The Future of Power Generation in Great Britain

[LongQ]

Evanivitch said:

Debris thrown half a mile away!

Not great but not really a surprise given the fragments are likely made of very light material easily carried on a wind let alone one strong enough to induce overspeed in the turbine. Thrown to some height and carried on the wind the potential for a significant down wind spread must be quite high.

Presumably the investigators would not normally attempt an Air Accident type of investigation and collect all the pieces with a view to performing a full reconstruction?

[wc98]

LongQ said:

The smart meter revolution .....

I was talking to a neighbour at the weekend. Retired Phd with an engineering career behind him. Smart bloke.

A few years ago he had a smart meter fitted by then supplier EON.

He then changed supplier - I forget who he said but one of the well known names. They were unable to use the meter directly so he was back to taking readings. A year on and he swapped back to EON. For some reason they are also unable to take the automated readings now. So he is still providing manual readings often with multiple requests between billing points.

One would expect this to be a fairly basic systems admin task activity in this computer age.

One starts to wonder if there is any potential for customer side billing and admin incompetence to have influence over consumption markets in such a way that the market is compromised with a knock on effect to generation decisions.

I have no idea abut the possibilities but stranger things have happened in the past on other markets. One also has to wonder whether comapanies who are both generators and retailers in the market might have similar issues with all parts of their IT infrastructure (or any other part of their businesses). Why should retail be the only arm with problems?

my father has similar issues with his smart meter installation. he just told them to remove it. i did warn him pre installation,but being a stubborn old bugger he didn't listen.

[turbobloke]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

jet_noise said:

Wouldn't it be a hoot if such deals were not only real costs but also supply was only available when there was enough "renewable" energy being generated.

I would also say that it would be a Hoot that those who decide to opt out of the Renewables contribution to the Grid / Supply should be susceptible to the daily pricing fluctuations in the Fossil fuels.....

Wholesale gas has to be bought far in advance and suppliers even say they cannot pass on a drop in wholesale gas prices due to 'hedging'.

Actual greenblob energy prices are high, or a bit higher. Maybe a bit less high but still higher. Ask Gary.

Try again.

[LongQ]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

jet_noise said:

Wouldn't it be a hoot if such deals were not only real costs but also supply was only available when there was enough "renewable" energy being generated.

I would also say that it would be a Hoot that those who decide to opt out of the Renewables contribution to the Grid / Supply should be susceptible to the daily pricing fluctuations in the Fossil fuels.....

Would those price fluctuations be as notable without the renewables variability effect?

Would the base prices be as high as they are (plus taxes) without something manipulating the market to justify them?

[Gary C]

jurbie said:

I saw an advertisement for Ovo Energy last night where they were flogging a renewable energy only deal. They're not first to come up with this idea but they are the first I think to actively market the concept so it got me thinking what sleight of hand is going on here or are they potentially in breach of trading and advertising standards laws.

The star of the advert was a wind turbine but you don't need to spend too long looking at Gridwatch to know how that would end so what else do they class as renewable? I'm guessing nuclear, wood and solar but surely that's not going to be enough especially if lots of people sign up?

OVO piss me off.

They don't invest anything into the country's infrastructure and skim profits off the top, which would be fine if the boss didn't make the sort of statements about other companies that actually build and maintain very large and costly assets and manage the risks therein.

[jet_noise]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

jet_noise said:

Wouldn't it be a hoot if such deals were not only real costs but also supply was only available when there was enough "renewable" energy being generated.

I would also say that it would be a Hoot that those who decide to opt out of the Renewables contribution to the Grid / Supply should be susceptible to the daily pricing fluctuations in the Fossil fuels.....

OK I'll bite. As you well know over the long term, even as much as a year, the cost would be no more than is paid today.

Using smart meters to implement very short term variable rate charging as a means of reducing demand is a possibility already. Tinfoil hat or prescient?

[Ali G]

When you're ready, a few more of these please.

https://www.edfenergy.com/energy/nuclear-new-build...

Oh and if there's a bit of space, let's fill it with some RR SMR.

https://analysis.nuclearenergyinsider.com/rolls-ro...

Job jobbed - Pootin free.

[Ali G]

Let's start by banning Chelsky - then move onto seizing Roosky assets in the UK. In the interest of easing the National debt of course (a few more Typhoons wouldn't go amiss 'though)

[turbobloke]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

Hope to hear TB on the Jeremy Vine show now with the Tin Foil rustling about the Smart meters ,,,,,

There's no need, Smart Meter specs have been published. You must have missed out.

They bared all already.

[PRTVR]

Not wrong, the question is can wind make enough excess electricity to maintain the the grid using batteries for a prolonged period of time, say 6 days?
What happens when the batteries run down ? Something else has to be there to take up demand, short term you can get away with it as has been proven.
There are two types of electricity generation base load and peak load, the day wind turbines fit into one of these categories with their backup as a unit priced in, then things will have changed, we are not there yet, but who knows for the future.

[andymadmak]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

Hornsdale and the Tesla battery - seems that some of you may have been wrong ?

http://reneweconomy.com.au/wind-farm-proves-it-can...

Not really

article said:

Neoen, which reportedly is preparing for a stock exchange listing later this year, says the flexibility of the wind turbines at Hornsdale, developed by Siemens-Gamesa, allows for rapid and accurate response to control signals from AEMO.

A battery that can last a few minutes does not solve the intermittency problem of wind.

[turbobloke]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

Hornsdale and the Tesla battery - seems that some of you may have been wrong ?

http://reneweconomy.com.au/wind-farm-proves-it-can...

Greater grid stability is a good thing and to be welcomed, that said where did anyone say in this thread that the trials at Hornsdale would be a failure?

Grid instability has been around since renewables achieved some way below current penetration levels and people have rightly commented on it. If there was no issue in the recent past, why was this done to improve the situation, and why is this news?

If grid stability is getting better now and into the future, great. This news says nothing about improving the inadequate EROEI of wind plus battery storage so don't crow too loud just yet.

[turbobloke]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

So the thing it is designed to do - it is doing?


You all believe it is to do something else clearly.

One of the posters here worked out that the battery lasted 0.2s or something stupid, remember


(eta - at least TB understands,... the EROEI thing you bang on about we have covered previously as twaddle)

EROEI is not twaddle and 'we' have not arrived at that conclusion, it's your reasoning by assertion with no alternative quantitative analysis presented to back up the false claim. Obviously EROEI remains unsolved and won't likely be solved unless and until we blanket the UK with hydro, which isn't going to happen. It's obvious why you want to dismiss it, but just saying something without evidence won't make it go away. If this is troubling, why not try posting over at CIF where inconvenient heretical posts are deleted and heretical contributors are banned. You can make any number of unsubstantiated assertions over there and get away with it.

[turbobloke]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

turbobloke said:

You can make any number of unsubstantiated assertions over there and get away with it.

Your nirvana then.

No, the 'you' was you, nobody else; they allow greenblob assertions over at CIF and delete heresy against doctrine, so definitely your nirvana.

[LongQ]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

Hornsdale and the Tesla battery - seems that some of you may have been wrong ?

http://reneweconomy.com.au/wind-farm-proves-it-can...

The author seems to have quite an extreme partisan position to promote. One wonders about the density of his tin foil.

Meanwhile they have been billing "free" electricity at 10 times the going rate as a success when the real success would have been to have ensured that the interconnector that was under maintenance was not an utterly critical part of the electricity supply system stability other than in emergencies.

But hey, lets get some decision makers in to help disrupt a working system, skew the economics and then claim the old methods and the way the present market has been set up to work is a rip off.

Assuming that this process is very likely to continue how long will it be before the low cost saviours of very short term supplies find that people expect more of them based on how their apparent success has been presented? And how long before that leads to increased consumer costs once there are no longer other options?

I doubt that Elon and those who travel that road see themselves as charity workers. Subsidy Tax farmers maybe, but not charity workers.

[turbobloke]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

turbobloke said:

No, the 'you' was you, nobody else; they allow greenblob assertions over at CIF and delete heresy against doctrine, so definitely your nirvana.

People delete the out dated and factually incorrect mantra you repeatedly post *shocker*

How can we do that here?

You think you speak for 'people'



Just post up a credible alternative EROEI quantitative analysis. Tick Tock.

[turbobloke]

When I was asked about power losses from turbines due to internal consumption:

My reply said:

yaw mechanism

blade-pitch control

lights, controllers, communication, sensors, metering, data collection

heating the blades which can require 10%-20% of the turbine's nominal power

heating and dehumidifying the nacelle

oil heater, pump

filtering system in gearbox

brake to lock the blades in very high wind

thyristors to graduate the connection and disconnection at about 1%-2% loss

magnetizing the stator at 10% or more loss

assistance to get the blades start to turn when the wind speed is low

powered slow rotation to reduce bearing wear.

When you were asked last year about the following hidden costs of wind energy which suppliers aren't required to meet, leading to artificial pricing:

- human health cost e.g. infrasound
- economic impact e.g. house prices near white elephant eyesores
- environmental impact cost e.g. rare earth extraction and processing clean-ups
- biodiversity cost from large-scale deaths of birds of prey and bats, WTP cost will do nicely
- conventional-power back-up cost
- baseload cycling cost
- reduced grid reliability cost
- decommissioning cost

This is from your reply:

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

You're looking like a t**t according to the PMs I'm receiving from other posters on this thread, also agreeing a ban would tidy up the thread.

I won't be replying to your list of chosen categories as I didn't the last 8 times you harped on.

Blinkered, evasive, abusive, trying to stifle debate by getting people banned for no reason, simply because you can't cope with what's posted.

This isn't about me, or you even, it's about the UK's dire energy policy costing the earth while energy remains insecure.

[rolando]

Getting back to the intermittency issue, Paddy, what think you of this statement: "Wind doesn't do averages - it does what it wants"?

[V8 Fettler]

Banned to tidy up a thread? Raus!

[robinessex]

On The 27th February, the supply of Gas to UK was, err Zero. Almost the same on the 28th February. Gas cost went from £0.5/therm to £4.50/therm. This happened because France prevented French traders from selling to preserve their own stocks. They did this 14 yrs ago, and got severe bking from the EU. The national grid issued a ‘gas deficit warning’ and had to re-purchase gas from large industrial customers at very high prices. Gas imports didn’t resume properly until 1st March. Seems to work well then !!