The Future of Power Generation in Great Britain

[turbobloke]

You could have explained how Plated Capacity reflects output so accurately that it's worth considering more closely, but you didn't because it doesn't.

Not that facts could ever kill waffly offerings based on faith, faith moves mountains and erects windymills.

[turbobloke]

There was an article posted in a climate thread about Denmark producing a “surplus” of wind power...from turbines operating at only 6% of their plated capacity. How has wind power been doing in the UK of late? Nothing to write home about at the mo, possibly something to write to your MP about.

http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

After we've stopped laughing at Plated Capacity facts and intermittency facts we could move on to either Capacity Factor or Load Factor facts.

Coverage not seen on the BBC website but it could be there by now in a backwater section said:

A report concludes that a wind turbine will typically generate more than twice as much electricity in its first year than when it is 15 years old.

The report’s author, Prof Gordon Hughes, an economist at Edinburgh University and a former energy adviser to the World Bank, discovered that the “load factor” — the efficiency rating of a turbine based on the percentage of electricity it actually produces compared with its theoretical maximum — is reduced from 24 per cent in the first 12 months of operation to just 11 per cent after 15 years.

The decline in the output of offshore wind farms, based on a study of Danish wind farms, appears even more dramatic. The load factor for turbines built on platforms in the sea is reduced from 39 per cent to 15 per cent after 10 years.

The report concludes that a wind turbine will typically generate more than twice as much electricity in its first year than when it is 15 years old.

Another report said:

This degradation increases the levelised cost of electricity by 9%

Has Capacity Factor been fudged as high as 50% yet?

[rolando]

turbobloke said:

Has Capacity Factor been fudged as high as 50% yet?

Greg Clarke said:

In terms of energy reliability, the generation of electricity would be variable rather than constant with a load factor of 19% compared to around 50% for offshore wind and 90% for nuclear.[/b]

Source
Another one living in cloud-cuckoo land. (Maybe forgiven 'coz he's a politician, not an engineer)

[Toltec]

Evanivitch said:

LongQ said:

Evanivitch said:

Toltec said:

The business I work for already has a 400kVA diesel generator and 325kVA of UPS with approx 120kWh theoretical maximum of battery storage, in reality it is lower due to set minimum discharge limits and inefficiency due to load heating.

You're not comparing like you like. Holding batteries at a constant high state of charge is not good battery management. Cycling them through their capacity is far better for Li batteries provided suitable buffer and charge/discharge rates are applied.

Well, if you are seeking maximum backup capacity in the event of supply failure what are you supposed to do? Over provision by 100% or more so you can discharge to keep the batteries in a theoretically better condition for future unpredictable failures?

Maybe get a 2 for the price of 1 deal from someone?

You're missing my point entirely.

UPS are not the same usage cycle as home energy storage. They have different demands on battery technology.

For domestic storage it will depend how much backup capacity you want at the lowest programmed discharge point, I suppose if you have two or more battery packs you could discharge and charge in turn so you can cycle a pack while maintaining a charged pack. Unlike a commercial situation you can also chose to reduce your consumption by not running high power devices like hob, cookers and EV chargers.

In our case the UPS is there to isolate equipment from mains transients and to keep things running for the 30 to 60 seconds it takes for the generator to spool up. This means the battery storage is overspecified by around 2000%, however it is more to do with the C multiple than the run time.

[rolando]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

As are your posts. Try to contribute please.

You could contribute something useful yourself by telling us what the total plated capacity of wind generators stands at in the UK today.

[Toltec]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

Which is all fair enough but a completely different design parameter and design to the scenarios linked to in the above articles of the home sufficiency and the steps being taken to add storage to wind farms / the grid.

Not to mention the technological advances too.

It was more to do with the space usage, maintenance and parasitic running costs of storage if you need a full power supply for an extended period. It is expensive enough to have 20 minutes never mind working on daily cycles. It becomes much more economic to have a generator than batteries otherwise datacentres would not use generators.

[LongQ]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

Which is all fair enough but a completely different design parameter and design to the scenarios linked to in the above articles of the home sufficiency and the steps being taken to add storage to wind farms / the grid.

Not to mention the technological advances too.

The challenge in this scenario may be one of over-complex technology based advances eliminating the potential gains.

Once you get past the more basic technology advance benefits you quickly land in the world of declining returns from the time, money and energy resources committed when compared to the real and meaningful benefits accrued.

At that point some other technology may appear that makes much of what has gone before appear to be obsolete. That too will pass through the same technology development cycle before fading away.

All that is fine as long as humanity (as consumers) can afford it and a supply of energy, in whatever usable form, is available at a price that still allows advantage compared to the costs of production.

In general added complexity leads to earlier obsolescence. So the resources used and the energy sources consumed in manufacturing and distribution return less amenity of the life of the product than would be expected at the point of design.

I suspect that this is one of the reasons that car manufacturers seem to be so keen to move to an electric world. Partly they are simply going with the apparent political flow but mainly it may be more to do with ever increasing costs of research to make relatively small advances through a lot of additional complexity in their products. That would be OK for a "flagship" product like a supercar acting as a marketing halo for the brand but is not so good when applied to mass market "bread and butter" products. Stuff that has to be affordable to the masses also needs to be affordably repairable during its life potential. If not much of the energy used in its construction is just wasted and the anticipated lifetime gains are not realised.

[turbobloke]

As the expensive and rigorous investigation RE<C demonstrated, even with the fantasy technology of self-erecting turbines in robotic windfarms. there are still insufficient energy leftovers (after consuming most of the energy produced to build more and more windfarms in an absurd race to oblivion) to meet society's needs.

What a sick and pointlessly expensive joke.

[PRTVR]

Coal back on line, only .5 gw but wind has dropped to 1.6gw, must be getting ready for half time in "the match" tonight.

Edited by PRTVR on Thursday 28th June 16:59

[shirt]

I’ve only recently discovered just how buggered the uk national grid is. From what i know of, there is over 500mw of temporary gas generation going in this year and that may well increase. I find it incredible that the uk is having to resort to bridging power.

[rolando]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

I'll give the benefit of the doubt that you are not being a tosser and give you the same link as last time so you can go look it up, again : https://www.renewableuk.com/page/UKWEDhome

Thank you. Best to get it from the horse's mouth.
Wind running at about 10% of plated capacity as I write this.
Nuclear and Gas doing the lion's share of the work. Just as wanted by Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and all the rest of them. Without real power stations we'd all be out of work and living in the pre Industrial Revolution days. The Green Blob are welcome to it. I'm thankful that we still have proper power stations.

[Ali G]

And then it was gone.

More batteries and interconnects required.

Nurse, nurse - I've gone green

[Ali G]

Obviously nuclear and gas are keeping the lights on, the internet humming 'n haa'ing and the mahoosive tellies a telling.

Wind is just a parp in the wilderness

[V8 Fettler]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

you posted in a power cut?

or is all still chugging along still in the Grid.....?

Measuring the effectiveness of renewables by stating that the grid hasn't collapsed yet is flawed, it's on a par with:

"We're sailing out of Zeebrugge with the bow visor raised, we haven't sunk yet".

"We can conduct experiments on this reactor at Chernobyl, it hasn't gone bang yet"

Etc.

[rolando]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

Odd you glossed over the 4GW of Solar that was being produced 'as you wrote' ......

As a matter of fact it was 2.38GW and falling rapidly (6.30pm, half hour average). Not worth the bandwidth to write home about.
Source

[Dixy]

The last 2 posts cover very well why I am so disappointed that the Swansea bay idea has been scuppered.
What we need is a broad spectrum of power generation operations. Despite its countless weaknesses it was a totally different strand, diversity giving greater strength.

[Dixy]

[legzr1]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

If you want to live in that orb of dramatisation.

The thread is not about Renewables - but the GBPower Generation.
We all understand your loathing of renewables and your support (despite the rest of the western world, industry and society on the whole being in disagreement) for Coal. The almanacs of history (those cold - yet supremely windy - winters you love to quote) are irrelevant. The world, society and technology has moved on.

The thread is about the grid of Great Britain functioning now and in the future.

Any evolution or change shown on these pages is automatically kowtowed and discounted - despite the fact the grid still functions, burns less fossil fuels creates less CO2.

Quelle surprise - the grid is being ran by those who know better than the 4 or 5 standard haters here on PH.

And he’s fairly vocal on his hatred of railways, the system used to get coal to the power stations, and suggests replacing these trains with......electric....HGVs running on paved over railways.

This is a good thread but opinions expressed from members not capable of joined up thinking is hilarious.

[rolando]

Dixy said:

The last 2 posts cover very well why I am so disappointed that the Swansea bay idea has been scuppered.
What we need is a broad spectrum of power generation operations. Despite its countless weaknesses it was a totally different strand, diversity giving greater strength.

I suggest you read (to the end) this which shows just how little and how poorly the Swansea Bay lagoon would have fitted into the power generation needs of this country.
A rare correct decision by the government.

[Evanivitch]

rolando said:

Dixy said:

The last 2 posts cover very well why I am so disappointed that the Swansea bay idea has been scuppered.
What we need is a broad spectrum of power generation operations. Despite its countless weaknesses it was a totally different strand, diversity giving greater strength.

I suggest you read (to the end) this which shows just how little and how poorly the Swansea Bay lagoon would have fitted into the power generation needs of this country.
A rare correct decision by the government.

Do you know how much energy Cardiff Bay generates?

None.

£200m to build and £20m p/a.