The Future of Power Generation in Great Britain

The Future of Power Generation in Great Britain

Author
Discussion

Cold

15,207 posts

89 months

Wednesday 25th April 2018
quotequote all
Evanivitch said:
If you're stupid enough to be a British Gas customer...
Cutting - and right to the point that was being made.

wc98

10,334 posts

139 months

Wednesday 25th April 2018
quotequote all
V8 Fettler said:
I've searched for "street lamp EV charging calculations", the results are sparse, but then a logical approach supported by calculations is frequently avoided by the unreliablists.

This link indicates two cars per street lamp https://www.ukpowernetworks.co.uk/internet/en/news... . How does that design work for a street such as this:



?
but just think of the money saved on clearing snow from roads like that. you will be able to walk the pavement in bare feet in the depths of winter, permanent shorts and t shirt weather in every road. heating bills should drop dramatically as well, given the ambient air temp in winter in the road would likely rise by a significant amount due to the glowing cables under the tarmac, or will they need concrete due to the tarmac melting ?

Likes Fast Cars

2,768 posts

164 months

Wednesday 25th April 2018
quotequote all
Paddy_N_Murphy said:
andymadmak said:
BUT you still have never answered as far as I can see what happens when we shut down all the coal and gas stations in favour of windmills, and we get an extended cold spell with low winds?

When you can answer that one with a sensible, cogent argument, then I'll start taking what you say seriously. Pretending that batteries are in any way a fix at any time in the next 10 years (whilst we are closing fossil plants) is not that answer
I have never said Renewables is the sole answer (and said that in itself many times on here before)
What many here seem to miss is the change in how the Renewables - size, scale, efficiency and physical location deployment - is literally evolving over the next 5 years not 10.




The scenarios you mention of a Cold windless day currently affect the group, nearshore or onshore Generation. It won't when so far offshore, higher above sea level and spread around geographically.


These are 'part' of the solution.
Coal no longer is.
Coal and gas + nuclear need to be part of the strategy. Look at the examples of closing down coal plants and the disastrous consequences.

V8 Fettler

7,019 posts

131 months

Wednesday 25th April 2018
quotequote all
Paddy_N_Murphy said:
andymadmak said:
BUT you still have never answered as far as I can see what happens when we shut down all the coal and gas stations in favour of windmills, and we get an extended cold spell with low winds?

When you can answer that one with a sensible, cogent argument, then I'll start taking what you say seriously. Pretending that batteries are in any way a fix at any time in the next 10 years (whilst we are closing fossil plants) is not that answer
I have never said Renewables is the sole answer (and said that in itself many times on here before)
What many here seem to miss is the change in how the Renewables - size, scale, efficiency and physical location deployment - is literally evolving over the next 5 years not 10.




The scenarios you mention of a Cold windless day currently affect the group, nearshore or onshore Generation. It won't when so far offshore, higher above sea level and spread around geographically.


These are 'part' of the solution.
Coal no longer is.
How does the "no coal" solution work if we have a repeat of the winters of 1947 or 1963?

wst

3,494 posts

160 months

Wednesday 25th April 2018
quotequote all
V8 Fettler said:
How does the "no coal" solution work if we have a repeat of the winters of 1947 or 1963?
I didn't realise the wind stopped when it was cold. Those pesky meteorologists with their "wind chill factors" are making it up again.

Wayoftheflower

1,324 posts

234 months

Wednesday 25th April 2018
quotequote all
Paddy_N_Murphy said:
well, we take all of the fking broken records you keep playing, and burn them ?
bow

LongQ

13,864 posts

232 months

Wednesday 25th April 2018
quotequote all
wst said:
V8 Fettler said:
How does the "no coal" solution work if we have a repeat of the winters of 1947 or 1963?
I didn't realise the wind stopped when it was cold. Those pesky meteorologists with their "wind chill factors" are making it up again.
Then you should do a little checking.

LongQ

13,864 posts

232 months

Wednesday 25th April 2018
quotequote all
Paddy_N_Murphy said:
andymadmak said:
BUT you still have never answered as far as I can see what happens when we shut down all the coal and gas stations in favour of windmills, and we get an extended cold spell with low winds?

When you can answer that one with a sensible, cogent argument, then I'll start taking what you say seriously. Pretending that batteries are in any way a fix at any time in the next 10 years (whilst we are closing fossil plants) is not that answer
I have never said Renewables is the sole answer (and said that in itself many times on here before)
What many here seem to miss is the change in how the Renewables - size, scale, efficiency and physical location deployment - is literally evolving over the next 5 years not 10.




The scenarios you mention of a Cold windless day currently affect the group, nearshore or onshore Generation. It won't when so far offshore, higher above sea level and spread around geographically.


These are 'part' of the solution.
Coal no longer is.
Excellent.

So at some point in around 5 years from now we will all know how the Future of Power Generation in Great Britain is going to work out.

And presumably the bills will be plummeting by then as well.

LongQ

13,864 posts

232 months

Wednesday 25th April 2018
quotequote all
Cold said:
Evanivitch said:
If you're stupid enough to be a British Gas customer...
Cutting - and right to the point that was being made.
Not really.

I followed one of the "find a cheaper deal" links recently and the supplier that came out cheapest was .... British Gas.

Not by much, if you compared all of the terms and conditions that you have to comply with, but then all of the suppliers are gouging on their own account and having to pass on the Government's unadmitted tax charges for so called smart meters (maybe they will be smart one day but I can't see any clear benefits for a consumer) and existing subsidies of one form or another.

A little bit here and a little bit there but it all adds up. Of course once a government decided to add VAT to energy bills it gave all following governments a vested interest in seeing prices (and so VAT take) rise.

Naturally all Governments will say they have the public interest at heart and want to cap bills - or something along those lines. They don't really mean it.

rolando

2,116 posts

154 months

Wednesday 25th April 2018
quotequote all
Paddy_N_Murphy said:
I have never said Renewables is the sole answer (and said that in itself many times on here before)
What many here seem to miss is the change in how the Renewables - size, scale, efficiency and physical location deployment - is literally evolving over the next 5 years not 10.




The scenarios you mention of a Cold windless day currently affect the group, nearshore or onshore Generation. It won't when so far offshore, higher above sea level and spread around geographically.


These are 'part' of the solution.
Coal no longer is.
Out of date stuff. At least one of those offshore wind farms isn't happening, The so-called Atlantic Array in the Bristol Channel.

rolando

2,116 posts

154 months

Wednesday 25th April 2018
quotequote all
Paddy_N_Murphy said:
A couple of pertinent points here:
Paul Homewood said:
The contribution from wind/solar/hydro has only increased from 1.5% to 3.0% of primary energy consumption since 2013.

Meanwhile, can anybody explain why the BBC always seem to go to great lengths to give Greenpeace a say in these sort of articles?

Toltec

7,159 posts

222 months

Wednesday 25th April 2018
quotequote all
I downloaded the wind figures for wind output for 2017, a little spreadsheeting to work out how much storage would be needed to smooth output keeps coming out in the region of 3TWh, i.e. around 10% of the total output.

I used cumulative differences between the demand and wind output, with the demand modified by the annual total supplied by wind (11.59%).

I also set a base output of 19GW and set the wind output against the variability above that as a proportion of what the wind supplied (28.9%).

ETA1: Interesting thing dropping out of the spreadsheet. It turns out that storage is at a miniumum of 2.5TWh when wind is matched with the demand above 14.1GW, in this region it is supplying just under 21% of the annual demand above this base. If you just try to get wind to provide a constant baseload of 3.69GW you would need 3.75TWh of storage. The worst of the deficits occur over the summer months not winter so when I have time I'll pull down the figures for solar as they may actually help fill in troughs in the sunny months.

ETA2: Adding solar reduces the storage to a little over 1.9TWh to produce a base load supply of 4.87GW, however it makes the renewable supply worse at tracking demand. At best if it is supplying 15.3% of the total load at any time it needs 2.5TWh of storage to track variability. Unexpected result here that wind, solar and storage combined actually make a better baseload source than variable one.

Things to try-

Adding a multiplier to increase the total proportion of wind and solar power to see what that does to the storage requirement as an absolute and proportion of supplied power.

Add some more analysis of standard deviation of the output and demand to see if there is a relationship between these and the proportions of renewable power, variable and baseload power.


Edited by Toltec on Wednesday 25th April 17:21


Edited by Toltec on Wednesday 25th April 18:00

JD

2,769 posts

227 months

Wednesday 25th April 2018
quotequote all
rolando said:
A couple of pertinent points here:
Paul Homewood said:
The contribution from wind/solar/hydro has increased 100% since only 2013.
Wow, thats a pretty impressive statistic isn't it!

LongQ

13,864 posts

232 months

Wednesday 25th April 2018
quotequote all
JD said:
rolando said:
A couple of pertinent points here:
Paul Homewood said:
The contribution from wind/solar/hydro has increased 100% since only 2013.
Wow, thats a pretty impressive statistic isn't it!
I suppose it is - if you are easily impressed.

V8 Fettler

7,019 posts

131 months

Wednesday 25th April 2018
quotequote all
Paddy_N_Murphy said:
well, we take all of the fking broken records you keep playing, and burn them ?
wink

How and what are you comparing the same ?

This is the same as the bloody comedy thread that is the Pillocktics of Climate Change...
"If" V8 you are so correct why is every one else not doing it. Actually 'anyone' would be sufficient.
Do you not have an answer to: How does the "no coal" solution work if we have a repeat of the winters of 1947 or 1963?

Your first sentence is unintelligible gibberish, as is your second sentence. Are you capable of posting anything coherent? Please tell me that you're not a product of the UK education system.

V8 Fettler

7,019 posts

131 months

Wednesday 25th April 2018
quotequote all
wst said:
V8 Fettler said:
How does the "no coal" solution work if we have a repeat of the winters of 1947 or 1963?
I didn't realise the wind stopped when it was cold. Those pesky meteorologists with their "wind chill factors" are making it up again.
Cold spells are frequently associated with low wind



Gary C

12,312 posts

178 months

Wednesday 25th April 2018
quotequote all
Toltec said:
I downloaded the wind figures for wind output for 2017, a little spreadsheeting to work out how much storage would be needed to smooth output keeps coming out in the region of 3TWh, i.e. around 10% of the total output.

I used cumulative differences between the demand and wind output, with the demand modified by the annual total supplied by wind (11.59%).

I also set a base output of 19GW and set the wind output against the variability above that as a proportion of what the wind supplied (28.9%).

ETA1: Interesting thing dropping out of the spreadsheet. It turns out that storage is at a miniumum of 2.5TWh when wind is matched with the demand above 14.1GW, in this region it is supplying just under 21% of the annual demand above this base. If you just try to get wind to provide a constant baseload of 3.69GW you would need 3.75TWh of storage. The worst of the deficits occur over the summer months not winter so when I have time I'll pull down the figures for solar as they may actually help fill in troughs in the sunny months.

ETA2: Adding solar reduces the storage to a little over 1.9TWh to produce a base load supply of 4.87GW, however it makes the renewable supply worse at tracking demand. At best if it is supplying 15.3% of the total load at any time it needs 2.5TWh of storage to track variability. Unexpected result here that wind, solar and storage combined actually make a better baseload source than variable one.

Things to try-

Adding a multiplier to increase the total proportion of wind and solar power to see what that does to the storage requirement as an absolute and proportion of supplied power.

Add some more analysis of standard deviation of the output and demand to see if there is a relationship between these and the proportions of renewable power, variable and baseload power.


Edited by Toltec on Wednesday 25th April 17:21


Edited by Toltec on Wednesday 25th April 18:00
Interesting.

The fact that consumption is lower than it was several years ago has probably helps the margin, but I can't see that lasting. I bet we will be back up above 50gw in the next 10 years, which would be a gap of about 10gw.

rolando

2,116 posts

154 months

Wednesday 25th April 2018
quotequote all
Gary C said:
Interesting.

The fact that consumption is lower than it was several years ago has probably helps the margin, but I can't see that lasting. I bet we will be back up above 50gw in the next 10 years, which would be a gap of about 10gw.
We were (>50GW) on 1st March for about half an hour:

2018-03-01 18:05:33 50083
2018-03-01 18:10:33 50376
2018-03-01 18:15:33 50356
2018-03-01 18:20:33 50357
2018-03-01 18:25:33 50338
2018-03-01 18:30:33 50368
2018-03-01 18:35:33 50134

at which time coal was generating >11GW and gas >15GW
Look it up on Gridwatch if you don't believe me (directed at Paddy wink).

Gary C

12,312 posts

178 months

Wednesday 25th April 2018
quotequote all
rolando said:
Gary C said:
Interesting.

The fact that consumption is lower than it was several years ago has probably helps the margin, but I can't see that lasting. I bet we will be back up above 50gw in the next 10 years, which would be a gap of about 10gw.
We were (>50GW) on 1st March for about half an hour:

2018-03-01 18:05:33 50083
2018-03-01 18:10:33 50376
2018-03-01 18:15:33 50356
2018-03-01 18:20:33 50357
2018-03-01 18:25:33 50338
2018-03-01 18:30:33 50368
2018-03-01 18:35:33 50134

at which time coal was generating >11GW and gas >15GW
Look it up on Gridwatch if you don't believe me (directed at Paddy wink).
Your right, I sort of meant average highs rather than peaks (if you see what you mean)

We have gone from peak installed capacity of about 87gw to about 60 ish now, but embedded generation and recession has reduced demand a bit too. It's going to be interesting as demand picks up.

LongQ

13,864 posts

232 months

Wednesday 25th April 2018
quotequote all
Gary C said:
Toltec said:
I downloaded the wind figures for wind output for 2017, a little spreadsheeting to work out how much storage would be needed to smooth output keeps coming out in the region of 3TWh, i.e. around 10% of the total output.

I used cumulative differences between the demand and wind output, with the demand modified by the annual total supplied by wind (11.59%).

I also set a base output of 19GW and set the wind output against the variability above that as a proportion of what the wind supplied (28.9%).

ETA1: Interesting thing dropping out of the spreadsheet. It turns out that storage is at a miniumum of 2.5TWh when wind is matched with the demand above 14.1GW, in this region it is supplying just under 21% of the annual demand above this base. If you just try to get wind to provide a constant baseload of 3.69GW you would need 3.75TWh of storage. The worst of the deficits occur over the summer months not winter so when I have time I'll pull down the figures for solar as they may actually help fill in troughs in the sunny months.

ETA2: Adding solar reduces the storage to a little over 1.9TWh to produce a base load supply of 4.87GW, however it makes the renewable supply worse at tracking demand. At best if it is supplying 15.3% of the total load at any time it needs 2.5TWh of storage to track variability. Unexpected result here that wind, solar and storage combined actually make a better baseload source than variable one.

Things to try-

Adding a multiplier to increase the total proportion of wind and solar power to see what that does to the storage requirement as an absolute and proportion of supplied power.

Add some more analysis of standard deviation of the output and demand to see if there is a relationship between these and the proportions of renewable power, variable and baseload power.


Edited by Toltec on Wednesday 25th April 17:21


Edited by Toltec on Wednesday 25th April 18:00
Interesting.

The fact that consumption is lower than it was several years ago has probably helps the margin, but I can't see that lasting. I bet we will be back up above 50gw in the next 10 years, which would be a gap of about 10gw.
And that is despite a reported increase of significant proportions in the population.

Now there have been a few factors that could have contributed, some related to efficiency based saving like LED lighting compared to incandescent for example, others related to the elimination of high energy consumption industries and manufacturing in general.

Someone somewhere must have done the analysis but I don't ever recall seeing a reference to anything that puts it all together.

The problem is that, as is ever the case, you pick the low hanging fruit first and everyone comes to think that the trends observed can continue for as long as needed.

So once you have shifted your manufacturing out of the country - what do you "adjust" next to retain the downward trend?

Having converted the nation's TV sets from several hundred Watts to around 70 one might think of huge gains - but not so much if you then have a TV in every room and a large range of other electronic devices - unless they somehow are offset by savings in other process that are no longer required and can be canned.

So maybe a few hundred mobile devices mean that banks can shut a branch and the net savings or energy are, on balance, reducing overall consumption.

But there comes a point when you cannot make the same significant savings any more and have to find a new source of economies.

Maybe it could be the single mug capacity kettle to stop people boiling water for hot drinks and not using it. Great. But then modern kettles don't seem to be made to last very long so there is an energy overhead for manufacturing a lot of them. Not in the UK, obviously, since we have eliminated such mundane manufacturing businesses.

But the energy to make them will be used somewhere on the planet, followed by the energy to ship them to where they will be used.

Will there ever be a point at which Power generation becomes so inexpensive and converges with low cost labour, fortifying the available productivity such that the UK become a world manufacturing centre once again?

It's not easy to envision that right now but you never know how things might develop.

One of the interesting aspects of social mobility - especially some of the signs of recent international social mobility - is that it has a form of overall equilibrium which does not seem to be in any way based on equality. A relative rise for some will see a relative decline for others.