The Future of Power Generation in Great Britain
Discussion
Gary C said:
V8 Fettler said:
12GW of coal provided stability in terms of generation and frequency control Feb / March 2018, therefore the stability of the grid would have been reduced had the coal been absent. Would the grid have survived as a national grid if coal was absent? My subjective view is no, there would have been unstable islands of power but no national grid. The US blackout of 2003 being an example of grid failure resulting in islands of power.
Given our grid is much smaller, the US comparison isn't really appropriate.Biggest threat to grid stability is often over production of wind in the north with the risk of a coincident line fault(s). Thats why Heysham 1&2 have an operational tripping scheme. As we are midway in the network, there is a risk that if a north/south line goes down, too much power would be put onto the remaining line(s). To ensure stability, an automatic trip can be armed to shutdown one of our units (has been armed for the last ~24hrs). NGC pay us for the facility.
It may seem like madness to trip an operating Nuke to protect the grid from what can be, a large supply of wind (it is more complex that just that, it depends on lots of factors), but it is a small example of NGC's focus on maintaining a functioning grid.
Just wish I could hear them better, our grid phone is terrible
I suppose the question is, what do I worry about with regard to the supply. Its that all but 2 nukes will shutdown soonish,plus all the coal and a lot of gas stations. Where is my pension going to come from !
She canna take it captn !
Edited by Gary C on Monday 18th February 17:05
V8 Fettler said:
How does the smaller size of the UK grid prevent grid failure resulting in blackout and islands of power? A larger grid should be more resilient, although there are variables e.g. design standards
With a larger grid, you tend to have lots of pinch points which can be vulnerable to tripping and islanding (harder to justify redundant network connections over long distances), because is smaller in physical land space, we tend to have a higher integrity, though you could argue we are more like one US island. Our most vulnerable parts are the north south 400kV lines which is why we have automatic intertrips to protect the grid integrity.Though, we know know that if the grid does go down (which would probably be to damage to 400kV lines beyond what can be tolerated) it would take a week to get it back up, which means we have had to increase our diesel stocks.
Im not disagreeing that we are moving into the unknown though, and that we wont have problems in the future.
Gary C said:
V8 Fettler said:
How does the smaller size of the UK grid prevent grid failure resulting in blackout and islands of power? A larger grid should be more resilient, although there are variables e.g. design standards
With a larger grid, you tend to have lots of pinch points which can be vulnerable to tripping and islanding (harder to justify redundant network connections over long distances), because is smaller in physical land space, we tend to have a higher integrity, though you could argue we are more like one US island. Our most vulnerable parts are the north south 400kV lines which is why we have automatic intertrips to protect the grid integrity.Though, we know know that if the grid does go down (which would probably be to damage to 400kV lines beyond what can be tolerated) it would take a week to get it back up, which means we have had to increase our diesel stocks.
Im not disagreeing that we are moving into the unknown though, and that we wont have problems in the future.
The UK grid could take longer than a week to resurrect if we run short of gas during an extended cold spell.
V8 Fettler said:
Redundancy could/should be justified on the grounds of resilience. With a traditional grid design: the greater the number of traditional synchronous turbo-generators, the greater the ability to compensate for frequency disturbances and the greater the ability to deal with generator outages,
The UK grid could take longer than a week to resurrect if we run short of gas during an extended cold spell.
Again, you confuse an available Grid with the ability to supply all demand. Just because there maybe insufficient generation, doesnt mean the grid is not in service. The UK grid could take longer than a week to resurrect if we run short of gas during an extended cold spell.
And yes, a traditional grid with large steam generators makes for a stable grid (and mainly due to droop) but as we dont have it anymore, doesnt mean NGC have been sat on their hands and done nothing. It has been justified as you say on grounds of resilience, bit harder in very large countries where you effectively end up with interconnectors between large centers of generation/demand and others.
On a side note, when we were designed, we originally had a isolated load control mode which was designed to allow our station to run as frequency control on a locally islanded grid as there were significant concerns in the 70's where we were originally being specified, but the enlargement of the grid interconnects and protection systems made it redundant and it was never commissioned.
Edited by Gary C on Wednesday 20th February 07:45
It's that time again. 'The third release of the EU Commission’s periodic study of global electricity and gas prices for the first time compares the EU 28 with the whole of the G20 for the period 2008 to 2016. EU 28 household electricity prices are now more than double those in the G20, while industrial electricity prices are now nearly 50% higher. The only G20 states with higher industrial electricity prices are those with heavy commitments to renewables.'
Marvellous lack of international competitiveness due to daft as a brush EU climate policy. More! i.e. EU households paying More! than double the G20 price. Hurrah for Juncker & The Sages as well as wealthy landowners with windymills on site!
Marvellous lack of international competitiveness due to daft as a brush EU climate policy. More! i.e. EU households paying More! than double the G20 price. Hurrah for Juncker & The Sages as well as wealthy landowners with windymills on site!
turbobloke said:
It's that time again. 'The third release of the EU Commission’s periodic study of global electricity and gas prices for the first time compares the EU 28 with the whole of the G20 for the period 2008 to 2016. EU 28 household electricity prices are now more than double those in the G20, while industrial electricity prices are now nearly 50% higher. The only G20 states with higher industrial electricity prices are those with heavy commitments to renewables.'
Marvellous lack of international competitiveness due to daft as a brush EU climate policy. More! i.e. EU households paying More! than double the G20 price. Hurrah for Juncker & The Sages as well as wealthy landowners with windymills on site!
Any links so I can have a read?Marvellous lack of international competitiveness due to daft as a brush EU climate policy. More! i.e. EU households paying More! than double the G20 price. Hurrah for Juncker & The Sages as well as wealthy landowners with windymills on site!
tr7v8 said:
turbobloke said:
It's that time again. 'The third release of the EU Commission’s periodic study of global electricity and gas prices for the first time compares the EU 28 with the whole of the G20 for the period 2008 to 2016. EU 28 household electricity prices are now more than double those in the G20, while industrial electricity prices are now nearly 50% higher. The only G20 states with higher industrial electricity prices are those with heavy commitments to renewables.'
Marvellous lack of international competitiveness due to daft as a brush EU climate policy. More! i.e. EU households paying More! than double the G20 price. Hurrah for Juncker & The Sages as well as wealthy landowners with windymills on site!
Any links so I can have a read?Marvellous lack of international competitiveness due to daft as a brush EU climate policy. More! i.e. EU households paying More! than double the G20 price. Hurrah for Juncker & The Sages as well as wealthy landowners with windymills on site!
tr7v8 said:
turbobloke said:
It's that time again. 'The third release of the EU Commission’s periodic study of global electricity and gas prices for the first time compares the EU 28 with the whole of the G20 for the period 2008 to 2016. EU 28 household electricity prices are now more than double those in the G20, while industrial electricity prices are now nearly 50% higher. The only G20 states with higher industrial electricity prices are those with heavy commitments to renewables.'
Marvellous lack of international competitiveness due to daft as a brush EU climate policy. More! i.e. EU households paying More! than double the G20 price. Hurrah for Juncker & The Sages as well as wealthy landowners with windymills on site!
Any links so I can have a read?Marvellous lack of international competitiveness due to daft as a brush EU climate policy. More! i.e. EU households paying More! than double the G20 price. Hurrah for Juncker & The Sages as well as wealthy landowners with windymills on site!
https://ec.europa.eu/energy/sites/ener/files/docum...
The Exex Summary is easy on the eye (third page of ES) less so on the wallet.
ETA rscott wrong agan, not news politics or economics though.
turbobloke said:
tr7v8 said:
turbobloke said:
It's that time again. 'The third release of the EU Commission’s periodic study of global electricity and gas prices for the first time compares the EU 28 with the whole of the G20 for the period 2008 to 2016. EU 28 household electricity prices are now more than double those in the G20, while industrial electricity prices are now nearly 50% higher. The only G20 states with higher industrial electricity prices are those with heavy commitments to renewables.'
Marvellous lack of international competitiveness due to daft as a brush EU climate policy. More! i.e. EU households paying More! than double the G20 price. Hurrah for Juncker & The Sages as well as wealthy landowners with windymills on site!
Any links so I can have a read?Marvellous lack of international competitiveness due to daft as a brush EU climate policy. More! i.e. EU households paying More! than double the G20 price. Hurrah for Juncker & The Sages as well as wealthy landowners with windymills on site!
https://ec.europa.eu/energy/sites/ener/files/docum...
The Exex Summary is easy on the eye (third page of ES) less so on the wallet.
ETA rscott wrong agan, not news politics or economics though.
rscott said:
turbobloke said:
tr7v8 said:
turbobloke said:
It's that time again. 'The third release of the EU Commission’s periodic study of global electricity and gas prices for the first time compares the EU 28 with the whole of the G20 for the period 2008 to 2016. EU 28 household electricity prices are now more than double those in the G20, while industrial electricity prices are now nearly 50% higher. The only G20 states with higher industrial electricity prices are those with heavy commitments to renewables.'
Marvellous lack of international competitiveness due to daft as a brush EU climate policy. More! i.e. EU households paying More! than double the G20 price. Hurrah for Juncker & The Sages as well as wealthy landowners with windymills on site!
Any links so I can have a read?Marvellous lack of international competitiveness due to daft as a brush EU climate policy. More! i.e. EU households paying More! than double the G20 price. Hurrah for Juncker & The Sages as well as wealthy landowners with windymills on site!
https://ec.europa.eu/energy/sites/ener/files/docum...
The Exex Summary is easy on the eye (third page of ES) less so on the wallet.
ETA rscott wrong agan, not news politics or economics though.
t almost daily.LoonyTunes said:
He spams the whole of NP&E with GWPF bullst almost daily.
Another vacuous off-topic pesonal angle, what a surprise from this source!t almost daily.
Thanks for the above latest inaccurate statement, in a long line of ad hom fallacy 'shoot the messenger' non-points of this type / tripe. Lessons in the nature of primary and secondary sources are available if you're up to it.
In today's case I got my report (EU) as an email file attachment. The silver lining here is that this morning's posts have been useful as we now know rscott is clearly the go-to PHer for GWPF content.
Anyway, back on topic:
Provident Financial not the GWPF said:
61% of Brits are so stressed about energy bills that they avoid putting the heating on.
No problem. The poor can eat carbon (but not burn it) and freeze in all this global warming while wealthy landowners are trousering £hundreds of thousands for their herds of white elephants.turbobloke said:
LoonyTunes said:
He spams the whole of NP&E with GWPF bullst almost daily.
Another vacuous off-topic pesonal angle, what a surprise from this source!t almost daily.Thanks for the above latest inaccurate statement, in a long line of ad hom fallacy 'shoot the messenger' non-points of this type / tripe. Lessons in the nature of primary and secondary sources are available if you're up to it.
In today's case I got my report (EU) as an email file attachment. The silver lining here is that this morning's posts have been useful as we now know rscott is clearly the go-to PHer for GWPF content.
Evanivitch said:
I'd be interested to know how the solar was calculated. Obviously as it's not metered at a domestic level you need to estimate domestic production.
You could monitor production of both large and scale systems through tracking subsidy payments (as they get paid per kWh - albeit at varying rates depending on installation date). Production is recorded on both large and small systems.Total installed capacity is known so you could alternatively make some general assumptions over average performance and extrapolate up. Performance tends to vary less by location than wind so it's not that unreasonable.
Also, Sheffield University have done a bit of work on live solar forecasting.
https://www.solar.sheffield.ac.uk/pvlive/#
Taking a small sample of live monitored sites around the country, they extrapolate up for total installed capacity. There are some papers on this topic on the above link.
Gary C said:
V8 Fettler said:
Redundancy could/should be justified on the grounds of resilience. With a traditional grid design: the greater the number of traditional synchronous turbo-generators, the greater the ability to compensate for frequency disturbances and the greater the ability to deal with generator outages,
The UK grid could take longer than a week to resurrect if we run short of gas during an extended cold spell.
Again, you confuse an available Grid with the ability to supply all demand. Just because there maybe insufficient generation, doesnt mean the grid is not in service. The UK grid could take longer than a week to resurrect if we run short of gas during an extended cold spell.
And yes, a traditional grid with large steam generators makes for a stable grid (and mainly due to droop) but as we dont have it anymore, doesnt mean NGC have been sat on their hands and done nothing. It has been justified as you say on grounds of resilience, bit harder in very large countries where you effectively end up with interconnectors between large centers of generation/demand and others.
On a side note, when we were designed, we originally had a isolated load control mode which was designed to allow our station to run as frequency control on a locally islanded grid as there were significant concerns in the 70's where we were originally being specified, but the enlargement of the grid interconnects and protection systems made it redundant and it was never commissioned.
Edited by Gary C on Wednesday 20th February 07:45
What meaningful steps are the national grid taking to ensure that electricity supplies are maintained if we face an extended cold spell? The reduction in gas reserves during the short, cooler spell Feb/March 2018 does not inspire confidence.
V8 Fettler said:
Depends on the extent and duration of the shortfall. Governor response (droop) isn't quick enough to replace the inertial response, and - as previously - the increased rate of change of frequency during frequency disturbances is higher now than in previous years due to increased use of renewables, creating a greater risk of grid-threatening frequency disturbance.
What meaningful steps are the national grid taking to ensure that electricity supplies are maintained if we face an extended cold spell? The reduction in gas reserves during the short, cooler spell Feb/March 2018 does not inspire confidence.
Droop is instant (needs to be, its effectively the turbines speed controller), but it is propoertional, it doesnt return the frequency error to zero, just acts to oppose it. Our droop is very very fast. and the connection agreement requires ability to maintain output down to 47hz which is something that is massively lower than anything that has ever been seen. I see much bigger swings than I have ever seen, but they are still tiny in comparison to the systems capability so its important to maintain perspective.What meaningful steps are the national grid taking to ensure that electricity supplies are maintained if we face an extended cold spell? The reduction in gas reserves during the short, cooler spell Feb/March 2018 does not inspire confidence.
Interestingly, today I had day 1 of my refresher authorisation as a Control Person under the grid code. NGC are splitting into two companies, one as the system operator, responsible for planning etc and one as the network tranmission owner who do the switching and maintenance. Exams writing RISSP's and CTC's tomorrow
they are investing 6.9bn in the network to manage the stability of the system, but they are not responsible for ensuring there is enough generation, that is not their remit. Whos is it ?, Gov I suppose and I agree with you, things are rapidly moving towards crisis (ie 2035), but still not what I call grid collapse.
They will keep the grid in service, but not guarantee that everyone will have power. There are a large number of Customer Agreements to manage the network that are Privileged information so details are not really available, but interestingly, most of the focus has been on managing excess load, with inflexible plant such as the AGR's, which is why the BootStraps are to run north/south which are basically interconnectors within the UK to transfer power North/South.
Edited by Gary C on Wednesday 20th February 22:05
Gary C said:
V8 Fettler said:
Depends on the extent and duration of the shortfall. Governor response (droop) isn't quick enough to replace the inertial response, and - as previously - the increased rate of change of frequency during frequency disturbances is higher now than in previous years due to increased use of renewables, creating a greater risk of grid-threatening frequency disturbance.
What meaningful steps are the national grid taking to ensure that electricity supplies are maintained if we face an extended cold spell? The reduction in gas reserves during the short, cooler spell Feb/March 2018 does not inspire confidence.
Droop is instant (needs to be, its effectively the turbines speed controller), but it is propoertional, it doesnt return the frequency error to zero, just acts to oppose it. Our droop is very very fast. and the connection agreement requires ability to maintain output down to 47hz which is something that is massively lower than anything that has ever been seen. I see much bigger swings than I have ever seen, but they are still tiny in comparison to the systems capability so its important to maintain perspective.What meaningful steps are the national grid taking to ensure that electricity supplies are maintained if we face an extended cold spell? The reduction in gas reserves during the short, cooler spell Feb/March 2018 does not inspire confidence.
Interestingly, today I had day 1 of my refresher authorisation as a Control Person under the grid code. NGC are splitting into two companies, one as the system operator, responsible for planning etc and one as the network tranmission owner who do the switching and maintenance. Exams writing RISSP's and CTC's tomorrow
they are investing 6.9bn in the network to manage the stability of the system, but they are not responsible for ensuring there is enough generation, that is not their remit. Whos is it ?, Gov I suppose and I agree with you, things are rapidly moving towards crisis (ie 2035), but still not what I call grid collapse.
They will keep the grid in service, but not guarantee that everyone will have power. There are a large number of Customer Agreements to manage the network that are Privileged information so details are not really available, but interestingly, most of the focus has been on managing excess load, with inflexible plant such as the AGR's, which is why the BootStraps are to run north/south which are basically interconnectors within the UK to transfer power North/South.
Edited by Gary C on Wednesday 20th February 22:05
1 = inertial response
2 = governor response
Are the statutory limits for frequency not 49.5Hz - 50.5Hz?
V8 Fettler said:
As previously, governor response typically isn't quick enough to deal with the initial frequency drop
1 = inertial response
2 = governor response
Are the statutory limits for frequency not 49.5Hz - 50.5Hz?
Droop response from a turbine is quicker than 10 seconds, i see it every working day, remember its a proportional only control so it cant return the frequency error back to 0, that is done by control systems. Droop acts to limit the rate of depression. Basically, the proportional only speed controller of a turbine becomes a load controller once synchronised. The opening of the governor valves is proportional to the error between the desired speed and the actual speed. Once synched, the speed cant change, so any increases in speed setpoint result in an increase in load, however the upshot of this, is if the speed of the machine does change (ie as frequency changes) instantly changes the error, and the governor valves move instantly, and I mean instantly, faster than the eye can see. As such, a station operating with a droop of 4% (so a change in speed of 4% gives 100% gov action) will respond instantly to a decrease in grid frequency by opening the governor valves.1 = inertial response
2 = governor response
Are the statutory limits for frequency not 49.5Hz - 50.5Hz?
Frequency from the connection conditions
CC.6.1.2 The Frequency of the National Electricity Transmission System shall be nominally 50Hz
and shall be controlled within the limits of 49.5 - 50.5Hz unless exceptional circumstances
prevail.
CC.6.1.3 The System Frequency could rise to 52Hz or fall to 47Hz in exceptional circumstances.
Design of User's Plant and Apparatus and OTSDUW Plant and Apparatus must enable
operation of that Plant and Apparatus within that range in accordance with the following:
Frequency Range Requirement
51.5Hz - 52Hz Operation for a period of at least 15 minutes is required each time the Frequency is above 51.5Hz.
51Hz - 51.5Hz Operation for a period of at least 90 minutes is required each time the Frequency is above 51Hz.
49.0Hz - 51Hz Continuous operation is required
47.5Hz - 49.0Hz Operation for a period of at least 90 minutes is required each time the Frequency is below 49.0Hz.
disconnection, by frequency or speed based relays is not permitted within the frequency range 47.5Hz to 51.5Hz, unless agreed with NGET
Edited by Gary C on Thursday 21st February 15:10
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