The Future of Power Generation in Great Britain

[Toltec]

Ali G said:

Not dodging, not swerving and certainly in no need of any cavalry - I am in danger of polluting this thread - which is about the future of energy.

Yes, I was starting to think the same.

Difficult to separate when AGW is key to some arguments for renewables, I am happy to accept that not burning fossil fuels is a reasonable argument, providing the renewables in question do mean that we don't need to or keep the equipment to do so just in case.

[LongQ]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

turbobloke said:

Hold the front page! Common sense occurs in the USofA!!

Politician's attempt to force costly unreliables on ratepayers is falling apart (it says):

http://www.cfact.org/2018/07/25/tom-steyers-plan-t...

In actual news

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-01...

From the Article.

"Avangrid Inc. and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, joint developers of the 800-megawatt project south of Martha’s Vineyard, expect to provide power and renewable energy credits for 6.5 cents a kilowatt-hour according to a letter Wednesday from the state Department of Energy Resources."


and

"Federal tax credits and a long-term power-purchase agreement were part of the equation that helped the wind project “offer an attractive price to the benefit of consumers,” Lars Thaaning Pedersen, chief executive officer of Vineyard Wind, said in a statement."

I guess that's one way of kickstarting interest.

However

"The wind farm 15 miles (24 kilometers) south of Martha’s Vineyard is expected to deliver power at a price that lowers monthly energy bills by about 0.1 percent to 1.5 percent, according to the letter."

How excited the consumers, especially those in Marths's Vineyard, might be by such numbers remains to be seen.

Presumably the good people of Massachusetts are especially keen on things Green and will be delighted by this development at almost any price.

"Massachusetts has set a goal of installing 1,600 megawatts of offshore wind, enough to power about 1 million homes, by 2027, and lawmakers approved legislation on Wednesday to double that figure. New York, New Jersey and Maryland are also targeting a combined addition of more than 6 gigawatts by 2030."

Good luck to them. I notice that National Grid has an interest in the development too.

That's a strange little graph in the middle of the piece though. I'm not sure wer are meant to look at for proper guidance although it seems quite a familiar shape - something similar about European wind published a few months ago. I can't recall which consultancy it was.

[LongQ]

In a recent post here commenter Condi, lately, though it seems briefly of this thread, made a comment about "lack of critical thinking" though it was unclear whether it was his/her opinion that everyone else lacked critical thinking or only a few people with particular opinions.

Around the time he/she was active there was a link to a piece about some research undertaken by MIT, a well respected (whatever that may mean to all sides of the discussion) academic institution, which appeared to be be based in some reasonable critical thinking about the costs of electricity storage used to mop up the proposed excesses of solar and wind renewables generation ... and which elicited no critical thinking based discussion about its conclusions within the thread.

Whilst I would acknowledge that the numbers related to the USA and here we attempt to discuss Great Britain it seems reasonable to assume that the development of battery storage on the scale required will not, per unit of storage, likely be any less expensive if the USA does not join in wiht the storage party.

So why has no one offered any critical thinking about this extremely "wealth" absorbing approach to solving parts of a problem but still, so far as I can tell from the article, not getting to the point of 100% certainty of supply for any useful period even for situations that can be predicted to happen at some point.

Perhaps some critical thinkers could provide their thoughts?

Here's a repost of the link.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611683/the-25-t...

[turbobloke]

The Helm Report aka Cost Of Energy Review 2017 is now one year old.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cost-of...

This link is to a 6mb PDF file.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploa...

• Climate Change Act objective of cutting emissions of carbon dioxide could have been met for a fraction of the £100 billion so far committed
• wasteful and unnecessary policy has already raised the cost of energy by 20%
• vested interests – industrial, political, bureaucratic and academic – have profited while stifling debate

It points to the domination of the nation’s scholars by government-sponsored employment.

Foolish politicians commission report which shows how foolish they are regarding the foolish energy policy they foisted on the UK - so aforementioned foolish politicians foolishly sideline the report and ignore its inconvenient truths so they won't appear foolish to many more people than they already do.

We're still wasting far too much taxpayers' money on bunk. Happy Helm Day

[turbobloke]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

Would you like a Plunger?


You seem to have popped on to the thread solely to bring up your old st.

Old? First anniversary? Dream on. As to 'my' it's not mine at all it's Prof Helm's report, and the only thing remotely brown and smelly is the condemnation within it of foolish piolitiicians and the foolish energy policy they adopted post-Miliband CCA.

That post ^ is merely shooting the messenger, again, as you have nothing related to the Helm report that could make the position look better (though I see you've had a go since with unrelated material acting as a diversion).

Not forgetting the greenblob tradition of playing the man not the ball, because you can't cope with the reality of what's going on / how much it costs / how inadequate it is.

There was only one line of my post based on interpretation and it was made obvious. Trying and failing to misrepresent Helm Report findings as my own interpretation are, also as usual, desperate and unsuccessful.

The expected 'sell-by' date fallacy popped up again but as per the Helm Report, our future is far more costly than it needs to be due to vested interests benefiting at the expense of energy bill payers.

Headlines taken from the report:

The cost of energy is too high, and higher than necessary to meet the Climate Change Act (CCA) target and the carbon budgets.

Households and businesses have not benefited as much as they should because of legacy costs, policies and regulation, and the continued exercise of market power.

The legacy costs from the Renewables Obligation Certificates (ROCs), the feed-in tariffs (FiTs) and low-carbon contracts for difference (CfDs) are a major contributor to rising final prices (added note: even with falling unreliables costs that still don't reflect the full cost of production)

It is no accident that the growth of complexity has been closely matched by a growth in lobbying (and vice versa), and that much of the debate about subsidies has become toxic.

As a consequence of Electricity Market Reform (EMR), the government now determines the level and mix of generation to a degree not witnessed since these were determined by the nationalised industries

The government started out with some of the most expensive technologies first, and it could be argued that since then it has at times been exploring even more expensive options. The result is that British households and businesses are locked into higher renewables and other low-carbon generation costs than they need be to achieve the decarbonisation objectives for decades to come.

Intelligent fools making foolish policy, and we pick up the tab.

[turbobloke]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

And all said last year by yourself. the typical snide snippets to suit.

Link to the thread page?

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

the rate at which you Recycle posts in this and the comedy climate thread is laughable.

Was that a snide snippet by any chance

Here's a description, based on evidence, evidene you provide...

Ad homs, sarc, abuse, irony, hypocrisy, gibberish - your post content is certainly consistent but offers very little-to-nothing by way of credible evidence to support your threadbare position regarding unreliables.

Where's your data/evidence showing that Prof Helm got it wrong? You don't have any.

Empty vessels etc.

[Toltec]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

So rather than looking at (your own interpretation) of a report presented One Year ago, based on research from the previous to that years.

Why not look at the likes of today and the FUTURE
in this mornings inbox.

3 Aug 2018 - Australia: Tesla big battery: It earned a lot more money in second quarter.

3 Aug 2018 - China: China's Largest Grid-Connected Battery Station Powers Up.

6 Aug 2018 - Australia: Research funding to advance Australia’s energy storage capability.

and for all of your that say his brand of twaddle.....
6 Aug 2018 - Australia: NEG promises death of wind...

You constantly repeat the line about any reports or data more than a few months old being out of date as things have moved on since then.

What this tells me is that the technology is changing so fast that investing in a system with a multi-decade return plan that will be obsolete in twelve months does not make a lot of sense. Unless of course you have a way for someone else to pick up the tab.

[Toltec]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

Toltec said:

You constantly repeat the line about any reports or data more than a few months old being out of date as things have moved on since then.

What this tells me is that the technology is changing so fast that investing in a system with a multi-decade return plan that will be obsolete in twelve months does not make a lot of sense. Unless of course you have a way for someone else to pick up the tab.

You can't disagree in the advances surely ?

No, the larger/higher output WTGs do appear more efficient and designs seem to be addressing leading edge erosion and bearing lifetime, however that does not mean you can ignore the existing installed capacity. Unless the costs are written off by the installer/owner and they are either decommisioned or upgraded then these must still be factored in to the overall cost and efficiency of wind supplied energy.

New technology in nuclear plants, molten salt for example, would have the same issues, plants designed for 30+ year lifetimes would quickly become more expensive than ones built ten years later with the lessons learned from the early ones. The costs of this development have to be factored in to the long term supply of energy otherwise no company will invest to begin with.

[LongQ]

Toltec said:

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

So rather than looking at (your own interpretation) of a report presented One Year ago, based on research from the previous to that years.

Why not look at the likes of today and the FUTURE
in this mornings inbox.

3 Aug 2018 - Australia: Tesla big battery: It earned a lot more money in second quarter.

3 Aug 2018 - China: China's Largest Grid-Connected Battery Station Powers Up.

6 Aug 2018 - Australia: Research funding to advance Australia’s energy storage capability.

and for all of your that say his brand of twaddle.....
6 Aug 2018 - Australia: NEG promises death of wind...

You constantly repeat the line about any reports or data more than a few months old being out of date as things have moved on since then.

What this tells me is that the technology is changing so fast that investing in a system with a multi-decade return plan that will be obsolete in twelve months does not make a lot of sense. Unless of course you have a way for someone else to pick up the tab.

That's a point that I too find interesting.

If you plan on R&D costs for new products being recovered over a reasonable lifetime and then find the useful sales period for the product is far shorter than expected it is likely to cause some financial concern or perhaps even severe risk.

The modern world with computerised CAD may be slightly less catastrophically affected then a company in the old days reliant on a slower moving drawing office but all such risks are relative in a competitive marketplace.

Paddy had pointed out several times that the design output (and so size in most cases?) of turbines has been increasing at a pace. So fast in some cases that entire models have been abandoned (reportedly) before any have been manufactured and installed.

Now it might be that this sort of publically presented information (by the manufacturers) is really a case of saying "We're not going to sell that one because we can now release this one with x% more output using more or less the same components ....." which is fine and not particularly unusual as a business marketing strategy.

However if the total development requires other changes - bigger, heavier turbines on ever taller towers/supporting structures that themselves are constantly changing designs, it surely becomes more challenging to hit any real economies of scale right through the product lifecycle.

This may become a self compounding problem, If the scale of the product increases considerably the infrastructure that supports installation and maintenance is also likely to face a need for rapid development. Taller and heavier structures require larger boats and bigger cranes. It's likely that equipment built and put into service even quite recently will never be able to operate economically during its originally planned life expectancy.

In other areas of technology in times past older products have had relatively long deployment lives by enjoying lower manufacturing costs towards their end of life (even better once R&D has been covered) and found their way into new markets as they became affordable.

With modern developments in the Wind industry this would seem to be less likely to happen, especially offshore.

At some point one might expect the rapid increase in size and height of offshore turbines to stabilise limits to engineering options and size benefits tail off but there could be a lot of unrecovered investment in installation infrastructure in the main time.

Can the social cost of paying for all of that be supported as things stand or would there be more practical and pragmatic ways to operate?

[Toltec]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

The rating and efficiency, costs associated against the lifecycle are all considered at the time of FID.
The 'competitive' auction process helps each drive down their costs.

Pushing the contracting strategy, technology, O&M models and financial aspects are bringing the costs down across all of the industry.

What is alarming is how its only renewables prices that are reducing.

The cost of electricity from older sites goes down too?

It isn't that surprising that costs are reducing as renewable technologies are constantly evolving and no doubt efficiencies through learnt installation techniques will also help. Traditional generation plant is more mature and introduction of variable input from renewables will be making them more expensive to run due to lower utilisation. This should be factored into the cost of renewable supply as it is required in order to supply the consumer load.

[turbobloke]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

What is alarming is how its only renewables prices that are reducing.

Not at all. Firstly the producers aren't required to pay the full cost of production. Then there's the point that with prices astronomically high previously, what other direction is likely?

Then there's the point as made very well by the Helm Report that while unreliables prices are currently falling, business and domestic consumers will still be paying more than necessary - see below for an example recently posted.

Article cited recently said:

The giant Hornsea Project One wind farm will consist of 174 turbines, each 623ft tall - higher than the Gherkin building in London - and will span an area more than five times the size of Hull.

First electricity from the project is expected to be generated in 2019 and the wind farm should be fully operational by 2020.

The wind farm was handed a subsidy contract by former energy secretary Ed Davey in 2014 that will see it paid four times the current market price of power for every unit of electricity it generates for 15 years.

4x current market price for 15 years FFS and people defend this foolishness (though mostly with ad homs etc rather than anything evidential).

[turbobloke]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

You are missing one of the key aspects and reasoning behind the 'growth', and how the costs per MWh are coming down offshore.

No. I read the Helm report (did you find that link, having claimed something about a year ago?) so I know what's been happening.

You are missing the fact that 4x the current price of electricity will be paid for 15 years to an offshore windfarm mob.

That's paid by me, other PHers and presumably you.

Foolishness beyond words as it's not achieving what it was meant to do. Global carbon dioxide emissions hit a record high in 2017 despite the plague of windymills (etc) spreading fast.

[Ali G]

turbobloke said:

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

You are missing one of the key aspects and reasoning behind the 'growth', and how the costs per MWh are coming down offshore.

No. I read the Helm report (did you find that link, having claimed something about a year ago?) so I know what's been happening.

You are missing the fact that 4x the current price of electricity will be paid for 15 years to an offshore windfarm mob.

That's paid by me, other PHers and presumably you.

Foolishness beyond words as it's not achieving what it was meant to do. Global carbon dioxide emissions hit a record high in 2017 despite the plague of windymills (etc) spreading fast.

Well worth it 'though - since, as time will tell, these are the new unintermittent version.

[turbobloke]

Ali G said:

turbobloke said:

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

You are missing one of the key aspects and reasoning behind the 'growth', and how the costs per MWh are coming down offshore.

No. I read the Helm report (did you find that link, having claimed something about a year ago?) so I know what's been happening.

You are missing the fact that 4x the current price of electricity will be paid for 15 years to an offshore windfarm mob.

That's paid by me, other PHers and presumably you.

Foolishness beyond words as it's not achieving what it was meant to do. Global carbon dioxide emissions hit a record high in 2017 despite the plague of windymills (etc) spreading fast.

Well worth it 'though - since, as time will tell, these are the new unintermittent version.

[LongQ]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

The rating and efficiency, costs associated against the lifecycle are all considered at the time of FID.
The 'competitive' auction process helps each drive down their costs.

Pushing the contracting strategy, technology, O&M models and financial aspects are bringing the costs down across all of the industry.

What is alarming is how its only renewables prices that are reducing.

Why is that alarming?

Why is it a surprise at this time when it is stated policy by most of the Governments that we might watch on a regular basis (Europe, USA (recently?) and to some extent China) that they will be pursuing a "renewables greatly favoured" policy in the future. Who, on that basis, is going to bother offering anything else let alone trying to make the costs basis competitive? Hinckley Point was a case in point.

So some renewables costs have approached or matched what was or could be possible prices for the established traditional sources of electricity generation although maybe not so closely if one takes out the effects of "carbon pricing" taxation and reduced efficiency invoked by forcing operators to operate less efficient generation cycles.

Solar seems to be the big achiever but we need to ignore the intermittency of supply (both plannable and unplannable) in order to make a simple base cost comparison.

The Bloomberg piece you linked to a fee post back has a graph that suggests offshore wind costs in Europe have likely reached their lowest levels. Scroll down the graph under the heading "Getting Cheaper".

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-01...

I seem to recall this graph before in another linked document related to (from memory) a government sourced report.

So it looks like the European governments are being primed to not expect the cost of bids to keep falling and on that basis it is highly likely that they won't. Or at least are unlikely to unless some sort of economic crisis appears and changes everything.

How useful Bloomberg reports might be in the context of technology seems to be a matter of opinion.

[LongQ]

Another Bloomberg piece.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-06...

Negative electricity prices - reality or fantasy?

What does it mean for the Future of Power Generation? (IF this content has any meaning and credibility at all.)

[Ali G]

To be fair - whosoever is 'doing' the lending lies in the most excellent discipline of those trained in economics.

[Ali G]

To be fair, again, I would rather be off this Island, Continent or anywhere else rather than have PnM dictate an energy policy!

Sufficiently clear?

[StanleyT]

Is it possible regular posters on here could state what they would like the future of power gen in the UK to be and then we discuss the arguments rather than all against or all for positions.

My take, with 2 biased points,
1 coal (so many family out of a job over the years but that is because the technology wasn't pursued in the UK for gasification - we could have been a world leader),
2 nuclear (10 years in there and would like to see it come back if only for all the efforts of many colleagues, though with Sellafield reprocessing shut down in the next few years according to the NDA are we building a new Selloffafield dump for the 2100s....).

So in 2025, I'd like UK to be.......
5-10% solar
15-25% wind
5% tidal
5% hydro (inc pumped storage*)
20% (would love to say 25%+ but it ain't gonna happen) nuclear
1-5% Biosystems, e.g. burning sewage / landfill degradation gases? / Incineration of waste / local CHP schemes for councils?
50% gas? Or snake oil fired turbines?
2% Drax if they keep going.

Missing bits balanced out by grid balancing* of some form? (Hydro or batteries).

I'd love coal to go on, we missed so many development chances as a country in the dash for AGRs Hartlepool and Seaton Carew being places where there was innovative mining / buring of quality coal, then the miners strike killed everything off. But coal as was isn't the way so accept that.

[LongQ]

Really Paddy?

If he or she has a view, how important is it? It's still an open forum - anyone can join in.

Bloomberg seems to be speculating - which is pretty much what we all do.

Until the numbers are in and audited, what else is there?

Anyway, never mind about Condi, what's your opinion?