The Future of Power Generation in Great Britain
Discussion
andymadmak said:
I don't forget that at all, but there is a major difference between building capacity that covers your maximum usage, in the knowledge that at night it might be 30% over specced whilst everyone is asleep, it's quite another to have to build so much extra capacity in renewables just to counter the fact that for long periods it's not ABLE to produce any power, regardless of demand - and do not forget that night time usage is going to soar if everyone is charging electric vehicles whilst they sleep.
I just don't think the whole thing is being properly discussed. - certainly not in public anyway. maybe the bigwigs have it all under control?
Sorry didn't mean to imply you specifically had forgotten anything. But I myself often do and I don't think I'm alone. Referencing Gridwatch 2016 (because I have it handy) Nightly minimum varies broadly from 22-32GW over the year to a daily maximum from 24-55GW so the difference between mean (32GW) and maximum consumption (let alone capacity) is huge (my previous 30% guesstimated value was way off!) ) and we all happily pay that to keep the lights on. Adapting the current grid to massive storage capacity rather than massive production overcapacity I can't see as any more expensive than what we have now.I just don't think the whole thing is being properly discussed. - certainly not in public anyway. maybe the bigwigs have it all under control?
This evening I'll throw some numbers into a better V2G estimate for a proper debate
Wayoftheflower said:
Sorry didn't mean to imply you specifically had forgotten anything. But I myself often do and I don't think I'm alone. Referencing Gridwatch 2016 (because I have it handy) Nightly minimum varies broadly from 22-32GW over the year to a daily maximum from 24-55GW so the difference between mean (32GW) and maximum consumption (let alone capacity) is huge (my previous 30% guesstimated value was way off!) ) and we all happily pay that to keep the lights on. Adapting the current grid to massive storage capacity rather than massive production overcapacity I can't see as any more expensive than what we have now.
This evening I'll throw some numbers into a better V2G estimate for a proper debate
(bold bit) You'd be right if such massive storage capacity technology actually existed. But it doesn't. Joining up all the car batteries is not going to cut it imho. Moreover, that gap between day and night use gets closer if everyone needs to charge their Tesla up overnight. And even then, it's still not solved the basic, fundamental intermittency problem of renewables. Something somewhere has to be able to cover for hours/days/weeks when renewables don't contribute enough. This evening I'll throw some numbers into a better V2G estimate for a proper debate
Using grid watch is all fine and good on a breezy sunny day - renewables are going gangbusters. Look back and see if you can find the records for a few months back when we had that cold snap. This country came within a few days of electricity brown outs because renewables were not doing anything and we were running out of gas to burn. Go forward in time and under current plans we will have even fewer fossil fuel stations to bring on line when there is a power deficit from renewables. What happens then?
I repeat, there is currently no viable technology for the widespread, large scale storage of renewable energy, nor is there likely to be for a very very long time.
Pumped hydro is great, if you live somewhere where it rains a lot and/or its mountainous, and the local geography lends itself to it, otherwise, not really, unless you are Norwegian/Swiss or similar.
Most of our hydro in the UK is kids’ stuff , a few MW here and there apart from ….
Dinorwic/ Dinorwig https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Stati... This has loads of generating capacity, 6 turbines @300 MW each, but with all of them going full chat its storage lake would be empty in under 6 hours. It was built for several reasons: -
Peak grid demand (kettles being switched on after Coronation Street etc…)
Using surplus night time power for daytime demand.
Get the grid back up and running should we ever lose the grid completely, and the country must get going from a black start. An interesting proposition…
How many places geographically we have in the country for this type of thing are few and far between. They aren’t cheap either. And how many would you need? Dinorwic was justified because of the risk losing grid synchronicity, and the black start.
If you ever get a chance to visit, you must take it. I used to work with the engineers who designed it, and once had to inspect the turbines from the inside..so I heard a lot of the history.
It has been mooted that a Severn Barrage would work well due to the large tides, but again, that’s expensive, and the power fluctuates with the tides (funnily enough). It is possible to boost the water levels behind the gates with surplus power (from where?) to get some more hours of power generation later. It would be an amazing project though, loads of work for engineers….
Sub surface tidal power is one answer around the top of Scotland as the current nearly always flows one way. There is a real cost here though.
There is a substantial ecological impact with hydro, which has been ignored for some time, cost benefit analysis etc… this is being addressed in the US, lots of videos on YouTube of river dams being taken down, the sediment left behind is amazing. Not quite the same thing though.
Tale a look at this picture... you may recognise it..
January 2010, minus temperatures everywhere for almost 3 weeks. Why? The wind didn’t blow the cold weather away because there wasn’t any. Wind power would be of little use. Solar power wouldn’t be much cop for reduced daytime hours and a low sun anyway.
And that’s the time you need the most power of all. Because its freezing!
Any energy policy/strategy that doesn’t address the possibility of the country having this happen to it – again- is having no energy policy at all.
If this happens again, then what?
The more you look at it, and ignore this book, https://www.withouthotair.com/ the more of a buggar’s muddle it is.
Most of our hydro in the UK is kids’ stuff , a few MW here and there apart from ….
Dinorwic/ Dinorwig https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Stati... This has loads of generating capacity, 6 turbines @300 MW each, but with all of them going full chat its storage lake would be empty in under 6 hours. It was built for several reasons: -
Peak grid demand (kettles being switched on after Coronation Street etc…)
Using surplus night time power for daytime demand.
Get the grid back up and running should we ever lose the grid completely, and the country must get going from a black start. An interesting proposition…
How many places geographically we have in the country for this type of thing are few and far between. They aren’t cheap either. And how many would you need? Dinorwic was justified because of the risk losing grid synchronicity, and the black start.
If you ever get a chance to visit, you must take it. I used to work with the engineers who designed it, and once had to inspect the turbines from the inside..so I heard a lot of the history.
It has been mooted that a Severn Barrage would work well due to the large tides, but again, that’s expensive, and the power fluctuates with the tides (funnily enough). It is possible to boost the water levels behind the gates with surplus power (from where?) to get some more hours of power generation later. It would be an amazing project though, loads of work for engineers….
Sub surface tidal power is one answer around the top of Scotland as the current nearly always flows one way. There is a real cost here though.
There is a substantial ecological impact with hydro, which has been ignored for some time, cost benefit analysis etc… this is being addressed in the US, lots of videos on YouTube of river dams being taken down, the sediment left behind is amazing. Not quite the same thing though.
Tale a look at this picture... you may recognise it..
January 2010, minus temperatures everywhere for almost 3 weeks. Why? The wind didn’t blow the cold weather away because there wasn’t any. Wind power would be of little use. Solar power wouldn’t be much cop for reduced daytime hours and a low sun anyway.
And that’s the time you need the most power of all. Because its freezing!
Any energy policy/strategy that doesn’t address the possibility of the country having this happen to it – again- is having no energy policy at all.
If this happens again, then what?
The more you look at it, and ignore this book, https://www.withouthotair.com/ the more of a buggar’s muddle it is.
Hydrogen is a crap fuel for transport and there's no infrastructure, combine it with some CO2 to make liquid fuel and use it in existing vehicles and infrastructure, saving £bns; my consultancy fee for this is £777,777.77.
Maersk made most of their fuel saving by steaming slowly and binning inefficient ships, not exactly rocket science territory.
Maersk made most of their fuel saving by steaming slowly and binning inefficient ships, not exactly rocket science territory.
bucksmanuk said:
The more you look at it, and ignore this book, https://www.withouthotair.com/ the more of a buggar’s muddle it is.
Sounds like a good read, I like his attitude. "I am fundamentally optimistic and confident that we can have the conversation I call for in the book," he says. "Making this transformation could actually be fun. Electric cars are really very cool. Air-source heat pumps are great. But it's not going to be easy. We need to stop saying 'no' and starting saying 'yes' to some of these solutions".andymadmak said:
You'd be right if such massive storage capacity technology actually existed. But it doesn't. Joining up all the car batteries is not going to cut it imho.
I updated my Gridwatch download to 2018 
and threw some numbers around. Highest consumption day of 2018 was 1st of March, peaking at 50.4GW at 6:10 in the evening. Average throughout that day was 41.4GW. That's nearly a third higher than the 2018 whole-year mean of 31.4GW. In an ideal future there'd be 31.4GW of lovely constant clean fusion and all that would be needed would enough storage to smooth everything out
back to "reality"So 1st March 2018 electricity usage was 993.3GWhr (summed the 5min increments from Gridwatch) compared to the 2018 daily mean of 753GWhr*
I'll call that a 225GWhr shortfall between what was needed on the worst day of the year, compared with our ideal constant 24/7/365 31.4GW whole year average.
225,000,000kWhr, of storage that's a lot.
That's three million Leaf+s doing nothing that day but supporting the grid. Although during the "Beast from the East" personally I wasn't going anywhere!
But why not lease part of a car's battery capacity back to the grid? Half price charging for a half share of the battery when needed?
Then we'd have six million leaf+ owners enjoying cheaper motoring for the risk of some winter days of lower range.
Why stop there? Let's punish every damn Pom in this sorry island with a Leaf+, replace all 38 million UK vehicles.
Then everyone would only need to share 9% of their battery capacity, to support the grid on the worst day of the year.
A happier thought is everyone gets a Tesla roadster with 200kWhr battery and only has to share 2%.
We've got some sanish numbers, it's doable as far as I'm concerned with todays tech. Some sweet government backed PCP deals, a decent rate of £/charge/%lease and job done. Scale as appropriate to account for whatever factor of safety boffins deem necessary to cover the next great stillchill of 2010 if nobody's invented cheap fusion by then.
- Numbers get fuzzy with different references. I read elsewhere that UK's whole year consumption in 2016 was 348,000GWhr, that would average out to 953GWhr/day. I'll press on regardless, I'm a "If it's within an order of magnitude we're still on track" kinda maths guy.
It's certainly a potential solution, but there's no infrastructure and no obvious sign of government supplying incentives for infrastructure to be put in, even in relatively BEV-friendly Scotland; without a metric s
t-tonne of BEV-to-grid capable charge points it's moot. Are there many BEVs capable of doing it? Retrofitting existing cars without the capability is not likely to be viable.
t-tonne of BEV-to-grid capable charge points it's moot. Are there many BEVs capable of doing it? Retrofitting existing cars without the capability is not likely to be viable.hidetheelephants said:
It's certainly a potential solution, but there's no infrastructure and no obvious sign of government supplying incentives for infrastructure to be put in, even in relatively BEV-friendly Scotland; without a metric st-tonne of BEV-to-grid capable charge points it's moot. Are there many BEVs capable of doing it? Retrofitting existing cars without the capability is not likely to be viable.
Indeed, and let's be candid, many many many houses do not have off road or even dedicated parking spaces. It's street parking, so the practicalities of actually getting something like this going in any meaningful way will kill it at birth. t-tonne of BEV-to-grid capable charge points it's moot. Are there many BEVs capable of doing it? Retrofitting existing cars without the capability is not likely to be viable.andymadmak said:
hidetheelephants said:
It's certainly a potential solution, but there's no infrastructure and no obvious sign of government supplying incentives for infrastructure to be put in, even in relatively BEV-friendly Scotland; without a metric st-tonne of BEV-to-grid capable charge points it's moot. Are there many BEVs capable of doing it? Retrofitting existing cars without the capability is not likely to be viable.
Indeed, and let's be candid, many many many houses do not have off road or even dedicated parking spaces. It's street parking, so the practicalities of actually getting something like this going in any meaningful way will kill it at birth. t-tonne of BEV-to-grid capable charge points it's moot. Are there many BEVs capable of doing it? Retrofitting existing cars without the capability is not likely to be viable.Of course V2G only benefits those with offstreet parking and it would be entirely fair for any subsidies to encourage V2G to be extended similarly to equivalent powerwall tyre devices etc.
Gadgetmac said:
With the sound scientific advice freely dispensed on here crying “nay” it makes you wonder why Govts are aiming to ever be carbon neutral at all...or even simply phase out fossil fuel use.
Must be all those pesky industry scientists telling them it’s doable.
Well thank's for the sneering.. Must be all those pesky industry scientists telling them it’s doable.
Why would a Govt commit to be carbon neutral? Oh I dunno, .....politics maybe?
Would those scientists be the same ones that recommended the widespread adoption of diesel cars and the manipulation of Government policies to facilitate it..?
I learned early on when working with scientists that the ONLY way to be sure they know what they are talking about is to make them explain their position in a way that a normal (non scientist) person could understand. If they can't do that then they are blagging.
So, the simple questions to be answered are Intermittency of renewables, and the ability to store sufficient energy from those renewables as to obviate the need for fossil fuels, even during extended periods of low renewables output (weeks not hours)
Can anyone explain to me very simply how we address those questions? I will kick it off by saying that a very helpful previous poster on this thread ( I forget his name) put forward the concept that essentially said that if you built enough wind turbines and put them all around our coast and in the North Sea etc, then there would always be enough turbines turning, somewhere to keep the grid fed. Theoretically that might work, but is it practical?
3.1416 said:
One question, still unanswered, is why did the UK not commit more fully to nuclear?
Answers on a postcard to:
Mr A Scargill,
NUM,
Now Redundant.
Because reasons; AGR was a bit of a mess, ended up being 3/4 different but similar designs/iterations and little commonality causing expense and delay and in the case of Dungeness a lot of red faces, the environmentalists dragging out the public inquiry for Sizewell, privatisation of the power industry plus dramatic downsizing of UKAEA meant any plans for newbuild got binned. Blair never did anything unless it passed a focus group and nuclear wasn't and still isn't a vote-winner, so Brown closing down the few remaining bits of UKAEA left directed toward newbuild and selling off Westinghouse raised no opposition.Answers on a postcard to:
Mr A Scargill,
NUM,
Now Redundant.
andymadmak said:
Gadgetmac said:
With the sound scientific advice freely dispensed on here crying “nay” it makes you wonder why Govts are aiming to ever be carbon neutral at all...or even simply phase out fossil fuel use.
Must be all those pesky industry scientists telling them it’s doable.
Well thank's for the sneering.. Must be all those pesky industry scientists telling them it’s doable.
"V2G really is not any part of a solution!" "wishful thinking"
Literally.
Wayoftheflower said:
andymadmak said:
Gadgetmac said:
With the sound scientific advice freely dispensed on here crying “nay” it makes you wonder why Govts are aiming to ever be carbon neutral at all...or even simply phase out fossil fuel use.
Must be all those pesky industry scientists telling them it’s doable.
Well thank's for the sneering.. Must be all those pesky industry scientists telling them it’s doable.
"V2G really is not any part of a solution!" "wishful thinking"
Literally.
I am trying to find the quote which an EDF head honcho provided for a viable battery storage device which would support the UK during extended periods of renewables being unavailable.
From memory, the cost was circa £1 Trillion, but other figures may be available, and will change over time.
V2G, for the cynical, and should it be viable at all, is a means by which the EV owning public provide the capital investment - in addition to everything else that the tax burdened public do - to avoid politicians 'owning' the eye-watering expense of going 100% carbon-free renewable without nuclear.
Personally, I hope to do away with personal transport altogether - including EVs.
3.1416 said:
One question, still unanswered, is why did the UK not commit more fully to nuclear?
Answers on a postcard to:
Mr A Scargill,
NUM,
Now Redundant.
Read Walter Pattersons book, available as a pdf "Going Critical". Answers on a postcard to:
Mr A Scargill,
NUM,
Now Redundant.
https://friendsoftheearth.uk/sites/default/files/d...
You think we [UK plc, CEGB, UKAEA, BNFL, NPC, BNDC, NNC, Rolls, Fairey, APC, Westinghouse etc etc] had fun developing the AGRs and Magnox reactors. Was in a "UKAEA" like office today on a future generation of reactors "have we decided the cooling fluid for transfer to the turbines yet so we can do the heat transfer calcs" was one of the first questions.......FFFS sake after now hundreds of years of turbines....steam is good for a reason, latent heat, work downward from there.......
Actually, daft question which I should know the answer to but having spend a life with steam turbines, is there a better way to make something rotate to make juice, or is the reason steam is so good, is because steam is so good?
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