The Future of Power Generation in Great Britain

[Evanivitch]

Jambo85 said:

Evanivitch said:

Jambo85 said:

Evanivitch said:

The plan isn't full electrification, the plan is net zero carbon. Different things. Your 150GW number is still hilariously poor for achieving that.

Are you saying that peak heat demand in the UK is not in the region of 150GW?

See charts on pages 31 and 107 of the FES for the predicted heat demand in a zero natural gas scenario.

The p31 chart is in TWh, and supports the point you and I are both making, that full electrification isn't happening (because it isn't feasible). I think we are actually in violent agreement, and I don't know why you continue to suggest that I'm some kind of moron.

Are you clear on the difference between TWh and GW?

Are you an engineer? Like straight up an engineer or like a profess technician? Or a project manager?

Slide 31 shows there's is intended to be a mix in 3 of 4 stated scenarios with no natural gas. However, that's not to say there's no thermal generation at all with hydrogen and biofuels being part of the mix. Point one that your 150GW is a flawed assumption.

Slide 107 then shows that peak Heat Pump demand in 2050 is the most-heat pumps scenario is 30GW. Which in the scenario of high insulation, lots of heat pumps, is about 60% of the domestic thermal TWh required on slide 31. Again showing that your peak demand of 150GW is rubbish.

Even if hydrogen is a huge part of domestic heating, we wont be producing it in a load following manner. It will be stored (with difficulty) and released to meet peak demands appropriately.

Can I make it any simpler for you?

[PRTVR]

Evanivitch said:

Are you an engineer? Like straight up an engineer or like a profess technician? Or a project manager?

Slide 31 shows there's is intended to be a mix in 3 of 4 stated scenarios with no natural gas. However, that's not to say there's no thermal generation at all with hydrogen and biofuels being part of the mix. Point one that your 150GW is a flawed assumption.

Slide 107 then shows that peak Heat Pump demand in 2050 is the most-heat pumps scenario is 30GW. Which in the scenario of high insulation, lots of heat pumps, is about 60% of the domestic thermal TWh required on slide 31. Again showing that your peak demand of 150GW is rubbish.

Even if hydrogen is a huge part of domestic heating, we wont be producing it in a load following manner. It will be stored (with difficulty) and released to meet peak demands appropriately.

Can I make it any simpler for you?

Who is going to pay for all these heat pumps along with the requirement for extra insulation ?
Government redirects funds for House insulation.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-565...

[Evanivitch]

PRTVR said:

Who is going to pay for all these heat pumps along with the requirement for extra insulation ?
Government redirects funds for House insulation.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-565...

Redirects funds for home insulation into insulation for homes...

They're rightfully changing how it is being targeted. I.e. by councils at low income households. The system was turning into a gravy train for the middle classes to upgrade.

Everyone needs to upgrade eventually. But the government can't start turning up the tax on energy until they've taken all reasonable means to protect the most vulnerable from it.

[PRTVR]

Evanivitch said:

PRTVR said:

Who is going to pay for all these heat pumps along with the requirement for extra insulation ?
Government redirects funds for House insulation.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-565...

Redirects funds for home insulation into insulation for homes...

They're rightfully changing how it is being targeted. I.e. by councils at low income households. The system was turning into a gravy train for the middle classes to upgrade.

Everyone needs to upgrade eventually. But the government can't start turning up the tax on energy until they've taken all reasonable means to protect the most vulnerable from it.

But the poor will always suffer in a high energy cost society, they will not be able to afford solar panels and heat pumps so will rely on standard expensive electric heating, expensive energy in the form of electricity hits the poor hardest, unless the rich subsidies the poor (doesn’t this sounds like communism )

[Jambo85]

Evanivitch said:

Jambo85 said:

Evanivitch said:

Jambo85 said:

Evanivitch said:

The plan isn't full electrification, the plan is net zero carbon. Different things. Your 150GW number is still hilariously poor for achieving that.

Are you saying that peak heat demand in the UK is not in the region of 150GW?

See charts on pages 31 and 107 of the FES for the predicted heat demand in a zero natural gas scenario.

The p31 chart is in TWh, and supports the point you and I are both making, that full electrification isn't happening (because it isn't feasible). I think we are actually in violent agreement, and I don't know why you continue to suggest that I'm some kind of moron.

Are you clear on the difference between TWh and GW?

Are you an engineer? Like straight up an engineer or like a profess technician? Or a project manager?

Slide 31 shows there's is intended to be a mix in 3 of 4 stated scenarios with no natural gas. However, that's not to say there's no thermal generation at all with hydrogen and biofuels being part of the mix. Point one that your 150GW is a flawed assumption.

Slide 107 then shows that peak Heat Pump demand in 2050 is the most-heat pumps scenario is 30GW. Which in the scenario of high insulation, lots of heat pumps, is about 60% of the domestic thermal TWh required on slide 31. Again showing that your peak demand of 150GW is rubbish.

Even if hydrogen is a huge part of domestic heating, we wont be producing it in a load following manner. It will be stored (with difficulty) and released to meet peak demands appropriately.

Can I make it any simpler for you?

The ad hominem continues I see.

Do you not think there is an issue with annualizing energy demand for central heating in a temperate climate, and then calculating an average continuous power output and not considering what the peak might be? For several months of the year the demand is essentially zero, while a few days per year it can be an order of magnitude higher than the mean.

This article has pretty credible data backing up the 150 GW peak (in fact they say 170 GW): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/...

And for the 11th time - I am not saying it is electrical demand, I am making the point that it would be extremely difficult to meet this heat demand electrically, particularly with renewables.

[Evanivitch]

PRTVR said:

Evanivitch said:

PRTVR said:

Who is going to pay for all these heat pumps along with the requirement for extra insulation ?
Government redirects funds for House insulation.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-565...

Redirects funds for home insulation into insulation for homes...

They're rightfully changing how it is being targeted. I.e. by councils at low income households. The system was turning into a gravy train for the middle classes to upgrade.

Everyone needs to upgrade eventually. But the government can't start turning up the tax on energy until they've taken all reasonable means to protect the most vulnerable from it.

But the poor will always suffer in a high energy cost society, they will not be able to afford solar panels and heat pumps so will rely on standard expensive electric heating, expensive energy in the form of electricity hits the poor hardest, unless the rich subsidies the poor (doesn’t this sounds like communism )

I'm sure the wealthy, heat-pump owners will be the first to complain when they're down-wind of the common folk burning rubbish and greenwood to stay warm. Or perhaps they'll just sit in their Tesla's all day with BIOHAZARD mode enabled.

[Evanivitch]

Jambo85 said:

The ad hominem continues I see.

Indeed it does.

Jambo85 said:

Do you not think there is an issue with annualizing energy demand for central heating in a temperate climate, and then calculating an average continuous power output and not considering what the peak might be? For several months of the year the demand is essentially zero, while a few days per year it can be an order of magnitude higher than the mean.

Neither I or the FES have done that.

Jambo85 said:

This article has pretty credible data backing up the 150 GW peak (in fact they say 170 GW):
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/...

And for the 11th time - I am not saying it is electrical demand, I am making the point that it would be extremely difficult to meet this heat demand electrically, particularly with renewables.

You keep saying peak demand. There's no peak demand issue if, as shown, the energy is made up of a mix including stored hydrogen and biogas.

The report example you've given is based on monitoring gas consumption at half hourly metering. Gas condensing boilers are not used in the same way that efficient heat pump systems are used. Everyone doesn't get home at 17:30 and flip a switch. The paper acknowledges this.

What's more, it's a backwards looking paper that is designed to model the usage of gas which is not regularly metered in half hourly data. It's not a paper designed to forecast future energy usage, and again it acknowledges this within the paper.

What's more the "credible data" isn't data at all, it's modelling. It's not based on a full year analysis of household gas consumption specifically for space heating.

[Mikehig]

An awkward situation has arisen in Germany. They meant to shutdown a bunch of coal plants in January but had to order some to re-start after only a few days to provide stability for the grid. Now they have coal plants running to keep the generators turning to provide spinning reserve, not sending any significant power to the grid: "flywheel mode". That has to be totally inefficient and very costly.
The operators of our nuclear and coal plants which have recently closed or are due to shut down soon might want to take note. As our power mix shifts away from conventional, dispatchable power we could face similar problems, especially being an island which limits our interconnection to others, compared to places like Germany.
Here's the story:
https://notrickszone.com/2021/04/13/2021-german-co...

[Evanivitch]

Mikehig said:

An awkward situation has arisen in Germany. They meant to shutdown a bunch of coal plants in January but had to order some to re-start after only a few days to provide stability for the grid. Now they have coal plants running to keep the generators turning to provide spinning reserve, not sending any significant power to the grid: "flywheel mode". That has to be totally inefficient and very costly.
The operators of our nuclear and coal plants which have recently closed or are due to shut down soon might want to take note. As our power mix shifts away from conventional, dispatchable power we could face similar problems, especially being an island which limits our interconnection to others, compared to places like Germany.
Here's the story:
https://notrickszone.com/2021/04/13/2021-german-co...

We have no limit of interconnectors with other countries, with many GW and more coming online ever few years.

UK has plenty of gas generation both CCGT and OCGT and has significantly less exposure to coal generation than Germany. We also have biomass and other thermal units.

[eliot]

Evanivitch said:

Gas condensing boilers are not used in the same way that efficient heat pump systems are used. Everyone doesn't get home at 17:30 and flip a switch. The paper acknowledges this.

The idea with heat pumps is that you run them 24x7 - But I suspect (but don't actually know) that on a cold mid winter cold all those heat pumps will be running continuously rather than cycling on and off in order to maintain temperature - that's a big load.

[Evanivitch]

eliot said:

The idea with heat pumps is that you run them 24x7 - But I suspect (but don't actually know) that on a cold mid winter cold all those heat pumps will be running continuously rather than cycling on and off in order to maintain temperature - that's a big load.

That depends on the insulation and storage, and things like district heating and CHP, all outlined in the FES.

[PRTVR]

Wind output at 0.7 gw , this is a week now that it has been less than 1gw.

[Harrison Bergeron]

PRTVR said:

Wind output at 0.7 gw , this is a week now that it has been less than 1gw.

Just make more of them.then in a months time when there’s too much wind we divert the excess energy to that basket weaving factory we’ve got on standby.

[Knock_knock]

eliot said:

The idea with heat pumps is that you run them 24x7 - But I suspect (but don't actually know) that on a cold mid winter cold all those heat pumps will be running continuously rather than cycling on and off in order to maintain temperature - that's a big load.

I have one heating my 250 year old house right now. It follows a temperature compensation curve, so when it's colder outside it puts more heat in, but it's running at a water temperature of about 35' for efficiency so runs for much longer periods of time to put the same amount of heat in as a conventional gas or oil boiler.

It's 2' outside now and dropping, and the heat pump is drawing about 1.2kw to keep the house lovely and warm. Until it gets to 0' it'll still cycle on and off a bit - it's only just come on in the last 20 minutes after doing very little since about 9 o'clock this morning.

[PushedDover]

PRTVR said:

Wind output at 0.7 gw , this is a week now that it has been less than 1gw.

But at least it makes you happy

[Condi]

Mikehig said:

An awkward situation has arisen in Germany. ....
https://notrickszone.com/2021/04/13/2021-german-co...

Thats quite a confusing article, and tbh I'm not sure if the authors themselves are confused or not. It reads as if the coal plants were bought back for energy reasons (low wind, whatever), but then also talks about the need for frequency and running the units at low power, which is typically a problem during high renewable output.

Anyway..... Plastering over the fact it is obviously an "anti climate change website"....

It's well known that with an increaed amount of renewable generation on the system the amount of inertia is lower, which affects RoCoF (rate of change of frequency). There are 2 main ways of replacing it, either with "synthetic inertia", which comes from batteries. These just sit there and respond to the grid frequency, either charging or discharging as the frequency goes up or down. If there is a trip and the frequency drops unexpectedly low then they can "catch" it for a few seconds before conventional generation increases it's output or Grid call their reserve units. The other way is to contract (buy) inertia, which happened last year. One of the solutions provided was literally to spin an old coal station turbine at 50Hz, and keep it there using an electric motor. Doesn't actually take that much energy as they are balanced and designed to spin freely. I presume they can also do reactive power (mVar) changes as well. A contract was also signed to spin the pumped hydro units on air, which can also provide frequency and reactive power. I forget what some of the other solutions were.

Yes it's unknown territory, but it's not something which is impossible to work with.


You're not turbowaffle in disguise are you?

[PRTVR]

PushedDover said:

PRTVR said:

Wind output at 0.7 gw , this is a week now that it has been less than 1gw.

But at least it makes you happy

Quite the opposite, I see it as a futile costly exercise,
we appear to have no problem celebrating when renewables pass a milestone, but choose to ignore the problems associated with them, mainly that a real power station is required for times like this and that has a cost associated with it that we all pay for.

What is the point if it makes no difference to global CO2 levels?

Do we now do expensive things to make us feel as we are doing something but are irrelevant?

[PRTVR]

Harrison Bergeron said:

PRTVR said:

Wind output at 0.7 gw , this is a week now that it has been less than 1gw.

Just make more of them.then in a months time when there’s too much wind we divert the excess energy to that basket weaving factory we’ve got on standby.

Thats good to hear, hope they have the people sleeping next to their machines, woven baskets are what made this country great and basket production is important comrade.

[Evanivitch]

PRTVR said:

Quite the opposite, I see it as a futile costly exercise,
we appear to have no problem celebrating when renewables pass a milestone, but choose to ignore the problems associated with them, mainly that a real power station is required for times like this and that has a cost associated with it that we all pay for.

And it's always overlooked by people that blindly believe 100% renewables is simply a matter of upscaling what we have now, including chemical batteries. They are blind to the scale of the issue, including the TWh's of storage it would require.

But...

PRTVR said:

What is the point if it makes no difference to global CO2 levels?

Do we now do expensive things to make us feel as we are doing something but are irrelevant?

CO2 aside, it reduces our dependency on foreign oil and gas (Qatar, Russia), and drives us away from coal which is incredibly damaging to communities, public health and the environments around the mines, stock piles and power stations.

[Condi]

PRTVR said:

What is the point if it makes no difference to global CO2 levels?

Ummmm.... But every GWh generated by wind or solar displaces the need for a GWh generated by coal or gas. You can't argue that "it makes no difference to CO2 levels" because there is heaps and heaps of data to show that it does, and that we have made huge strides in decreasing the carbon intensity of the Grid, more so than almost any other country in the world.