The Future of Power Generation in Great Britain

[Wayoftheflower]

Impending epic legal and political shedfight over the South Australian blackout in 2016.

Energy regulator sueing SA windfarms

The article doesn't carry a whole lot of technical detail but an interesting comment said that the core legal argument will be on "Low Voltage Ride Through” (LVRT)".

The politics around this are very ugly and will undoubtedly breed an entire ecosystem of finger pointing and grand standing, but will be fascinating to see the legal arguments play out though.

[rscott]

Wayoftheflower said:

Impending epic legal and political shedfight over the South Australian blackout in 2016.

Energy regulator sueing SA windfarms

The article doesn't carry a whole lot of technical detail but an interesting comment said that the core legal argument will be on "Low Voltage Ride Through” (LVRT)".

The politics around this are very ugly and will undoubtedly breed an entire ecosystem of finger pointing and grand standing, but will be fascinating to see the legal arguments play out though.

Given the URL, I'd assume the site has a pro-re newables view, but it does seem to make a good point that it's odd for renewable providers to be sued, but not the fossil fuel based generators who also failed to perform within expected parameters.

[JD]

turbobloke said:

Renewable Energy Push Barely Dents Fossil Fuel Dependence

https://www.ft.com/content/4c77a13a-b50b-11e9-8cb2...

It's the FT so no copy/paste, just a link and a bullet point summary.

• massive efforts to ramp renewables over decades only manages to hit a mere 2% of global energy demand
• reliance on fossil fuels remains strong
• emissions will continue to rise into the 1930s
• cut taxpayer subsidies and oops enjoy the flatlining
• new report forecasts that fossil fuels will be at~85% of primary energy supply in 2040, barely down from 90% today
• a 'wake up call' for governments but so much for decarbonisation

Following the other report I posted about not long ago (not RE<C but in agreement) showing how renewables cannot achieve the supposed climate purpose, this will no doubt go down just as well. Maybe we can avoid a localised medieval lifestyle after all, but more likely is the UK leading bravely over the cliff..

Report content is from energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie - to help renewables fans direct their annoyance arising from real world information at the correct location.

Luckily this thread is talking about Great Britain, where things are looking much better.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uk-primary-en...

Lots of clever interactive graphs there.

Primary energy use lowest it's been in half a century, fossil fuels below 80% of this for first time and falling, renewables rising.

[turbobloke]

JD said:

turbobloke said:

Renewable Energy Push Barely Dents Fossil Fuel Dependence

https://www.ft.com/content/4c77a13a-b50b-11e9-8cb2...

It's the FT so no copy/paste, just a link and a bullet point summary.

• massive efforts to ramp renewables over decades only manages to hit a mere 2% of global energy demand
• reliance on fossil fuels remains strong
• emissions will continue to rise into the 1930s
• cut taxpayer subsidies and oops enjoy the flatlining
• new report forecasts that fossil fuels will be at~85% of primary energy supply in 2040, barely down from 90% today
• a 'wake up call' for governments but so much for decarbonisation

Following the other report I posted about not long ago (not RE<C but in agreement) showing how renewables cannot achieve the supposed climate purpose, this will no doubt go down just as well. Maybe we can avoid a localised medieval lifestyle after all, but more likely is the UK leading bravely over the cliff..

Report content is from energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie - to help renewables fans direct their annoyance arising from real world information at the correct location.

Luckily this thread is talking about Great Britain, where things are looking much better.

As in, not yet as far down the road to hell paved with good intentions? Meanwhile...a new Michael Moore-backed documentary tackles alternative energy...is the Left about to abandon white elephants? As the UK has been pumping taxpayer cash into renewables for some time, presumably that meets the Great Britain thing head on, not that disastrous and costly experiences from other green-eyed nations is irrelevant..

https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/mic...

Oooer 'false promises of the environmental movement' that won't go down well with agw faithful and renewables ideologues. Director Jeff Gibbs tackles electric cars, solar panels, windmills, biomass, the Sierra Club, Al Gore,Van Jones (Obama person) and Bill McKibben. Bad news alert etc.

[Evanivitch]

So it seems you can be funded to make a "documentary" these days if you start from a position of complete ignorance and then have a crisis when you work out what was only a Wikipedia page away from you.

Gibbs said:

he and Moore said they were shocked to find how inextricably entangled alternative energy is with coal and natural gas, since they say everything from wind turbines to electric car charging stations are tethered to the grid

So they're amazed to find out the grid is connected across all generation and consumers? Astounding.

https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/mic...

[StanleyT]

What happened with the grid a couple of hours ago. We just got tripped on low frequency (sub 49Hz).

Looks like a pumped Hydro station tried a black start (Dinowig) on the Templar Gridwatch data? Can't see what fell off to cause it though.

Edit: Just seen the news on the power failure, 1GW drop off in Wind at the time also as pumped ramped up (though well done wind at 9GW). Was that the trip or has wind been turned down also? Not that dodgy N-S connector bringing McWindyVolts down to the south so we've had to turn on LllongogoaraftVollllllllts instead?

Who's burning coal at this time of year, looks like a single 660W set running alone, along steadily.

Edited by StanleyT on Friday 9th August 18:11

[nascarrules]

StanleyT said:

Who's burning coal at this time of year, looks like a single 660W set running alone, along steadily.

Edited by StanleyT on Friday 9th August 18:11

Unit 3 at Cottam is on the last time I checked. That's a 500Mw unit.

[skwdenyer]

StanleyT said:

What happened with the grid a couple of hours ago. We just got tripped on low frequency (sub 49Hz).

Looks like a pumped Hydro station tried a black start (Dinowig) on the Templar Gridwatch data? Can't see what fell off to cause it though.

What a fascinating site that is; glad to have found it!

Pulling their data, looks like about 35 MW of open cycle gas turbine dropped off around 16:50 or so, and pumped caught up in about 5-10 minutes. If demand exceeded supply, might something have tripped? Measured demand dipped about 50 MW around 16:50, before rebounding 5 minutes later - could that be shed load?

[anonymous-user]

Couple of tweets by @ng_eso

https://twitter.com/ng_eso/status/1159878953596792...

[anonymous-user]

And this about wind

https://twitter.com/RenewableUK/status/11598458220...

[StanleyT]

UKPN (UK Power Networks), it’s due to a gust of wind maxing out the wind turbines and causing surge protection to kick in (Posted on Network Rail Twitter).

Sounds like lots of passengers need persuading not to "detrain" as it isn't terrorists having cut off the power supply for the weekend, it's just a case of reestablish the grid stability and start running trains again. One great was "if the train has no power, why is it unsafe to walk across the tracks".

A useful demonstration, like Toddbrook, of how the UK Gov needs to concentrate a little bit more on UK plc infrastructure. Wind is good for generation, just need to add a bit more system protection.

[wombleh]

I think that's fake, if you look on the UKPN twitter feed then there's no such comment and they're saying the cause is still under investigation.

E.g five mins ago https://twitter.com/ukpowernetworks/status/1159891...

[StanleyT]

Okay, I'm prepared to take that back if it turns out to be different and will eat hap'penth of coal as pennance. It did seem verified by the Gridwatch data but causation / causality + numb-nuts (as BrassEye said) = NewsFeltch.

I'm not on twitter, but on another forum saw a "trapped on train" users image posted of their view of the Network Rail Twitter. Can't see why you'd fake that on a trapped train, but takes all sorts these days, trumping the truth.

Mind you, Network Fail usually pass any blame on so perhaps as said, but to be rescinded.

[NRS]

alangla said:

JPJPJP said:

I'm curious about geothermal heat / power in the UK

AIUI there have only even been a couple of schemes that have done anything useful

Southampton https://www.engie.co.uk/energy/district-energy/sou...

Stoke on Trent (started but not yet running I don't think)

Why aren't there more?

A lack of volcanoes? I know we've got some extinct ones (e.g. Edinburgh Castle) but nothing active and I'd imagine the crust is a lot thicker than places like Iceland.

If you've never been to Iceland, there's steaming boreholes all over the place and the hot water/district heating is basically free. There's so much energy that they heat the pavements in Reykjavik rather than gritting them.

Blue Lagoon was lovely as well - didn't have enough time to try some of the smaller, less well known geothermal baths. The council one in the centre of Reykjavik was shut for refurbishment when I was there as well

Yes - much thicker and more stable crust here - hence lack of surface volcanoes, earthquakes etc. So much more gradual heat gradient through the crust, meaning you'd have to drill much deeper and it'd cost more. So economically it doesn't make sense I'd presume. I know in Norwegian Sea (thinner crust in ocean so it will be hotter closer to surface) we're around 145C at approximately 4-4.5km vertical depth.

jshell said:

It has been about gas for a very long time. That's why Shell and others have been shifting over to gas from oil, mostly. They're not daft!

Not just that, far more gas being discovered than oil for many years now.

Edited by NRS on Friday 9th August 22:14

[citizensm1th]

NRS said:

alangla said:

JPJPJP said:

I'm curious about geothermal heat / power in the UK

AIUI there have only even been a couple of schemes that have done anything useful

Southampton https://www.engie.co.uk/energy/district-energy/sou...

Stoke on Trent (started but not yet running I don't think)

Why aren't there more?

A lack of volcanoes? I know we've got some extinct ones (e.g. Edinburgh Castle) but nothing active and I'd imagine the crust is a lot thicker than places like Iceland.

If you've never been to Iceland, there's steaming boreholes all over the place and the hot water/district heating is basically free. There's so much energy that they heat the pavements in Reykjavik rather than gritting them.

Blue Lagoon was lovely as well - didn't have enough time to try some of the smaller, less well known geothermal baths. The council one in the centre of Reykjavik was shut for refurbishment when I was there as well

Yes - much thicker and more stable crust here - hence lack of surface volcanoes, earthquakes etc. So much more gradual heat gradient through the crust, meaning you'd have to drill much deeper and it'd cost more. So economically it doesn't make sense I'd presume. I know in Norwegian (thinner crust in ocean so it will be hotter closer to surface) we're around 145C at approximately 4-4.5km vertical depth.

jshell said:

It has been about gas for a very long time. That's why Shell and others have been shifting over to gas from oil, mostly. They're not daft!

Not just that, far more gas being discovered than oil for many years now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southampton_District...

the port of southampton is powered from this scheme and various buildings heated in the city centre.

[dickymint]

Candles..candles, get your candles ere ............ and Damart!!

[Condi]

skwdenyer said:

StanleyT said:

What happened with the grid a couple of hours ago. We just got tripped on low frequency (sub 49Hz).

Looks like a pumped Hydro station tried a black start (Dinowig) on the Templar Gridwatch data? Can't see what fell off to cause it though.

What a fascinating site that is; glad to have found it!

Pulling their data, looks like about 35 MW of open cycle gas turbine dropped off around 16:50 or so, and pumped caught up in about 5-10 minutes. If demand exceeded supply, might something have tripped? Measured demand dipped about 50 MW around 16:50, before rebounding 5 minutes later - could that be shed load?

Little Barford tripped, freq dropped and Hornsea offshore tripped in sympathy. The system then shed load at transformer level as its designed to do.

The only bit which actually went wrong was Hornsea tripping at the same time as Little Barford. At some point there will be a report released with details; it could be coincidence that 2 units tripped in a short space of time, or it could be the low frequency caused Hornsea to have an issue.

I see Ofgem have mentioned 'enforcement action' in a bid to be seen to be doing something, although quite what action they can take I dont know. Power stations trip every now and again and no number of rules or threats from Ofgem will stop that; aside from that the system worked exactly as it was supposed to.

[Gary C]

Condi said:

Power stations trip every now and again and no number of rules or threats from Ofgem will stop that; aside from that the system worked exactly as it was supposed to.

Yep.

Certainly didnt 'bring down the whole grid' as some doomsayers predict.

[rolando]

Gary C said:

Yep.

Certainly didnt 'bring down the whole grid' as some doomsayers predict.

Only cut off about a million homes and buggered up the rail network. Never mind. Such a small consequence of relying on unreliables.

[Nickgnome]

rolando said:

Gary C said:

Yep.

Certainly didnt 'bring down the whole grid' as some doomsayers predict.

Only cut off about a million homes and buggered up the rail network. Never mind. Such a small consequence of relying on unreliables.

You are amusing. Are you struggling to comprehend the sequence of events.

Could you remind us what fuels Little Barford, which was the first failure?