Wind turbines

zeupater

Mankysteve wrote: »

The wording was deliberate.

Hi

Great piece of engineering ..... mind though, the ultimate destination of this approach is to flood a good proportion of the Welsh, Scottish & English valleys and industrialise the corries/cwms, most (all ?) of which are in AONB .... more infighting from the NIMBYs, Greens & other pressure groups ....... remember the Severn barrage ? .... "poor fishies & birdies, lets do something else, somewhere else".

The problem with Dinorwig is the capacity ...... a brim full to empty system which can run for ~5 hours and produce ~2.5% of peak UK demand at full power. Take this to it's extreme and keeping things simple, an energy strategy based on wind power alone with a strategic store of say 10 days energy in Dinorwig type systems would need (((10*24)/5)/.025), so around 2000 Dinorwigs of capacity dotted around the country containing around 90million cubic metres of water, which is approximately the same as the maximum capacity of the Elan Valley reservoir system when full to overflowing.

Let's now look at the cost ..... Dinorwig would likely cost £1.2bn at todays costs, so a potential £2.4tn for the storage & generating capacity, that's before you even start to consider how to pump the water back up hill to replenish the reserves ........

Dinorwig was built where it is because of the natural geography. I wonder how long it took to find a suitable site, or was the solution site specific ? .... Whichever, I'd guess that it would be extremely unlikely to find 2000 more .......

HTH
Z

Cardew

PeterZ wrote: »

The "Gone Green for 2020" report produced by the national grid is also worth a read:

http://www.nationalgrid.com/NR/rdonlyres/9A4B4080-3344-4C6D-8A19-411A867682F2/26834/GoneGreenfor2021.pdf

Under their "gone green scenario" they state:

"Renewable wind plays a much larger role with about 19 GW of total transmission connected offshore wind and 11 GW of total
onshore wind. We think that a further approximately 3 GW in total of other transmission connected renewables is also plausible."

The usual suspects will be along shortly to tell us that the national grid have got it all wrong and that renewables are a waste of time.

Firstly the National Grid have got nothing wrong!! it is a well balanced publication.

However it talks about the potential renewable contribution.

The problem with renewables is:

1. The very high cost of generation.

2. They will not lead to a reduction in our conventional generating capacity, as the wind ain't always blowing and the sun ain't always shining!

celerity

zeupater wrote: »

Hi
The problem with Dinorwig is the capacity ...... a brim full to empty system which can run for ~5 hours and produce ~2.5% of peak UK demand at full power. Take this to it's extreme and keeping things simple, an energy strategy based on wind power alone with a strategic store of say 10 days energy in Dinorwig type systems would need (((10*24)/5)/.025), so around 2000 Dinorwigs of capacity dotted around the country containing around 90million cubic metres of water, which is approximately the same as the maximum capacity of the Elan Valley reservoir system when full to overflowing.

I'm not arguing, but can you breakdown those figures a bit please?
My understanding is that the National Grid's peak demand is about 60GW, and if Dinorwig's capacity is 1.8GW I don't quite understand how we'd need 2000 of them.

EDIT: OK, I see you're saying each could only run for 5 hours and you'd want 10 days store. To be fair you do say you are taking things to extreme, so I'm sure you accept that nobody on here is advocating a solely wind + hydro storage energy solution. In practise, we'd have a mixture of many different plants, hopefully located in areas where each made sense. As wind infrastructure is expanded the averaging effect across the UK comes into play as well - not all wind farms would be static once you get a large enough area. So, I think ten days storage is slightly unreasonable - especially as we'd have traditional and nuclear plants to pick up the slack if needed.

Cheers,

/\dam

celerity

Cardew wrote: »

2. They will not lead to a reduction in our conventional generating capacity, as the wind ain't always blowing and the sun ain't always shining!

It should lead to some reduction in capacity, how much is debatable as has already been seen on this thread.

Do you agree it would reduce the amount of fossil fuel that is burned though?

/\dam

Cardew

celerity wrote: »

It should lead to some reduction in capacity, how much is debatable as has already been seen on this thread.

Do you agree it would reduce the amount of fossil fuel that is burned though?

/\dam

Clearly it will save fossil fuel, but at what cost? to save on Bread 'let them eat cake';)

On capacity, we can surely all agree that solar won't contribute to the peak demand of 63 GW.

It is my understanding that the coldest periods we experience in UK(and hence maximum demand) are characterised by high pressure(anticyclone) with very light winds.

celerity

Cardew wrote: »

On capacity, we can surely all agree that solar won't contribute to the peak demand of 63 GW.

It is my understanding that the coldest periods we experience in UK(and hence maximum demand) are characterised by high pressure(anticyclone) with very light winds.

I agree large-scale solar isn't sensible for the UK (it is elsewhere in Europe though).

Do you accept we have stack loads of wind, which would be rather nice to make use of?

If you are right about hardly getting any wind power in some parts of winter (and I don't necessarily think you are - if it is still in Scotland it might still be windy in Wales, and vice-versa), it just means we'd have to burn a bit of coal to tide us over (a simplification, but it gets the point across). If for the remaining ten months or so we are saving huge amounts of coal then that is surely a Good Thing?

You bring up the cost, which is of course fair - but you must accept that fossil fuel costs are going to continue to rise.

I am fairly new to these forums, so forgive me if your views are commonly known - but what would be your strategy for our energy future? Would you ditch all future wind farm development? If so, have you read the various reports on here that suggest that wind energy on a large scale continues to improve in efficiency and in delivery to the grid? Do you dispute that the cost will reach parity with fossil fuels and nuclear well within our lifetime?

The British Isles have two substantial renewable resources, wind and wave. Unfortunately every time I look into tidal energy it is prohibitively expensive. So, if we were investing heavily in that I would share your reservations (although I'd still support R&D, as the potential is huge). Wind Power seems to be about ready for prime-time though, so I have no problem at all with our taxes being used to invest in it.

As I type this I have just seen some moaning Welsh TV presenter on BBC News complaining about plans for an electrical sub-station to support more wind farms in her valley. If these objectors were honest and just admitted they were NIMBYs I'd have more respect for them...

/\dam

zeupater

celerity wrote: »

I'm not arguing, but can you breakdown those figures a bit please?
My understanding is that the National Grid's peak demand is about 60GW, and if Dinorwig's capacity is 1.8GW I don't quite understand how we'd need 2000 of them.

EDIT: OK, I see you're saying each could only run for 5 hours and you'd want 10 days store. To be fair you do say you are taking things to extreme, so I'm sure you accept that nobody on here is advocating a solely wind + hydro storage energy solution. In practise, we'd have a mixture of many different plants, hopefully located in areas where each made sense. As wind infrastructure is expanded the averaging effect across the UK comes into play as well - not all wind farms would be static once you get a large enough area. So, I think ten days storage is slightly unreasonable - especially as we'd have traditional and nuclear plants to pick up the slack if needed.

Cheers,

/\dam

Hi

I believe that it's always sound to test any theory by throwing extremes at it .... it helps to understand the scale of a solution without the complexities caused by introducing other variables.

Regarding the 10 day store, if you consider that one day of total supply will take one day of total replenishment it becomes obvious that unless there is a 200% installed generation capacity it will take far more than one day to recharge the 'batteries' by pumping water to the high level stores. Ten days is probably a realistic figure for a buffer in a scenario where there is a high reliance on an unpredictable energy source such as wind and even with this level of buffer there will be times when total depletion is likely unless there is a 'backup' generating system, such as coal/gas/nuclear, all of which have their own opponents.

The view which is maintained by many that "it is always windy somewhere" is probably true, but this is likey to not stand up as well when the geographical area is limited by appending "in the UK", so averaging across UK installed capacity may not provide anywhere near a guarantee of supply. The other issue with this is that the capacity needs to be where the wind is blowing at the time, resulting in massive overcapacity investment due to duplication(/triplication/...) .... something which is never fully explained when Total Installed Capacity is debated or there is a comparison of the relative costs of windpower v other sources.

HTH
Z

celerity

@ Zeupater, may I ask you the same questions I ask Cardew above please? Especially whether you would cancel currently planned developments for future wind farm expansion.

/\dam

Jon_Tiffany

Cardew wrote: »

It is my understanding that the coldest periods we experience in UK(and hence maximum demand) are characterised by high pressure(anticyclone) with very light winds.

As Cardew has often claimed, renewables will do nothing to reduce the peak capacity of conventional generation ( I disagree with this claim).

The cold spell of last winter was not typical, but it is easy to forecast. This gives plenty of time to fire up those convential power stations that we need to have on standby.

Having to burn some extra coal/gas for a few days here and there over winter has to be worth it for the savings made during the rest of the year.

Jon_Tiffany

celerity wrote: »

I am fairly new to these forums, so forgive me if your views are commonly known - but what would be your strategy for our energy future? Would you ditch all future wind farm development? If so, have you read the various reports on here that suggest that wind energy on a large scale continues to improve in efficiency and in delivery to the grid? Do you dispute that the cost will reach parity with fossil fuels and nuclear well within our lifetime?

Cardew is is 100% anti renewables.

He has also been asked before to comment on what he sees as a solution. I seem to recall that the answer was something like "its above my pay grade". Yet he feels able to comment vigourously on anything that opposes his views.