The Future of Power Generation in Great Britain

[V8 Fettler]

A cooler spell, peak demand approaching 50GW, wind chips in with a magnificent 1.5GW, Still, at least we've still got coal (currently out-performing nuclear).

[V8 Fettler]

Another cooler day, demand already approaching 43GW, wind is doing the best it can at 470MW i.e. less than the output of one Parson's 660MW steam turbo-generator.

[V8 Fettler]

Dismal

[turbobloke]

V8 Fettler said:

Dismal

That's unreliables for you.

There'll be widespread calm conditions again before too long. Thank goodness for global warming and our warm wet winters, children don't know what snow is, etc, and thank goodness that energy bills are so low these days that vulnerable people including the elderly have boosted their savings and can afford to insulate their homes to keep all the winter heat outside.

[V8 Fettler]

Now down to 280MW, will it fall further?

[V8 Fettler]

230MW, is there a floor? Will it go parasitic?

[rolando]

B-b-b-but they keep telling us the wind is always blowing somewhere. I think they failed to stick their windmills up in the right somewhere.

[Evanivitch]

rolando said:

B-b-b-but they keep telling us the wind is always blowing somewhere. I think they failed to stick their windmills up in the right somewhere.

Nothing on the Dutch cable either.

[V8 Fettler]

200MW

[turbobloke]

V8 Fettler said:

200MW

Won't some people still be receiving rather a lot of money for not generating anything i.e. contributing precisely zero to the pathetic 200MW?

[gazapc]

turbobloke said:

Won't some people still be receiving rather a lot of money for not generating anything i.e. contributing precisely zero to the pathetic 200MW?

Subsidies are based on export to the grid. If you don't get the MWh out you don't get the ££.

In the event of over capacity, National Grid can instruct shut downs and generators are compensated for not generating. It's also much easier to shut down a wind turbine than a coal plant. I can't imagine today is likely to have over capacity so there will be no payments for 0 production.


Anyway, despite wind being at 200 MW - have the lights gone out? Do we have rolling blackouts? Fortunately not. Looks like the grid can comfortably handle such variation.

[V8 Fettler]

gazapc said:

turbobloke said:

Won't some people still be receiving rather a lot of money for not generating anything i.e. contributing precisely zero to the pathetic 200MW?

Subsidies are based on export to the grid. If you don't get the MWh out you don't get the ££.

In the event of over capacity, National Grid can instruct shut downs and generators are compensated for not generating. It's also much easier to shut down a wind turbine than a coal plant. I can't imagine today is likely to have over capacity so there will be no payments for 0 production.


Anyway, despite wind being at 200 MW - have the lights gone out? Do we have rolling blackouts? Fortunately not. Looks like the grid can comfortably handle such variation.

Two days of cooler weather is hardly representative of a hard winter of several weeks duration.

At one point earlier today, coal > (nuclear + wind + solar)

[jet_noise]

gazapc said:

turbobloke said:

Won't some people still be receiving rather a lot of money for not generating anything i.e. contributing precisely zero to the pathetic 200MW?

Subsidies are based on export to the grid. If you don't get the MWh out you don't get the ££.

In the event of over capacity, National Grid can instruct shut downs and generators are compensated for not generating. It's also much easier to shut down a wind turbine than a coal plant. I can't imagine today is likely to have over capacity so there will be no payments for 0 production.


Anyway, despite wind being at 200 MW - have the lights gone out? Do we have rolling blackouts? Fortunately not. Looks like the grid can comfortably handle such variation.

Is there some regulation requiring distributors(? or other part of the network) to preferentially take wind/solar over fossil fueled supply?

[turbobloke]

gazapc said:

turbobloke said:

Won't some people still be receiving rather a lot of money for not generating anything i.e. contributing precisely zero to the pathetic 200MW?

Subsidies are based on export to the grid. If you don't get the MWh out you don't get the ££.

In the event of over capacity, National Grid can instruct shut downs and generators are compensated for not generating. It's also much easier to shut down a wind turbine than a coal plant. I can't imagine today is likely to have over capacity so there will be no payments for 0 production.


Anyway, despite wind being at 200 MW - have the lights gone out? Do we have rolling blackouts? Fortunately not. Looks like the grid can comfortably handle such variation.

Constraint payments are one thing, does a windco pay the going rate for taking juice out of the grid to keep turbines rotating v slowly in calm conditions to protect bearings, also heating to keep blades ice-free (hopefully) and then there's the various control/measuring systems which need power. It can't be free surely (?) but is it paid for in full?

V8 Fettler said:

Two days of cooler weather is hardly representative of a hard winter of several weeks duration.

At one point earlier today, coal > (nuclear + wind + solar)

Without thinking long and hard, what would that picture look like in a world where our well-informed, wise and selfless politicians have shut down coal stations and are well on the way to the lunacy of decarbonisation?

Rhetorical question.

At the moment the situation mimicks playtime with some naughty games and it's not serious...yet.

[alangla]

OK.. Another stupid question time.
I'm not questioning the figures posted upthread at all, they all seem to match Gridwatch/Elexon.
Looking at spot prices - https://www.bmreports.com/bmrs/?q=balancing/system... - it looks like the price peaked today at around 11:30 (period 23)at £195/MW. This fits largely with the large coal generation figures posted upthread, in fact the price was over £100 from about 07:30 to 13:30. The bit I don't get is that now, at 16:00 (16:30 prices not posted yet), with darkness falling etc, the price seems to be down to about £50 (was £30 at 15:30), with a surplus (if I'm reading the negative figure in the NIV column correctly) in the system. Coal energy is also well down at 5.3GW with CCGT off the scale at 26.4GW How come?
Demand is about 46GW & usually the daily peak is about 17:00 at this time of year. Are the coal providers only interested in £100+ prices and the gas generators already contracted to provide for the afternoon peak?

[robinessex]

Wind at 0.6% at the moment !!

[PRTVR]

Traveling around the north east and all the wind turbines were turning quite fast, even though there was no wind, presumably to safeguard due to low temperatures, on the return journey they were all still , temperature was +3 so perhaps it's a damage prevention system.
Chatting with a farmer friend today, he is being paid to have containerised generator sets on his land, they will be gas powered turbine's, looks like a lot of money is being thrown to keep the lights on.
I still think we are becoming too dependent on gas generators, we are running at 60% now with coal, we appear to be giving up on the idea of a mix of generator fuels.

[V8 Fettler]

turbobloke said:

Without thinking long and hard, what would that picture look like in a world where our well-informed, wise and selfless politicians have shut down coal stations and are well on the way to the lunacy of decarbonisation?

Rhetorical question.

At the moment the situation mimicks playtime with some naughty games and it's not serious...yet.

I've modelled this very scenario for the UK, but the big unknown is: how low can wind go?

If we have no meaningful mass energy storage then 10TW of installed wind plus Hinkley C / hydro / solar would probably see us through on most days. The issue arises on a day such as today where it is possible that the parasitic load generated by 10TW of large wind turbines in low wind conditions could create a grid with a negative output.

20GW of installed wind produced this earlier:




If it was a dog, you'd have it put down.

[turbobloke]

Green Britain’s Energy Fiasco: Energy Bills Could Rise By £100 A Year After Price Cap Is Revised

Energy bills could soon rise by up to £100 a year as regulators are expected to announce a significant hike to the price cap on default gas and electricity tariffs,

25/01/19 The Daily Telegraph

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/01/25/energy...

Here's hoping the 'could' conditions aren't met.

[rscott]

V8 Fettler said:

turbobloke said:

Without thinking long and hard, what would that picture look like in a world where our well-informed, wise and selfless politicians have shut down coal stations and are well on the way to the lunacy of decarbonisation?

Rhetorical question.

At the moment the situation mimicks playtime with some naughty games and it's not serious...yet.

I've modelled this very scenario for the UK, but the big unknown is: how low can wind go?

If we have no meaningful mass energy storage then 10TW of installed wind plus Hinkley C / hydro / solar would probably see us through on most days. The issue arises on a day such as today where it is possible that the parasitic load generated by 10TW of large wind turbines in low wind conditions could create a grid with a negative output.

20GW of installed wind produced this earlier:




If it was a dog, you'd have it put down.

What no pictures today?

Could that be because wind is currently suppyling more than coal and nuclear combined?