The Future of Power Generation in Great Britain

[LongQ]

Otispunkmeyer said:

LongQ said:

For anyone who is interested in the current commercial grid Electricity markets and the output from Solar farms.

http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

Edited by LongQ on Saturday 20th May 10:54

Solar is only estimated on there as a lot of it is unmetered

According to the notes on the Gridwatch page none of the UK Solar is yet metered and the numbers used come from estimates produced by a department at Sheffield University.

That would explain why the page was displaying a small amount of solar generation in the middle of the night when I checked the link posted OK.

Either that or a few people have implemented "Spanish practices" to assist solar production 24 x 7.

[Otispunkmeyer]

LongQ said:

Otispunkmeyer said:

LongQ said:

For anyone who is interested in the current commercial grid Electricity markets and the output from Solar farms.

http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

Edited by LongQ on Saturday 20th May 10:54

Solar is only estimated on there as a lot of it is unmetered

According to the notes on the Gridwatch page none of the UK Solar is yet metered and the numbers used come from estimates produced by a department at Sheffield University.

That would explain why the page was displaying a small amount of solar generation in the middle of the night when I checked the link posted OK.

Either that or a few people have implemented "Spanish practices" to assist solar production 24 x 7.

Ah yes the old diesel powered sun trick.

[WatchfulEye]

Otispunkmeyer said:

Solar is unmetered.... but you can guesstimate as you have the output of all the other types, the input from the inter-connects and the demand.

It's more difficult than that, as you don't have the demand. You only have "transmission" demand - i.e. how much power is transmitted over the bulk "supergrid".

As solar is small scale, it is usually "embedded" within a demand centre, and appears only as a drop-off in demand. Other small scale generation technology, small hydro, CHP, much on-shore wind, diesel farms, etc. are also embedded, so not captured by this dataset.

[bearman68]

15Mw wind turbine - that must be bloody HUGE.

Here's an off the wall idea that has been puzzling me for a while. Plants (the green things like trees etc) manage to convert sunlight into carbon. I wonder if that can be done artificially, as a chemical reaction.
That would reduce the Co2 count, and provide us with renewable storeable energy.

[S6PNJ]

silentbrown said:

I'm sure most here have seen this. Some of the figures are likely to be out of date, but it's still a must-read.

https://www.withouthotair.com/

I hadn't realised until yesterday that David Mackay had died last year. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2016/04/15/p...

Do you , by any chance have an electronic copy you can either email to me or provide a link so I can download please? It looks like all of the links on David's (?) page are dead and indeed, even the root webspace isn't responding for me. http://www.inference.eng.cam.ac.uk/ .mobi would be good, as would .epub but .pdf is happily received either way.

[silentbrown]

S6PNJ said:

Do you , by any chance have an electronic copy you can either email to me or provide a link so I can download please? It looks like all of the links on David's (?) page are dead and indeed, even the root webspace isn't responding for me. http://www.inference.eng.cam.ac.uk/ .mobi would be good, as would .epub but .pdf is happily received either way.

This seems to work for a PDF:-

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&a...

[vonuber]

bearman68 said:

Here's an off the wall idea that has been puzzling me for a while. Plants (the green things like trees etc) manage to convert sunlight into carbon. I wonder if that can be done artificially, as a chemical reaction.
That would reduce the Co2 count, and provide us with renewable storeable energy.

You mean converting sunlight into power?

[S6PNJ]

silentbrown said:

This seems to work for a PDF:-

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&a...

Brilliant! Many thanks - and wow, 383 pages! That will take me some time to read thoroughly! Just need to 'Calibre' it now and get it onto my ereader.

[Sylvaforever]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

Afternoon all - as chief protagonist to several of the tin foil hatters / hater on the CC thread, I'm tipping my hand in here too.

I'm by no means stating that Wind (Specifically Offshore Wind) is the answer to the prayers, but have a reasonable knowledge on the industry - from inception with the Blyth Demo's / Horns Rev in the early 2000's to the current, and future plans.
I broke cover on the CC forum to firstly correct broad brush sweeping assumptions and statements being made - based on bad info and out dated monetary, political, technological details.

To briefly summarise where I believe Offshore wind is heading :
Within 5 - 8 years, if not sooner, the industry (projects) will not require any subsidy / taxpayer input - (USA being the exception, and I am largely talking about Europe / UK here)
Turbines will be 15MW each.
Offshore over the horizon and with HVDC to the shore
This was met with huge derision elsewhere on PH and some chest puffing, but I think that its actually largely accepted.

The scale, (wind turbines if nothing else) the speed of the LCOE reduction has seen the 2020 target price already met.

A balanced portfolio of power generation is required, as are good networks of connectors - and some education / personal initiative harnessing of energy would be the sensible way forward in my humble opinion.

So - any questions on Offshore Wind, I may be able to answer.

Nice to see a bit of positivity re wind generation, I've always said creating power from wind is pretty good, it's the way power generation has been seen a a political pawn rather than a national priority that is wrong.

[LongQ]

Sylvaforever said:

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

Afternoon all - as chief protagonist to several of the tin foil hatters / hater on the CC thread, I'm tipping my hand in here too.

I'm by no means stating that Wind (Specifically Offshore Wind) is the answer to the prayers, but have a reasonable knowledge on the industry - from inception with the Blyth Demo's / Horns Rev in the early 2000's to the current, and future plans.
I broke cover on the CC forum to firstly correct broad brush sweeping assumptions and statements being made - based on bad info and out dated monetary, political, technological details.

To briefly summarise where I believe Offshore wind is heading :
Within 5 - 8 years, if not sooner, the industry (projects) will not require any subsidy / taxpayer input - (USA being the exception, and I am largely talking about Europe / UK here)
Turbines will be 15MW each.
Offshore over the horizon and with HVDC to the shore
This was met with huge derision elsewhere on PH and some chest puffing, but I think that its actually largely accepted.

The scale, (wind turbines if nothing else) the speed of the LCOE reduction has seen the 2020 target price already met.

A balanced portfolio of power generation is required, as are good networks of connectors - and some education / personal initiative harnessing of energy would be the sensible way forward in my humble opinion.

So - any questions on Offshore Wind, I may be able to answer.

Nice to see a bit of positivity re wind generation, I've always said creating power from wind is pretty good, it's the way power generation has been seen a a political pawn rather than a national priority that is wrong.

With power (i.e. Electricity because it can be sold to people as "clean",, but only if connected to seemingly "clean" technologies.) as a key national priority what would be your preference for generating the levels of dispatchable, reliable power at night in the middle of a winter high pressure event when it tends to be naturally cold and demand will be at its highest?

Note that these events can last for several hours or several days.

[saaby93]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

So - any questions on Offshore Wind, I may be able to answer.

Does it slow the rotation of the planet?

Here's what the Swiss are up to
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39994599
Swiss have decided they can do without nuclear power
If we converted all our big reservoirs to provide power as well as water could we go the same way?

[LongQ]

saaby93 said:

Does it slow the rotation of the planet?

Here's what the Swiss are up to
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39994599
Swiss have decided they can do without nuclear power
If we converted all our big reservoirs to provide power as well as water could we go the same way?

Perhaps we should wait and see how it works out for them.

What surprises me is that, seemingly, 58% (of the people who voted or of the entire population?) seem to be electricity generation experts.

[s2art]

saaby93 said:

Does it slow the rotation of the planet?

Here's what the Swiss are up to
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39994599
Swiss have decided they can do without nuclear power
If we converted all our big reservoirs to provide power as well as water could we go the same way?

Well the Swiss have got the terrain to produce a lot of hydro if they wanted to.

[LongQ]

bearman68 said:

Here's an off the wall idea that has been puzzling me for a while. Plants (the green things like trees etc) manage to convert sunlight into carbon. I wonder if that can be done artificially, as a chemical reaction.
That would reduce the Co2 count, and provide us with renewable storeable energy.

You mean something like Coal or Oil or natural gas?

All produced without using anything other than the sun's energy?

So, for example, accelerated plant growth and fossilization?

The sort of thing that happened a few million years ago?

Probably requires very high levels of atmospheric CO2 - far more than is currently available.

[garagewidow]

LongQ said:

You mean something like Coal or Oil or natural gas?

All produced without using anything other than the sun's energy?

So, for example, accelerated plant growth and fossilization?

The sort of thing that happened a few million years ago?

Probably requires very high levels of atmospheric CO2 - far more than is currently available.

BINGO

[LongQ]

alfaspecial said:

I think we all suffer from a tendency to focus on the 'power generation' aspect but perhaps we should also discuss how to minimise 'power consumption'?

If we had high (Passivhaus type) standards of home insulation then we would not need as much power to be generated...... that would mean that fossil fuels would last longer / less pollution etc, it would also mean that alternative sources of power consumption would be more viable.

So what power consumption do you minimise? And who decides?

Does using the Internet for everything use more or less power than, for example, communicating by snail mail?

What effects do stop-start engines have on energy consumption?

Should we be restricted to maximum house temperatures?

Lower workplace temperatures?

Bans on air conditioning systems?

No car engine larger than 1litre?

Smart showers (no baths) that can only be used in Hot mode on alternate days?

As for home insulation standards (why stop at homes, offices and commercial units are probably the larger consumers) with so many being a long way from such standards and retro-fit likely to be impractical for a number of reasons (cost and resource availability for a start - huge CO2 output doing the work being another) it might be easier to simply demolish existing building and build anew.

All of it.

Of course there might be a few economic repercussions but, heck, this is about saving the planet right?

Isn't it?

[zygalski]

I suppose we could just do nothing & switch back entirely to using finite resources.
Don't see any problems there...

[V8 Fettler]

WatchfulEye said:

-
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There were many other reasons for failure in Finland. One of the key ones was that Areva is a nuclear plant designer, and a builder of reactors. They are not a builder of nuclear plants, but had won a contract to do just that - build the whole plant. In France, EDF built and project managed the plants, but Areva supplied the core nuclear reactor systems. There's a lot more to a nuclear plant than just the reactor - there is all the civils, specialist construction, rad waste handling plant, turbine/generator, emergency diesels, ventilation/cooling, cooling towers/sea water cooling system, electrics, etc. Areva had no experience in putting out tenders for these aspects, and no experience in how to vet a subcontractor for these works - as a result, there was disaster after disaster as contractors supplied inferior work, or didn't deliver.
-
-

The root cause being the failure by the client to manage the procurement process correctly. The contract structure was/is flawed.

[mcdjl]

saaby93 said:

Does it slow the rotation of the planet?

Here's what the Swiss are up to
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39994599
Swiss have decided they can do without nuclear power
If we converted all our big reservoirs to provide power as well as water could we go the same way?

Probably not. Too many of them empty too much in summer anyway. You need an upper and lower reservoir to run the water between. Too many of our reservoirs (any in the south, a lot of the Midlands and North West) dont have enough height (head) to make it practical. Even the lady bower network which is relatively high but with not much difference between them, user gravity to feed water to Leicester, no pumps involved.

[bearman68]

LongQ said:

bearman68 said:

Here's an off the wall idea that has been puzzling me for a while. Plants (the green things like trees etc) manage to convert sunlight into carbon. I wonder if that can be done artificially, as a chemical reaction.
That would reduce the Co2 count, and provide us with renewable storeable energy.

You mean something like Coal or Oil or natural gas?

All produced without using anything other than the sun's energy?

So, for example, accelerated plant growth and fossilization?

The sort of thing that happened a few million years ago?

Probably requires very high levels of atmospheric CO2 - far more than is currently available.

Well something along the lines of trees, but artificially. My point is that there is a natural mechanism for converting sunlight and Co2 into Carbon even at cold northern latitudes. The 'trouble' is with plants dong the job, it's relatively slow and inefficient. It might just be possible to have an artificial system that does the conversion. You wouldn't need to go through the fossilisation route, as the carbon would appear as carbon already, not as a plant compound. (Actually thinking about this it would probably arrive as a sugar, but that's a different question)
As far as high levels of Co2 - well the plants manage it at the current level.