as the wind farms all go through CfD auctions, planning and construction. It can't be a surprise to NG that there is suddenly 10GW of generation in Scotland trying to fit down wires which only carry 6GW.

Can we up the voltage? Are we really at the limit, or is it somewhat arbitrary?

Seems to me that more HV lines should be a national priority