The Future of Power Generation in Great Britain

The Future of Power Generation in Great Britain

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Discussion

PushedDover

5,621 posts

52 months

Thursday 22nd April 2021
quotequote all
Offshore wind power growth was 9% last year in the UK:

https://renews.biz/68036/offshore-wind-powered-39-...
however :
"Project capacity under construction increased by over 60% from 4.4GW to 7.2GW, the report found" so significant advances due

Jambo85

3,311 posts

87 months

Thursday 22nd April 2021
quotequote all
Talksteer said:
Dinorwig Power Station has 9.1GWh of storage, to put that into battery storage terms Tesla's 4860 battery pilot plant has a 10GWh annual production capacity
My bold - can you confirm this is what you mean? Because if it is then they are by no means comparable.

Genuine question, I haven’t looked it up.

Edit - I think I’ve misunderstood - you’re talking about an EV battery manufacturing plant, not grid connected battery storage?

Edited by Jambo85 on Thursday 22 April 07:49

PRTVR

7,072 posts

220 months

Thursday 22nd April 2021
quotequote all
PushedDover said:
Offshore wind power growth was 9% last year in the UK:

https://renews.biz/68036/offshore-wind-powered-39-...
however :
"Project capacity under construction increased by over 60% from 4.4GW to 7.2GW, the report found" so significant advances due
Significant advances in what ? The increase made no difference last week, any major increase in capacity will lead to increased costs when production exceeds demand, we are putting the cart before the horse, the storage problem needs rectifying first before we build more turbines.

Evanivitch

19,802 posts

121 months

Thursday 22nd April 2021
quotequote all
PRTVR said:
PushedDover said:
Offshore wind power growth was 9% last year in the UK:

https://renews.biz/68036/offshore-wind-powered-39-...
however :
"Project capacity under construction increased by over 60% from 4.4GW to 7.2GW, the report found" so significant advances due
Significant advances in what ? The increase made no difference last week, any major increase in capacity will lead to increased costs when production exceeds demand, we are putting the cart before the horse, the storage problem needs rectifying first before we build more turbines.
Storage has nothing to do with the constraint payments to wind farms.

PRTVR

7,072 posts

220 months

Thursday 22nd April 2021
quotequote all
Evanivitch said:
PRTVR said:
PushedDover said:
Offshore wind power growth was 9% last year in the UK:

https://renews.biz/68036/offshore-wind-powered-39-...
however :
"Project capacity under construction increased by over 60% from 4.4GW to 7.2GW, the report found" so significant advances due
Significant advances in what ? The increase made no difference last week, any major increase in capacity will lead to increased costs when production exceeds demand, we are putting the cart before the horse, the storage problem needs rectifying first before we build more turbines.
Storage has nothing to do with the constraint payments to wind farms.
Doesn’t an excess of electricity production that is not required, require a payment to be made to shut down the turbines to maintain grid stability ?

Evanivitch

19,802 posts

121 months

Thursday 22nd April 2021
quotequote all
PRTVR said:
Evanivitch said:
PRTVR said:
PushedDover said:
Offshore wind power growth was 9% last year in the UK:

https://renews.biz/68036/offshore-wind-powered-39-...
however :
"Project capacity under construction increased by over 60% from 4.4GW to 7.2GW, the report found" so significant advances due
Significant advances in what ? The increase made no difference last week, any major increase in capacity will lead to increased costs when production exceeds demand, we are putting the cart before the horse, the storage problem needs rectifying first before we build more turbines.
Storage has nothing to do with the constraint payments to wind farms.
Doesn’t an excess of electricity production that is not required, require a payment to be made to shut down the turbines to maintain grid stability ?
I'm going to assume you have memory issues, because deliberately ignoring the facts you were told only two pages ago about interconnectors (including the North-South HVDC within the UK) seems hard to believe.

Gary C

12,313 posts

178 months

Thursday 22nd April 2021
quotequote all
Evanivitch said:
PRTVR said:
Evanivitch said:
PRTVR said:
PushedDover said:
Offshore wind power growth was 9% last year in the UK:

https://renews.biz/68036/offshore-wind-powered-39-...
however :
"Project capacity under construction increased by over 60% from 4.4GW to 7.2GW, the report found" so significant advances due
Significant advances in what ? The increase made no difference last week, any major increase in capacity will lead to increased costs when production exceeds demand, we are putting the cart before the horse, the storage problem needs rectifying first before we build more turbines.
Storage has nothing to do with the constraint payments to wind farms.
Doesn’t an excess of electricity production that is not required, require a payment to be made to shut down the turbines to maintain grid stability ?
I'm going to assume you have memory issues, because deliberately ignoring the facts you were told only two pages ago about interconnectors (including the North-South HVDC within the UK) seems hard to believe.
IC's though do require someone to accept the power. At the moment there are plenty of customers with dispatchable power, but if we all end up with the same wind driven system, that 'might' not be true.

Once again, it comes down to a mix. Wind/solar, nuclear, storage and interconnectors across near Europe and we know we are not there yet, but its moving fast. However no-one is going to build commercial level storage until the need is there. Gas meanwhile will hold the fort and probably will become more expensive over time to create the storage market maybe.

Evanivitch

19,802 posts

121 months

Thursday 22nd April 2021
quotequote all
Gary C said:
IC's though do require someone to accept the power. At the moment there are plenty of customers with dispatchable power, but if we all end up with the same wind driven system, that 'might' not be true.

Once again, it comes down to a mix. Wind/solar, nuclear, storage and interconnectors across near Europe and we know we are not there yet, but its moving fast. However no-one is going to build commercial level storage until the need is there. Gas meanwhile will hold the fort and probably will become more expensive over time to create the storage market maybe.
Agreed, but we're nowhere near seeing production exceeding demand at the moment, what we have seen in constraint payments is production exceeding local demand due to network constraints.

PushedDover

5,621 posts

52 months

Thursday 22nd April 2021
quotequote all
PRTVR said:
Evanivitch said:
PRTVR said:
PushedDover said:
Offshore wind power growth was 9% last year in the UK:

https://renews.biz/68036/offshore-wind-powered-39-...
however :
"Project capacity under construction increased by over 60% from 4.4GW to 7.2GW, the report found" so significant advances due
Significant advances in what ? The increase made no difference last week, any major increase in capacity will lead to increased costs when production exceeds demand, we are putting the cart before the horse, the storage problem needs rectifying first before we build more turbines.
Storage has nothing to do with the constraint payments to wind farms.
Doesn’t an excess of electricity production that is not required, require a payment to be made to shut down the turbines to maintain grid stability ?
At last we have it confirmed.

You dont understand, and wont despite showing you the facts.
We can therefore ignore your posts going forward, Excellent. Progress indeed.

Gary C

12,313 posts

178 months

Thursday 22nd April 2021
quotequote all
Evanivitch said:
Gary C said:
IC's though do require someone to accept the power. At the moment there are plenty of customers with dispatchable power, but if we all end up with the same wind driven system, that 'might' not be true.

Once again, it comes down to a mix. Wind/solar, nuclear, storage and interconnectors across near Europe and we know we are not there yet, but its moving fast. However no-one is going to build commercial level storage until the need is there. Gas meanwhile will hold the fort and probably will become more expensive over time to create the storage market maybe.
Agreed, but we're nowhere near seeing production exceeding demand at the moment, what we have seen in constraint payments is production exceeding local demand due to network constraints.
Oh, yes. I agree.

Gary C

12,313 posts

178 months

Friday 23rd April 2021
quotequote all
These were a couple of slides from EDF webinar about wind and I/C's



dom9

8,040 posts

208 months

Friday 23rd April 2021
quotequote all
Just found this thread and checking in...

I work on industrial/Gigwatt scale energy storage, that isn't li-ion, so will follow this closely from here on biggrin

PushedDover

5,621 posts

52 months

Friday 23rd April 2021
quotequote all
dom9 said:
Just found this thread and checking in...

I work on industrial/Gigwatt scale energy storage, that isn't li-ion, so will follow this closely from here on biggrin
thumbup

But you wont be believed. and the armchair naysayers will know best.

Gary C

12,313 posts

178 months

Friday 23rd April 2021
quotequote all
dom9 said:
Just found this thread and checking in...

I work on industrial/Gigwatt scale energy storage, that isn't li-ion, so will follow this closely from here on biggrin
Dinorwig ?

dom9

8,040 posts

208 months

Friday 23rd April 2021
quotequote all
Not that one - Exclusivity agreement with the technology partner should be signed in the next few weeks, so covered by the NDA at the moment. I am responsible for managing the engineering, cost estimate, thus the LCOE/S calculations, etc. Have been putting together the internal business plan and budget proposal for the board the last week or two... Hopefully we'll fund the next stage of engineering and cost estimation, while we secure a client, as we do think we can do an LCOS <Li-ion, without the associated issues of recycling or required land...

I am pretty familiar with Li-ion, CAES, hydro, flow battery, etc technology from our competitor analysis. The market is going to be huge... but so are the project costs. I am also managing the same aspects for the conversion of an existing natural gas producing offshore platform to electrolysis and hydrogen production. We also do wind farms... and floating solar... and... and... and.

To think I used to consider myself to be in Oil & Gas (>20yrs), up to and including last year... The world changed fast!

Evanivitch

19,802 posts

121 months

Friday 23rd April 2021
quotequote all
dom9 said:
Not that one - Exclusivity agreement with the technology partner should be signed in the next few weeks, so covered by the NDA at the moment. I am responsible for managing the engineering, cost estimate, thus the LCOE/S calculations, etc. Have been putting together the internal business plan and budget proposal for the board the last week or two... Hopefully we'll fund the next stage of engineering and cost estimation, while we secure a client, as we do think we can do an LCOS <Li-ion, without the associated issues of recycling or required land...

I am pretty familiar with Li-ion, CAES, hydro, flow battery, etc technology from our competitor analysis. The market is going to be huge... but so are the project costs. I am also managing the same aspects for the conversion of an existing natural gas producing offshore platform to electrolysis and hydrogen production. We also do wind farms... and floating solar... and... and... and.

To think I used to consider myself to be in Oil & Gas (>20yrs), up to and including last year... The world changed fast!
You've got us all guessing now!

dom9

8,040 posts

208 months

Friday 23rd April 2021
quotequote all
Evanivitch said:
You've got us all guessing now!
It's no big secret really but I'll say more when the energy storage paperwork is done and dusted.

My guys are also working on floating wind, we have a wave energy project being executed out of Europe and we are fostering a close link with a gas turbine manufacturer and a CCUS technology company. We're going through some heavy restructuring at the moment and the UK will become the centre for some of these new technologies. Exciting times. Some, of course, will fall by the wayside or never get up and running but there is huge money behind development of these ideas.

Condi

17,085 posts

170 months

Friday 23rd April 2021
quotequote all
Dom - how do you plan to overcome the issue that large scale hydro has? IE that the government will support cap and floor mechanisms for IC and nuclear, but not support hydro and pumped storage in the same way?

Designing things to generate or store energy is the easy bit, building a business case and getting finance for a project with 20 year return when you can only hedge 3 years out is much harder.

dom9

8,040 posts

208 months

Friday 23rd April 2021
quotequote all
Condi said:
Dom - how do you plan to overcome the issue that large scale hydro has? IE that the government will support cap and floor mechanisms for IC and nuclear, but not support hydro and pumped storage in the same way?

Designing things to generate or store energy is the easy bit, building a business case and getting finance for a project with 20 year return when you can only hedge 3 years out is much harder.
Honestly; we're not looking at hydro at all... well, hmmm... We're not looking at what one might consider 'traditional' hydro and the UK certainly isn't a great fit for 'our' system, as it stands. West Coast USA, Brazil, the Med, India and maybe Australia and some regions in APAC are better for some specific reasons. The design/engineering isn't at all easy, sadly, which may be one of the issues and high cost of entry (hence the scale of storage to get LCOS down). We overlay a lot of data to identify target areas.

Probably a bit unfair of me to lead with the energy storage angle, on here, when the thread is GB focused, as UK government support isn't a big consideration (less true for other regional governments). However, very little (if any) of our system would be fabricated/constructed in the UK, so there is no angle for government support either way.

I just saw some storage chat and decided to subscribe/join in smile

That's not to say we aren't/won't be looking into alternative solutions, where this system isn't applicable, as they obviously go hand-in-hand with wind and solar. Certainly using depleted reservoirs could be a thing... On that basis and since this is a future of power generation in GB thread; we are very active in north sea wind and some of the gas turbine/CCUS work we do will obviously be applicable here.

It's early days (for everything except wind) for us (and even that is a steep learning curve) so hopefully as the years roll by, I'll have plenty to contribute.

I'd be guessing at UK government thoughts around pumped hydro but I suspect they'd rather not 'spoil' the potentially limited sites, that make the most sense, to achieve the undoubtedly low LCOS. What's the statistic that gets bandied about for hydro? 80% of the sites that make sense are already developed? Of course, there are other ways of achieving the power density without the volume and height requirements but I need to go round the god child's for a BBQ smile

Evanivitch

19,802 posts

121 months

Friday 23rd April 2021
quotequote all
Talking of CCUS, a site I know well is using waste CO2 from steam methane reforming to grow algae for food colouring and organic dyes.

Whilst it's good progress, it's a site that's rejected solar on its south facing warehouse roof for a decade, and cancelled a pyrolysis plant 9 years ago. Not much progress...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-56748785