The Future of Power Generation in Great Britain

[MYOB]

LongQ said:

I did wonder if it was offshore but frankly I'm not that worried about offshore stuff. The potential for adverse effects onshore is of more interest.

Have you heard of any onshore bases being removed and remedial work being undertaken on the resulting hole? The scouring effect is probably not as effective - at least not without creating other types of local damage.

To be fair, of the major wind farms out there, none of them have reached the end of their operational lives yet. Most will operate for at least 25 years before being decommissioned, and there aren't any at that stage yet.

[wc98]

LongQ said:

I did wonder if it was offshore but frankly I'm not that worried about offshore stuff. The potential for adverse effects onshore is of more interest.

Have you heard of any onshore bases being removed and remedial work being undertaken on the resulting hole? The scouring effect is probably not as effective - at least not without creating other types of local damage.

surely with the base mostly under the ground just removing everything above ground level would suffice ? certainly from the visual aspect point of view ,imo.
for offshore there are plenty people that would be happy with the base structure being left out there ,there are benefits to be had from creating what would amount to reef systems free from commercial fishing.

[MYOB]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

the Consenting by Crown Estates has a deciding factor in it.

Consenting or lease agreement for using the sea bed?

[XM5ER]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

That image is from a plethora of balanced view websites :

https://www.google.com/search?tbs=sbi:AMhZZis6wFHy...

It's from pinterest. Are you saying that it's fake?

[rolando]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

…as do the WTG's in the picture.

I take it you mean WTGs (plural, not possessive) as wind turbine generators. They could also legitimately be termed as PTGs — part time generators. Once you and yours get rid of all the real power stations I look forward to the winter evenings when there's no wind and you have no heat, light or telly while I'll be happy wth a back-up generator keeping the household fully operational.

[MYOB]

rolando said:

Once you and yours get rid of all the real power stations I look forward to the winter evenings when there's no wind and you have no heat, light or telly while I'll be happy wth a back-up generator keeping the household fully operational.

Thankfully the UK Government is committed to security of supply, ie, source energy from multiple types of technology/fuel.

[XM5ER]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

XM5ER said:

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

That image is from a plethora of balanced view websites :

https://www.google.com/search?tbs=sbi:AMhZZis6wFHy...

It's from pinterest. Are you saying that it's fake?

Fake ? or Fake News?


The picture exists - as do the WTG's in the picture.

The message you intentionally try to make with it is irrelevant to the discussions

The discussion at the moment I posted it was about subsidies drying up causing a downturn in the industry. How is that not relevant?

[LongQ]

MYOB said:

rolando said:

Once you and yours get rid of all the real power stations I look forward to the winter evenings when there's no wind and you have no heat, light or telly while I'll be happy wth a back-up generator keeping the household fully operational.

Thankfully the UK Government is committed to security of supply, ie, source energy from multiple types of technology/fuel.

Governments are often committed to a lot of things.

That has no bearing on their ability to deliver on the commitments and especially not to do so in a timely, efficient and cost effective way.

The wonder of politics is that all the important a soul searching messages and strategies made or created by politicians are funded by everyone else. That means they are free to say and promise what they like. In the end we all rely on the possibility that someone will fix the problem before it really starts to hurt. That's not always the case.

[LongQ]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

LongQ said:

So how were the holes filled? Or were they simply re-used for bigger bases?

Old installations I assume rather than early failures .... or test and development rigs?

Offshore

Don't assume. Assumptions are normally wrong.
They (a pair of V90's) were removed from an existing and operational wind farm, due to scour issues- so the 'holes' managed themselves.

Elsewhere offshore, similar complete decommissioning has been performed- and without doubt to a more responsible manner than offshore O&G

Thank you for that advice Paddy, though it's disappointing to discover that some apparently quite new installations are lost at an early stage of their life due to some unforeseen problem. I assume it is safe to assume that the problem was unforeseen rather than rank bad planning or execution?

Onshore, of course, there are installations, albeit small and early devices, that have been around for an entire design lifetime. As I was discussing onshore - which was the basis for that particular point on the thread - it seemed reasonable that a response might be about onshore.

To whoever it was that suggested there were no installations onshore that were old enough to be decommissioned - that's really not the case although the biggest future problems today's younger generations might face after multiple cycles of wind installations every 20 or so years are likely to be caused by having multiple buried blocks of concrete and steel occupying hundred of good wind locations across the country. If so it sounds like an ecological disaster in the making.

[rolando]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

OK, I'll entertain you - the subsidies 'drying out' ?

As I said before, and willing to take a wager with you too : Subsidies won't be required before long.

Subsidy free by 2023 ......

The sooner the better that we stop propping up the renewables parasites.

[hidetheelephants]

LongQ said:

I have never found documentation for such an agreement but then I may not have been looking in the right place.

Can you point to any examples?

I would be amazed if any of the concrete and steel bases are ever removed - other than perhaps if the fields are further industrialised at some point in the future.

I suppose if the next phase of urban growth leads to hundreds of additional "distribution centres" some of the existing wind farm bases could be covered up by the developments.

There was a scheme to put up some turbines local to me, it caused a deal of argy bargy at the planning stage and eventually collapsed because the landowner changed his mind; the planned decommissioning consisted of above ground structures(towers etc plus sub-station/switching cubicle) removed and the big lump of concrete covered over and grassed. It wouldn't surprise me if that's more or less universal for onshore turbines, in the UK at any rate. Howking ~1500 tonnes of reinforced concrete out of the ground strikes me as both difficult and pointless.

[cerbfan]

Decommissioning offshore wind turbines will be incredibly easy compared to decommissioning O&G assets however so I'd expect it to be done properly. All they are is a pinned pile which will be cut just below the mud line exactly the same as in O&G or if its suction piles removed entirely just as in O&G as well. Other than that its just concrete mats covering small diameter power cables that you can pull onto the back of an anchor handler and spool onto the winches.

What you don't have is manifolds, pipelines, control umbilcials, flexibles, mid water arches, platforms (apart from tiny little substations), bundles (these are a problem to decommission), subsea well heads, conductors, mounds of toxic drilling mud etc etc

Just for interest I was on the Ninian North platform a couple of months ago involved with the decomm of that and they are now cutting the legs higher than originally planned due to the legs and conductors below 80m being absolutely covered in a unique type of coral call Lophelia which they don't want to damage the ecosystem by removing it. It's also a very convenient excuse to save several million pounds by not having to recover it mind you....

[MYOB]

LongQ said:

To whoever it was that suggested there were no installations onshore that were old enough to be decommissioned - that's really not the case

Me...and I said there aren't any "major" onshore wind farms at the end of their life ready for decommissioning. There are many of the early turbines that are ready, or have been, for decommissioning. But these aren't subject to the decommissioning requirement under the Energy Act 2004.

[LongQ]

MYOB said:

LongQ said:

To whoever it was that suggested there were no installations onshore that were old enough to be decommissioned - that's really not the case

Me...and I said there aren't any "major" onshore wind farms at the end of their life ready for decommissioning. There are many of the early turbines that are ready, or have been, for decommissioning. But these aren't subject to the decommissioning requirement under the Energy Act 2004.

If only PH allowed one to scroll back through the posts when creating a new one I would have confirmed that
it was you ...

So are you saying the very old stuff is likely to be left to rot unless the site is commercially viable for some other activity but that anything since around 2004 will need to be cleaned up? If so we are likely to have another 10 years to wait before we see how that works out.

However I can;t understand why the earlier stuff is not covered by some other industrial regulation. Maybe it is?

The activity may also be influenced by whether the site is to be re-used and then whether the exisiting bases can be utilised for the new installations.

If not the potential for a spreading rash of abandoned and buried concrete and steel foundations spreading across the countryside seems high.

One has to wonder what the effect might be in terms of soil biology, run off, plant growth and so on.

It's likely that the investment in steel, concrete and labour required to make the bases would have had a longer beneficial return if used to construct something else. But then the ponzi scheme of "growth" is never going to be comfortable trying to manage a short term need with a long game play.

[rolando]

hidetheelephants said:

…the planned decommissioning consisted of above ground structures(towers etc plus sub-station/switching cubicle) removed and the big lump of concrete covered over and grassed. It wouldn't surprise me if that's more or less universal for onshore turbines, in the UK at any rate.

That was certainly the planning condition applied around here (Torridge, North, West and Mid Devon). Access roads also have to be grassed over. It's going to very interesting in 20-25 years time when these conditions have to be met.

[cerbfan]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

cerbfan said:

Decommissioning offshore wind turbines will be incredibly easy compared to decommissioning O&G assets however so I'd expect it to be done properly. All they are is a pinned pile which will be cut just below the mud line exactly the same as in O&G or if its suction piles removed entirely just as in O&G as well. Other than that its just concrete mats covering small diameter power cables that you can pull onto the back of an anchor handler and spool onto the winches.

What you don't have is manifolds, pipelines, control umbilcials, flexibles, mid water arches, platforms (apart from tiny little substations), bundles (these are a problem to decommission), subsea well heads, conductors, mounds of toxic drilling mud etc etc

Just for interest I was on the Ninian North platform a couple of months ago involved with the decomm of that and they are now cutting the legs higher than originally planned due to the legs and conductors below 80m being absolutely covered in a unique type of coral call Lophelia which they don't want to damage the ecosystem by removing it. It's also a very convenient excuse to save several million pounds by not having to recover it mind you....

I agree with all of that - and hence my original point of decor of Wind vs O&G that seemed to prickle you.

Nah not prickly just the point about being more responsible than O&G decomm, we have to remove everything down to 300mm apart from the things which they get approval to leave behind which seems to be increasing already to be fair. That's just taking work away from us!!

[silentbrown]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

Any industrial site, dismantled pylons, factories etc - all go through the same to convert Brownfields to Greenfields.

The above-ground stuff will go, but my understanding is there's no attempt to remove the foundations, and existing foundations can't be reused for repowering.

I assume the foundation size in cubic metres goes up linearly with turbine power output - Is that right?

I'll admit to a vested interest - remote moorland and mountain areas are where I like to escape to when I can. While a lot of these places can be full of interesting industrial archaeology (slate, copper, lead mines) turbine foundations aren't likely to hold the same appeal.

[LongQ]

rolando said:

hidetheelephants said:

…the planned decommissioning consisted of above ground structures(towers etc plus sub-station/switching cubicle) removed and the big lump of concrete covered over and grassed. It wouldn't surprise me if that's more or less universal for onshore turbines, in the UK at any rate.

That was certainly the planning condition applied around here (Torridge, North, West and Mid Devon). Access roads also have to be grassed over. It's going to very interesting in 20-25 years time when these conditions have to be met.

Well that's pleasing because in several years of asking and trying to find information on line from time to time I had not found any person or any document that covered what was necessary come decommissioning time.

On the other hand, as you say, it will be interesting to see what happens when the time comes.

I would image a Landowner or heirs would be somewhat pushed to escape the commitment but a corporate may be a more slippery fish. Presumably when these installations change hands, as they seem to do quite frequently in the corporate market, the end-of-life liabilities are passed on with them?

That could be interesting for near end-of-life ownership deals ...

[LongQ]

silentbrown said:

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

Any industrial site, dismantled pylons, factories etc - all go through the same to convert Brownfields to Greenfields.

The above-ground stuff will go, but my understanding is there's no attempt to remove the foundations, and existing foundations can't be reused for repowering.

I assume the foundation size in cubic metres goes up linearly with turbine power output - Is that right?

I'll admit to a vested interest - remote moorland and mountain areas are where I like to escape to when I can. While a lot of these places can be full of interesting industrial archaeology (slate, copper, lead mines) turbine foundations aren't likely to hold the same appeal.

Assuming onshore wind continues to attract investors and based on the likelihood that most of the early sites were chosen for their better than average generation potential and accessibility it would seem likley that they will continue to be used for later generations of generators.

If the old bases cannot be re-utilised in some way and if the new bases are larger (which seems likely but who knows .....?) then ever larger chunks of moorland will be replaced by concrete and steel.

Is grassing over the top really a suitable way to return the local ecology to the way it was? If not, does that matter?

[LongQ]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

Tin foil hats at all he ready ?


Again- it is no different to the big oil buying / building the platforms to start with and selling on once marginal fields

It gets transferred. As a package

You mean like, for example, pension liabilities?