What should the UK energy policy for the next 25 years+be

spgsc531

Energetic wrote: »

Graham and Cardew you two seem to have an endless capacity to criticise and even attack others viewpoints, how about answering mart's question constructively?

What should the UK energy policy for the next 25 years be? in a nutshell please include how it would be sourced, funded and where necessary disposed of... And do it in another thread, this one is about news...

grahamc2003 wrote: »

Quite contrast with the Buchanon talk!

This is the type of report which gets the greens all excited and certain that the ideas expressed are the way forward - and yet to me it appears to be like an essay a sixth former would write without, understandably, any depth of knowledge of any of the topics discussed. Buchanon's talk illustarted the balance of any dicision - on how even small decisions can have effects not expected, frequently the exact opposite of that intended, when procedures/strategies/initiatives are introduced without sufficient knowledge of the implications (e.g. the eu agreements on coal designed to lower coal burning but having the opposite effect currently, and a major step change coming up, the effects being worse than if they did nothing).

Basically, whoever this zerocarbonbritain lot are, judging by their presentation, seem puerile and naive in their views and devoid of any previous relevant appropriate experience, imv. They are just words, with no substance to back them up. Unfortunately, that stuff seems to be extremely appealing to many greens who post on these boards (and in general I expect). It's as if they think if you are 'passionate' enough about some 'vision', then simply stating it will bring it about. It aint that simple.

While I think it's stupid to both import apples and export the same number, I'm open to the view that there may be a valid reason (can't think what). While I would also like to see the amount of meat eaten in the UK decrease for various reasons, I don't thin reducing it by 80% is politically possible, and indeed would have implictions throughout the economy and society far beyond what I could hope to understand. 'Solving' global warming by cutting the UK's energy use by 40% or whatever will not work, because the UK energy consumption is such a tiny part of global energy consumption. Drawing a diagram of a 'new' national grid infrastructure doesn't mean it could work - putting it midly, they may not understand all the implications of their new design. Maybe it's a little difficult to the point of impossibility to get people to charge their car/do their washing when the wind is blowing strongly, and not do those things when it isn't. People would get quite smelly not bathing if the wind didn't blow for several days. etc etc etc etc.

You continue to criticise, and continue to not answer the questions asked of you.

jamesingram

grahamc2003 wrote: »

Quite contrast with the Buchanon talk!
Basically, whoever this zerocarbonbritain lot are, judging by their presentation, seem puerile and naive in their views and devoid of any previous relevant appropriate experience, imv. ..

Well good to get a full spectrum of views
Graham , I agree the presentation doesn't match up to Buchanon's , perhap you might want to look at the report itself for more depth and substance on the ideas of ZCB ?

ZCB is run and fund by CAT the centre of alternative technology
http://www.cat.org.uk/
It was founded in 1973." It opened to the public in 1975.
Since then, CAT has grown to become Europe's leading eco-centre. It is staffed by 90 permanent staff and volunteers all year round, and a further 60 people during the summer months. We receive around 65,000 visitors every year, who come to learn about our work"
So, well informed to some, and a bunch of old hippies to other

Like you, I cant really see it happening , to many vested interests , pushing and pulling . but I do believe such idealism has a place, to show a point to aim for , even if it's never reached.

jamesingram

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21501878
Consumers are being warned they face higher energy bills as the UK becomes more reliant on energy imports.
In a speech, Ofgem chief executive Alistair Buchanan will say that falls in Britain's power production capacity are likely to lead to more energy imports and customers paying more.
The energy watchdog predicts power station closures could mean a 10% fall in capacity by April alone."

jamesingram

borrowed this from here http://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/forum114/comments.php?DiscussionID=10156&page=1#Item_3
I think he make a fair point , how do we reduce peak demand by 10% ? Easier than building stations to cover it ?

"There are two parts to this story.
One is the shuting down older power stations will mean a shift to imports - of gas mainly. higher cost will result
Two is the generating capacity will have a smaller safety margin. power cuts more likely
So the government and industry answer is more power stations ?
one can be solved by higher efficiency - the UK is woefully wasteful
one two can be solved by demand management. Peak demand is usually 60 Gw and this is why we need so many power stations. Cutting the peak by 6 Gw is easy and achievable. See chart attached."

Energetic_2

How is the humble consumer supposed to know what's going on, low carbon generation one week, gas imports the next. Vested interests claiming one thing or the other is the cause of price rises.

Any mention of the Sterling crapping itself due to BOE money printing here adding to imported gas prices? Inflation is the measure of currency devaluation, not rising prices.

Energy is underpriced and undervalued, Energy Efficiency and Self Sufficiency is the way forward. Grow your own...

EricMears

Energetic wrote: »

How is the humble consumer supposed to know what's going on.....

Cynics amongst us will feel that the whole object is that humble consumers are NOT supposed to know what's going on !

But "Grow your own" seems even more attractive. Slight snag is that we'd all need to work out a procedure for safely de-linking our inverters from the mains whilst a power cut is in progress.

zeupater

jamesingram wrote: »

borrowed this from here http://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/forum114/comments.php?DiscussionID=10156&page=1#Item_3
I think he make a fair point , how do we reduce peak demand by 10% ? Easier than building stations to cover it ?

"There are two parts to this story.
One is the shuting down older power stations will mean a shift to imports - of gas mainly. higher cost will result
Two is the generating capacity will have a smaller safety margin. power cuts more likely
So the government and industry answer is more power stations ?
one can be solved by higher efficiency - the UK is woefully wasteful





one two can be solved by demand management. Peak demand is usually 60 Gw and this is why we need so many power stations. Cutting the peak by 6 Gw is easy and achievable. See chart attached."

• 

Hi

I don't really know how a 6GW reduction in peak demand could be classified as being 'easy', achieveable maybe, easy no.

Let's look at just at two opposing aspects which will come into play in the near future. On one side of the argument would be smartmetering/smartgrid/smartappliances and on the other electric vehicles (EVs) ....

Let's now consider what the main driver of the peak is .... looking at the time of the peak it looks like it's when everyone returns from work/school etc, turn on the TV, heating, kettle and cooker, have a shower, then settle down for the evening ..... at the same time, shops, factories & offices are either being cleaned, running on shifts, or overtime/maintenance etc, before settling down to a lower demand level a few hours later .....

Okay, there's less generating capacity and everyone gets home and peak period starts ..... a decision is made somewhere to switch off every smart appliance for a while in order to not overload the grid .... in the majority of domestic situations this is likely to mean that the fridge & freezer are switched off for a while .... let's estimate that these two appliances together consume 350W & are running for 30% of the time and that there are 25million homes with them ... the total demand reduction would therefore be ~2.625GW (350x0.3x25) .... you can't remotely turn off TVs, cookers or electric showers as it would not be socially acceptable .... but you can use the 'big stick' approach and severely ramp the peak demand prices up to discourage peak energy use (so expect this to happen) - but would this stop people cooking, or keeping warm or not having a shower after a day's labour ?? .... result, around 3GW of demand displaced by a couple of hours ... and that's if every home has smartappliances ....

Now for the opposite effect .... we've got, say, a 3GW reduction in peak demand, but what other developments are happening on the decarbonisation front which will place load onto the grid ? ... well, electric vehicles is probably the main one .... consider a point where EVs have reached a mere 20% penetration into the market and, to not overstate the point, that every household only has one vehicle. For this exercise let's say that all of the EVs have a 50% battery discharge, having covered 15miles (Nissan Leaf), and that 1/3 of vehicles would need to be used again the same evening (which is likely) and would therefore need to be recharged immediately, consuming 6.6kW(Nissan Leaf) .... that's 10.9GW (6600x0.2x0.33x25) of additional carbon reducing demand required at peak generation times ....

It all goes to show that decarbonisation and peak demand reduction are not really the same thing and that cutting the peak is by no means 'easy', that is without major social & economic upheaval ....

HTH
Z

rogerblack

EricMears wrote: »

But "Grow your own" seems even more attractive. Slight snag is that we'd all need to work out a procedure for safely de-linking our inverters from the mains whilst a power cut is in progress.

Unfortunately, batteries are both expensive and unreliable.
Yes, you can get enough batteries to carry the average house over the daily variation.
These will cost perhaps £1-2K, and will last 5-10 years.
They might even let a house - in the summer - be energy independant.

zeupater

rogerblack wrote: »

Unfortunately, batteries are both expensive and unreliable.
Yes, you can get enough batteries to carry the average house over the daily variation.
These will cost perhaps £1-2K, and will last 5-10 years.
They might even let a house - in the summer - be energy independant.

Hi

I agree .... I think that the best you can really hope to do is reduce overnight baseload consumption to a minimum and then attempt to cover this overnight load from batteries which have been topped-up by renewables during the day.

Apart from the above, the issue really revolves around the cost of the batteries for covering either downtime or poor generation .... how long do you plan for & what will the load be ?, that'll help size the system, then take a view on the frequency/likelihood of occurrence in order to justify the expenditure ...

HTH
Z

Martyn1981

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

Apart from the above, the issue really revolves around the cost of the batteries for covering either downtime or poor generation .... how long do you plan for & what will the load be ?, that'll help size the system, then take a view on the frequency/likelihood of occurrence in order to justify the expenditure ...

HTH
Z

I think batteries might be breakeven now, with renewables for baseload, but then there's all the charge control kit on top. Even if they breakeven, that will still mean about 25% of diverted leccy disappearing as losses. So not yet, but if leccy prices rise to say 20p, might be interesting.

Chatting with an off-gridder in Ireland, whose opted not to connect his house to the mains in the road. He uses wind and PV, and two sets of forklift truck batts, but also has a diesel genny as back up, rather than install batts to worse case scenario. Says he still has most of 100lt of diesel left, bought 2 years ago.

Also reading up on some installs in Greece. The government is trying to get tax off people, so has slapped a huge tax levy on leccy bills - not for leccy, just because it's hard to avoid.

So lots of Greek people going off-grid, with wind turbines and PV, plus batts, plus diesel genny, all linked and operating together automatically as needed. Lots of money though!

So genny for emergency, seems to be a popular way to reduce batteries.

Also asked and got info from PV'ers in France and Spain, on subsidy free viability, but that's for another thread and another day.

Mart.