The Future of Power Generation in Great Britain

[Hill92]

NRS said:

I guess the issue is more the next steps forward. Investment in wind is getting more risky in the U.K. due to less/no subsidies (not sure on exact levels now) but we’re getting closer to new wind farms just overlapping the production of others during normal times. If they’re paid for production then companies investing are taking a gamble the power produced in low power times are at a large enough value to them to make an ok profit despite them being turned off a lot of the time.

Another issue in some places (US) is that they’re struggling to get enough boats, because as wind turbines keep getting bigger the older boats become out of date and so ‘useless’ so boat companies are waiting with orders. Not helped by the US saying the boat needs to be registered (I think it was) in the US.

Jones Act - not just registered on the U.S. but built there and crewed by US citizens.

[Gary C]

Condi said:

Gary C said:

Are you sure ?

As far as I am aware OPG have only applied for a construction licence so far.

According t' news it's already happening

https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/1002543/ontario...

Oh, good/

Odd that ontario power's own website didn't have a splash about it.

[jurbie]

Condi said:

Klippie said:

But we are sitting back waiting for the wind to blow and sun to shine then virtue signal to the world how green and great we are, the cost of all this is staggering, but its being allowed to go on and we are expected to put up with very expensive electricity while massive profits are being made by the suppliers and gernerators...but we are green so everything is just great.

And yet the reason electricity prices are up is due to high fossil fuel costs due to the war in Ukraine....

But never let the facts get in the way of an illogical argument!

I thought they went up about 6 months before the war because the wind didn't blow as much as expected through the summer of 2021. This resulted in Europe using more gas than expected to keep the lights on which meant the winter reserves were depleted so a mad rush for gas drove the price up?

The war certainly hasn't helped but I'm pretty sure we are where we are because renewables dropped the ball.

[Condi]

jurbie said:

The war certainly hasn't helped but I'm pretty sure we are where we are because renewables dropped the ball.

I'm certain that's not the case.... Europe imported nearly 40% of it's gas from Russia and that stopped almost overnight. Renewable output was a bit lower across summer than normal, but it would have been perfectly manageable if the war hadn't happened. By far the biggest driver was war in Ukraine, followed closely by wholesale French nuclear outages across winter.

See here..... This is UK gas price - starts moving up in Feb 2022, then gets very excited around August time as that is when all of Europe was buying gas to fill storage and then it comes down due to a mild winter and demand destruction from industry, plus the return of some French nukes.

Edited by Condi on Monday 3rd April 20:44

[NRS]

I’m in oil and gas and have the same understanding as Condi.

[Hill92]

Condi said:

jurbie said:

The war certainly hasn't helped but I'm pretty sure we are where we are because renewables dropped the ball.

I'm certain that's not the case.... Europe imported nearly 40% of it's gas from Russia and that stopped almost overnight. Renewable output was a bit lower across summer than normal, but it would have been perfectly manageable if the war hadn't happened. By far the biggest driver was war in Ukraine, followed closely by wholesale French nuclear outages across winter.

See here..... This is UK gas price - starts moving up in Feb 2022, then gets very excited around August time as that is when all of Europe was buying gas to fill storage and then it comes down due to a mild winter and demand destruction from industry, plus the return of some French nukes.

Edited by Condi on Monday 3rd April 20:44

There were what seemed like significant price rises at the time in 2021. Then 2022 redefined significant for everyone.

The 2021 price rises were mainly due to post pandemic recovery demand for oil, gas and coal ramping up faster than supply, especially with a lot of supply curtailed by postponed maintenance during the pandemic.

https://www.iea.org/commentaries/what-is-behind-so...

As well as the maintenance and age issues in the French nuclear fleet last summer, nuclear (and hydro) was also impacted by low winter rainfall, summer droughts and low river levels.

Wind and solar have undeniably prevented the global energy crisis being even worse, with all the implications that could have had for the war in Ukraine.

[tamore]

it's just like when texas froze and the power went out. of course it was all the fault of the renewables…… apart from it was the gas system that failed primarily.

[Condi]

In other Power Generation related news;

West Burton A coal station, which was going to shut last year before getting a stay of execution has finally closed, after 57 years of generation. Over that time its four 500 MW units generated a total of 491,792GWh, enough to power 164 million homes for a year, or all of London’s households for 44 years, with over 160,000 trains of coal arriving on site. National Grid or Ofgem did ask about the possibility of keeping it open for a further 12 months, but I don't think anyone at the site wanted that!

Triad periods for this year have been announced, with an average Triad peak demand 2.5% lower than last year and an amazing 17% lower than 8 years ago. Some of this will be due to increasing amounts of distribution connected generation (batteries and small gas engines) but overall the peak demand does keep getting lower year on year.

UK wind produced nearly 25% of demand last year, a record high, while for the first time ever renewables in the USA generated more power than coal.

[dvs_dave]

tamore said:

it's just like when texas froze and the power went out. of course it was all the fault of the renewables…… apart from it was the gas system that failed primarily.

That, but mainly due to the fact that the Texas power grid has absolutely no interconnections to neighboring states electrical grids, by choice. If they did, then with the diminished wind and fossils capacity, they could have fallen back on the interconnects, significantly mitigating, possibly eliminating this problem.

Idiotic Texas st-kicker politics biting them on the arse hard with that one.

[Condi]

dvs_dave said:

That, but mainly due to the fact that the Texas power grid has absolutely no interconnections to neighboring states electrical grids, by choice. If they did, then with the diminished wind and fossils capacity, they could have fallen back on the interconnects, significantly mitigating, possibly eliminating this problem.

Idiotic Texas st-kicker politics biting them on the arse hard with that one.

Also because in the "land of the free" there were no regulations around "winterising" the plants like there is elsewhere in the world. They just assumed that operators would do it as a matter of course, or that it would always be warm enough in Texas not to need the plants to work in extremely cold temperatures. As a result, when it did get cold, all the gas wells froze and they couldn't get any gas to the power stations, which without their source of fuel also froze in sympathy.

The people doing best at the time were those with Ford F150 hybrid trucks, because they have a socket in the load-bed, allowing the truck to generate electricity which could then be used in the house.

[phumy]

Condi said:

In other Power Generation related news;

West Burton A coal station, which was going to shut last year before getting a stay of execution has finally closed, after 57 years of generation. Over that time its four 500 MW units generated a total of 491,792GWh, enough to power 164 million homes for a year, or all of London’s households for 44 years, with over 160,000 trains of coal arriving on site. National Grid or Ofgem did ask about the possibility of keeping it open for a further 12 months, but I don't think anyone at the site wanted that!

Triad periods for this year have been announced, with an average Triad peak demand 2.5% lower than last year and an amazing 17% lower than 8 years ago. Some of this will be due to increasing amounts of distribution connected generation (batteries and small gas engines) but overall the peak demand does keep getting lower year on year.

UK wind produced nearly 25% of demand last year, a record high, while for the first time ever renewables in the USA generated more power than coal.

The guys at site had no bearing on whether it shut down or not, it was an EDF decision.

[NRS]

dvs_dave said:

tamore said:

it's just like when texas froze and the power went out. of course it was all the fault of the renewables…… apart from it was the gas system that failed primarily.

That, but mainly due to the fact that the Texas power grid has absolutely no interconnections to neighboring states electrical grids, by choice. If they did, then with the diminished wind and fossils capacity, they could have fallen back on the interconnects, significantly mitigating, possibly eliminating this problem.

Idiotic Texas st-kicker politics biting them on the arse hard with that one.

It’s perhaps slightly more complex, in that we clearly see in Europe that can lead to big political issues as some areas can then have massive price hikes even if their power generation stuff is super cheap due to being paid off ages ago. If they’d had their system properly sorted it would have been ok. I know there is a lot of anger in Norway for example about the inter connectors due to the impact on prices it has here.

But that said, France shows what happens that even if in theory you’re ok on generation if you main choice falls offline you really want those connectors.

[Condi]

phumy said:

The guys at site had no bearing on whether it shut down or not, it was an EDF decision.

Of course it was an EDF decision, but the majority of the workforce had plans to retire in 2022, they agreed to do one more year, but contractually very difficult for the company to extend their contracts again.

Slightly tongue in cheek, but not wrong.

[dickymint]

Bit of kick in the butt for floaters...........

https://www.offshorewind.biz/2023/05/22/equinor-sh...

[Condi]

dickymint said:

Bit of kick in the butt for floaters...........

https://www.offshorewind.biz/2023/05/22/equinor-sh...

Bit of a kick in the butt for anti-wind lobby....

Wind is main source of UK electricity for first time
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-655...

UK sets new record for wind power generation
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/0...

There is actually some genuinely interesting stuff going on, there was a new interconnector announced the other day with a wind farm plugged into the middle of it which will be able to ship the wind power to UK or Europe, and also have spare capacity for moving additional power from country to country. The first of the "offshore grid" expected to criss-cross the North Sea.

[s2art]

Condi said:

dickymint said:

Bit of kick in the butt for floaters...........

https://www.offshorewind.biz/2023/05/22/equinor-sh...

Bit of a kick in the butt for anti-wind lobby....

Wind is main source of UK electricity for first time
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-655...

UK sets new record for wind power generation
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/0...

There is actually some genuinely interesting stuff going on, there was a new interconnector announced the other day with a wind farm plugged into the middle of it which will be able to ship the wind power to UK or Europe, and also have spare capacity for moving additional power from country to country. The first of the "offshore grid" expected to criss-cross the North Sea.

And probably high on Putins hit list.

[Klippie]

Here's a question...how much has all the wind hardware and infrastructure cost the UK to get everything up and running.

How many modular nuclear reactors would that money buy which don't stop producing electricity when the wind doesn't blow.

I know what I'd rather have.

[Deesee]

Klippie said:

Here's a question...how much has all the wind hardware and infrastructure cost the UK to get everything up and running.

How many modular nuclear reactors would that money buy which don't stop producing electricity when the wind doesn't blow.

I know what I'd rather have.

Have a look at EDF’s books..

[Hill92]

Condi said:

Bit of a kick in the butt for anti-wind lobby....

Wind is main source of UK electricity for first time
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-655...

UK sets new record for wind power generation
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/0...

There is actually some genuinely interesting stuff going on, there was a new interconnector announced the other day with a wind farm plugged into the middle of it which will be able to ship the wind power to UK or Europe, and also have spare capacity for moving additional power from country to country. The first of the "offshore grid" expected to criss-cross the North Sea.

We've also seen Ocean Winds' Moray West project reach financial close last month. This is a significant milestone1 the fourth round CfD ot was awarded last summer only covers a third of the 870 MW project. Ocean Winds have a built a revenue with more than 52% of capacity covered by Commercial Power Purchase Agreements and the remaining capacity will be sold into the market on a merchant basis. Another step towards completely subsidy free offshore wind.

It's also been a good year so far for solar PV. Peak generation exceeded 10 GW for the first time ever last month.

The first transmission system-connect solar farm is now operational.

https://www.nationalgrid.com/uks-first-transmissio...

And construction has started on the first solar farm to be approved under the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects regime.

https://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/news/amp/uks_la...

In other news, EDF continue to face rising costs on Hinkley Point C, the government are struggling to find investors to fund Sizewell C and Rolls Royce remain several years away from demonstrating a Small Modular Reactor.

[Condi]

Hill92 said:

In other news, EDF continue to face rising costs on Hinkley Point C, the government are struggling to find investors to fund Sizewell C and Rolls Royce remain several years away from demonstrating a Small Modular Reactor.

In a world where inflation is 10%+ and interest rates have gone from 1%< to 5% then of course costs are going to rise, and if the government approve the RAB model for SZC it should find funding. I suspect that is more stuck in the regulatory bodies than the financial department.

This passed me by the other month and I don't think was mentioned on here...

US developer Last Energy have signed a deal to supply 24 small nuclear reactors for customers in the UK "by 2026". They will be installed for industrial customers mainly, and the developer pays for the install and retains ownership of the plant, simply selling the power to the customer. I presume for large users of electricity it makes sense, especially if they can avoid any emissions costs. Seems like RR want to hurry up, because between Last Energy, NuScale, GE are already selling their designs.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/03/20/us...