Solar ... In the news

penrhyn

There is a lot of opposition to a recent Solar farm application near Ambridge.

The_Green_Hornet

penrhyn wrote: »

There is a lot of opposition to a recent Solar farm application near Ambridge.

When isn't there opposition to any solar/wind/redevelopment/building/any project in the UK?

lstar337

Investors are seeking funding from the UK government for an ambitious plan to import solar energy generated in North Africa.

Under the scheme, up to 2.5 million UK homes could be powered by Tunisian sunshine by 2018.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-29551063

zeupater

lstar337 wrote: »

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-29551063

So we in the UK are being asked to subsidise generation of electrons which will be syphoned off by almost the whole of Europe before they reach our shores ??

Before looking at this kind of project from the UK's point of view you'd need long distance transmission infrastructure in place across Europe, so that would mean either a UHVAC or HVDC borderless grid to be in place ..... so, what does this really mean ?? ..... well, it either becomes an EU project, funded by the whole of the EU, or it's effectively a 'dead duck' project ....

.... mind though, it'll certainly be well supported by the NIMBY brigade who'll be jumping with joy at the idea of not having fields of pv or 100m high turbines cluttering up their 'green & pleasant land' .... it'll just be the new 100m high, million volt pylons in their back yards ... let the letter writing begin here ...

In other words, is 2018 realistic ?? ....

HTH
Z

rogerblack

Screw this solar rubbish.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/15/us-lockheed-fusion-idUSKCN0I41EM20141015
http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/organizations/lockheed-martin-claims-breakthrough-compact-fusion-reactors-good-news-space-exploration/

Claiming a about 10 foot cube fusion reactor producing 100MW.
Alas - claims are at the moment very, very fuzzy.
Perhaps we will see more concrete data in the next year or two.

If actually real - simply from a materials cost point of view - you can't fit that much - even expensive stuff in a 10 foot cube - in order to make it not worth it.

ed110220

zeupater wrote: »

So we in the UK are being asked to subsidise generation of electrons which will be syphoned off by almost the whole of Europe before they reach our shores ??

Before looking at this kind of project from the UK's point of view you'd need long distance transmission infrastructure in place across Europe, so that would mean either a UHVAC or HVDC borderless grid to be in place ..... so, what does this really mean ?? ..... well, it either becomes an EU project, funded by the whole of the EU, or it's effectively a 'dead duck' project ....

.... mind though, it'll certainly be well supported by the NIMBY brigade who'll be jumping with joy at the idea of not having fields of pv or 100m high turbines cluttering up their 'green & pleasant land' .... it'll just be the new 100m high, million volt pylons in their back yards ... let the letter writing begin here ...

In other words, is 2018 realistic ?? ....

HTH
Z

Surely if 2 GW is fed into Italy from Tunisia and 2 GW from France to the UK (in addition to what is currently supplied) it doesn't matter what happens in between or whether they are precisely the same electrons? Say if Italy uses that 2 GW instead of importing it from France and France then exports that 'spare' 2 GW to the UK the net effect is exactly the same as if it came directly from Italy. We're not talking of Ukraine here which Moscow accuses of siphoning off Russian gas on the way to the EU

Electricity is already imported and exported between European countries on a large scale so this may not be such a big change. Laying such a long undersea cable is a big deal though, and perhaps this and relying on a non-European country in an unstable part of the world makes it too risky for 20% more insolation... I would have thought it would be better to put up with 20% less sunshine in the EU but save on the transmission side and risk factors.

Martyn1981

It almost sounds like the UK could go 'Desertec' on it's own, but unlikely.

We are connecting to Norwegian hydro,
considering Icelandic geothermal, and even
north African solar.

If we arranged for the addition of capture lagoons and pumped storage in Norway, then we'd even have the Norwegian batteries suggested by Desertec.

It all sounds great, but those HVDC cables are gonna cost a fortune, still, if it comes in cheaper than off-shore wind, then it's still economic (for the UK), and CSP (rather than PV) would provide for a more balanced solar generation. The more diversity the better in our 'new leccy world'.

Regarding insolation levels, according to PVGIS Tunisia is around 50% higher than UK, but not much different to Southern Spain ..... do we get on well with the Spanish (or Portugese) these days?

Mart.

silverwhistle

ed110220 wrote: »

Electricity is already imported and exported between European countries on a large scale so this may not be such a big change.

Anybody who has skied between LaThuile (It) and Las Rosiere (Fr), or at Crevacol near the Italian border with Switzerland will have seen the pylons marching over the passes. That's just up in the North-East corner of the country, and many other links exist.

I'm not sure the current government wouldn't prefer the lights to go out rather than be seen to be co-operating with the EU, and they generally seem to be against renewables, so goodness knows how we'd manage any larger schemes!

zeupater

ed110220 wrote: »

Surely if 2 GW is fed into Italy from Tunisia and 2 GW from France to the UK (in addition to what is currently supplied) it doesn't matter what happens in between or whether they are precisely the same electrons? Say if Italy uses that 2 GW instead of importing it from France and France then exports that 'spare' 2 GW to the UK the net effect is exactly the same as if it came directly from Italy. We're not talking of Ukraine here which Moscow accuses of siphoning off Russian gas on the way to the EU

Electricity is already imported and exported between European countries on a large scale so this may not be such a big change. Laying such a long undersea cable is a big deal though, and perhaps this and relying on a non-European country in an unstable part of the world makes it too risky for 20% more insolation... I would have thought it would be better to put up with 20% less sunshine in the EU but save on the transmission side and risk factors.

Hi

The issue as I see it is that there would need to be a pan-EU agreement and policy on energy production, transmission & transfer .... what's the chance of having that in place by 2018, let alone the infrastructure.

Interconnectors exist between countries at the moment, but they simply exist due to specific international agreements in order to share generating capacity on a simple cross-border basis. Using the existing European grids to specifically transfer power from North Africa to the UK would need loads of negotiation, agreement and infrastructure upgrade involving each country involved.

Think about the prospect of the UK paying for (/subsidising) generating capacity in (say)Tunisia .... who pays for the undersea (HVDC ?) interconnector under the Med ? ... then, assuming that the Italian grid is designed to support Italian demand based on population distribution, who pays for any upgrades to their grid to allow for increased production ? .... what happens if demand in southern Italy increases on a temporary basis, must they guaranty to make-up the shortfall elsewhere ? .... obviously the actual power generated in Africa would be used in southern Italy, so does this mean that Italy would decommission plant in the South and build new capacity in the North in order to maintain the net cross-border energy balance ? ... That's just Italy ...

.... Now, Italy already has cross-border generation sharing agreements with their northern neighbours ... so, would the existing infrastructure need upgrading in order to carry the new (UK bound) demand - who pays ?? ... of course, from here we have repetition, for 'Italy' substitute the likely onward path countries of France, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium & The Netherlands and take into account the 'knock-on' effect on existing links with (say) Spain, Austria, Croatia, Luxembourg & Denmark and we probably have an idea of what's involved ...

Okay, assuming all negotiations are successful and everything is in place .... how does the system & accounts work in practice .... say a plant in Tunisia generates 1TWh of energy over time, which is sold to Italy (for simplicity) at some agreed pan-European transfer cost obviously allowing for transmission losses (say 5%) .... Italy consumes the electricity in the south and re-generates in the industrial north using (let's say) coal or gas fired generation and look to export this to France whilst levying a fee for the use of it's own infrastructure through reducing the energy transferred (say a further 5%) ... now France has an abundance of Nuclear generation of it's own in the south and doesn't need the additional from Italy, so the Italians look to sell to Switzerland, then on to Germany before France or one of the low countries, but it's sunny and would cause issues and incurred costs to the German infrastructure which is already limiting it's own pv generation ... do they still buy it ? -

So, in the end, for each 1TWh generated by solar in Tunisia, there's a good likelihood that the UK, taking losses and fees into account, would see somewhere close to 500MWh of mixed coal, gas and nuclear generation from immediately across the channel with there being no direct continuous link to the Tunisian generation ....

.... lovely, Italy reduces it's carbon footprint by consuming many more solar-generation electrons within it's borders and the UK wants to claim the benefit is offset ?? --- now how exactly does that work ? .... I suppose that a pre-requisite would be an international agreement to offset all carbon production from place of manufacture to place of consumption .... so China, with all of it's coal-fired generation becomes the greenest country on earth on paper, and we, on paper, take on billions of tonnes of carbon onto our account ? .... where does that leave the UK government room to manoeuvre ? ...

So that leaves the 'simple' option ... long distance pan-European power conduits .... UHVAC or HVDC. Now these have been talked about for years/decades to balance demand and generation across the continent - so what's the chance of them being in place by 2018 ??

It's simple logic, yes, almost every problem has at least one solution, but the issue here is that someone has made the usual mistake of associating a lead time of one part of a project with the whole project - a little like assuming that if a high speed train takes 2months to build, then we can have HST2 running by Christmas ...

HTH
Z

Martyn1981

Hiya Zeup. There is a simple solution. The article talks about bidding for CfD funding.

CfD's are based on the generation put into the grid. Or to be more exact, are currently based on this.

So, no need to complicate matters, just 'meter' the leccy as it arrives in the UK, in the same way that the leccy currently arrives from a wind farm. Problems and losses up to that point, not our problem, though they would of course be wrapped up in the CfD bid.

The crucial point here, with my suggestion, is that the construction and maintenance of the HVDC would lie with the suppliers. As would any trans-border issues. In the same way that the wind farm is responsible for the cabling and costs on it's side of the farm/meter.

How it would work in reality, I don't know.

Mart.