Project makani fantastic new wind power concept from google

Martyn1981

jamesd wrote: »

Cars aren't normally built of carbon fibre and don't normally have long tethers to the ground station that has to handle large wind loadings. Nor do they need permanent connections to a power grid to be built.

That's an interesting point. The ground works for a wind turbine are very significant, as is the infrastructure needed to get the necessary vehicles on site, such as road construction. Presumably, the strength of the ground anchor for a tethered turbine would have to exceed the maximum power that the turbine could generate, otherwise it would simply be pulled free.

Looking at the pulling power of the large kites that are used to tow huge container ships (to reduce their fuel consumption), then the size and cost of suitable ground works would be substantial.

Still, more tools (even potential ones) in the energy toolbox can only be a good thing.

Mart.

jamesd

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Crucially, we now have 'real' CfD prices. Real in the sense that providers have bid for contracts to supply electricity. That means that rather than refer to estimates of costs, we can see what the actual cost will be if we want somebody to build that source of generation.

Two different costs, though. I was replying initially about the cost of generation, while CfD is about the purchase price for the power including profit margin.

Martyn1981 wrote: »

When I referred to OPEX I did say smaller scale PV (not wind), as roof mounted PV has almost no operating costs, other than replacement inverters when needed. That's why, when combined with your point that the income streams are not the same (supply side PV has to compete with the leccy generation price, whilst demand side PV competes with the leccy supply price (or a combination of the two)) that I believe demand side, rooftop mounted PV has an economic advantage over large scale supply side PV.

I'm inclined to agree with you about there being an overall economic advantage, just not about the maintenance part being cheaper.

Martyn1981 wrote: »

So artificial demand such as E7 is needed to maximise its profitability.

That was probably true at one time but it doesn't seem to be true today. At the moment the lowest demand for the UK seems to be about 28GW while only around 7.5GW is coming from nuclear. With near-zero fuel cost the nuclear will keep on generating. if nuclear could fill all of the demand the price would fall to below the fuel cost of the cheapest alternative provider, forcing all of the other providers with significant fuel costs out of the market. But that can't happen today because so much of the generation is from providers with significant fuel costs even at the lowest demand times.

Martyn1981 wrote: »

A further point is that the recent CfD auction did have PV coming in at £50/MWh for the 2015/16 year. With average market prices at around that figure now, that would effectively mean no subsidy.

Well, no subsidy aside from taking on the risk of lower prices.

Martyn1981 wrote: »

But, personally, I can't see those PV farms being built, or if they are, then I can't see them run at a profit. I suspect the bidders took a gamble and hoped that there would be higher winning bids in that year.*

Maybe. It'll be interesting to see what happens.

Personally I'm paying a good deal of interest to the storage side of things because that's what is needed to improve the reliability of solar, wind and wave power.

cells

jamesd wrote: »

That's with an optimistic site, not typical, and is a vendor claim not observed fact.

Cars aren't normally built of carbon fibre and don't normally have long tethers to the ground station that has to handle large wind loadings. Nor do they need permanent connections to a power grid to be built.

We also know that the vendor's own claimed cost per megawatt of generation is far higher than the numbers you're suggesting would produce and that vendors can be relied on to understate the real costs.

Why would I put more weight onto the claims of an Internet expert than the builders and testers? I don't doubt the 60%

car are not made of carbin fibre but a car costs $15k and I said $150k for one of these drones. Yes they don't have a teather which is 300kg but how expensive do you think a mass produced 300kg rope cab be? A grid connection is minir part of the cost.

as for the vendors costs. I would suggest they would perfer to overstate. Why set yourself up to fail. Also I would imagine they would very much like to receive wind power subsidies for as long as they can


and finally the cost of these drones wilp depend on volume. A 200,000 a year drone plant would be cheap per drone.

the comparisons are sports aircraft which cost $100k in volumes far far lower than the hundreds of thousands of units a year. Or cars which have the volume but are in some ways easier to build (and in others much harder. Eg a modern ICE is far more complicated than a modern electric motor)


PS we can go the other way and calculate a break even price. Assuming $50 electricity and $10 maintenance. The $40 difference gets you an output of $1.9 million over a 15 year life. So if these cost less than $1.9m they are possibly subsidy free competitive.

cells

Martyn1981 wrote: »

That's an interesting point. The ground works for a wind turbine are very significant, as is the infrastructure needed to get the necessary vehicles on site, such as road construction. Presumably, the strength of the ground anchor for a tethered turbine would have to exceed the maximum power that the turbine could generate, otherwise it would simply be pulled free.

Looking at the pulling power of the large kites that are used to tow huge container ships (to reduce their fuel consumption), then the size and cost of suitable ground works would be substantial.

Still, more tools (even potential ones) in the energy toolbox can only be a good thing.

Mart.

not quite

a normal wind turbine tower acts like a pivot requiring a large strong big deep foundation to withstand the sidewards forces

These are pulling much closer to the ground so won't have the force multiplier effect of a long tower.

I think these would be best done so they have no landing tower and land on the ground with electromagnets holding them there in storms. That way the teather can be right on the ground or just off it.

In short these would require much smaller much cheaper foundations

Martyn1981

Martyn1981 wrote: »

But, personally, I can't see those PV farms being built, or if they are, then I can't see them run at a profit. I suspect the bidders took a gamble and hoped that there would be higher winning bids in that year.

jamesd wrote: »

Maybe. It'll be interesting to see what happens.

Personally I'm paying a good deal of interest to the storage side of things because that's what is needed to improve the reliability of solar, wind and wave power.

Honest Guv, this is a co-incidence, not a set up, and sad news, but not surprising:

CfD administrator confirms no PV projects for 2015/16

The two PV projects that secured support under the contract for difference (CfD) scheme for the financial year 2015/16 will not go ahead.

The Low Carbon Contracts Company, administrator of the CfD scheme, confirmed that Wick Farm Solar Park and Royston Solar Farm - who both secured a strike price of £50/MWh for delivery year 2015/16 - will not proceed.

It was widely predicted that the projects would not be viable, given that the wholesale cost of electricity is set at the same level.

So £50 might be doable, but not yet. Still, £80/MWh the year after is still lower than I expected this soon, and much to my surprise shows that PV in the UK can compete with on-shore wind. But demand side rooftop could be even better.

Mart.

jamesd

cells wrote: »

Why would I put more weight onto the claims of an Internet expert than the builders and testers?

I don't know but you seem to think that people should use your car comparison instead of the pricing the makers imply in their generation cost.

cells wrote: »

A grid connection is minir part of the cost.

A grid connection has costs at these sorts of level for a 33kV connection, more if more power has to be transmitted:

On-site connection equipment: £130-190k
Transformer: £130-700k
Cable: £200-240k per km

So for an installation say 50km from an existing connection the connection bill could be in the range of £10.26 million to £12.89 million (page 14).

That assumes that the part of the grid being connected to can handle the new load. If it can't, the grid from connection point to a higher capacity part of the grid will need to be enhanced, as is needed in SW England due to the planned tidal generation and new gas generation in that area that is changing the region from a net power drain to a power source. For a big project a direct connection to National Grid's 275kV network at much higher cost maybe needed.

Then there are ongoing grid maintenance costs. For National Grid those are 1.96% of the initial construction cost of all parts of the connection each year.

jamesd

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Honest Guv, this is a co-incidence, not a set up

Good timing, though.

Martyn1981 wrote: »

So £50 might be doable, but not yet. Still, £80/MWh the year after is still lower than I expected this soon, and much to my surprise shows that PV in the UK can compete with on-shore wind. But demand side rooftop could be even better.

Yes, I expect so, eventually. Solar generation efficiency is certainly something I'm considering any future property purchases. At the moment I have a nicely south facing roof but shared freehold between two flats so can't use it effectively.

cells

jamesd wrote: »

I don't know but you seem to think that people should use your car comparison instead of the pricing the makers imply in their generation cost.

A grid connection has costs at these sorts of level for a 33kV connection, more if more power has to be transmitted:

On-site connection equipment: £130-190k
Transformer: £130-700k
Cable: £200-240k per km

So for an installation say 50km from an existing connection the connection bill could be in the range of £10.26 million to £12.89 million (page 14).

That assumes that the part of the grid being connected to can handle the new load. If it can't, the grid from connection point to a higher capacity part of the grid will need to be enhanced, as is needed in SW England due to the planned tidal generation and new gas generation in that area that is changing the region from a net power drain to a power source. For a big project a direct connection to National Grid's 275kV network at much higher cost maybe needed.

Then there are ongoing grid maintenance costs. For National Grid those are 1.96% of the initial construction cost of all parts of the connection each year.

those numbers by themselves mean nothing at all (also why the hell do these drones need to be 50km from a grid point?) but its easy to prove that the connection cost will be trivial

all the power generators need a grid connection, be they these drones or nukes or coal plants or PV farms or whatever

A PV farm typically uses no more than 15% of its connection capacity on average (sometimes 0% sometimes near 100% but typically less than 15% average). These should use 60% of their grid connection capacity.

So whatever the grid cost of a PV farm, the grid cost of these drones will be less per unit of output

---

The car comparison is of course just a guess. no one knows what mass produced kite drones will cost not even Google because no one mass produces kite drones.

I think $150k for mass produced drones is a reasonable guess

but you could go with any of the following to make a guess

light passenger jets. ~$2,000,000. Cant possibly see how these 1 ton drones can cost more than light passenger jets which are about 3x the weight and travail at 400mph at 20,000 ft and need to keep people alive. not built in any large numbers

Light-sports-aircraft $50,000 to $150,000 not built in any large volumes

Cars. About the same amout of manufactured materals. $15,000




my guess is that these drones built on mass would cost about the same as the more expensive light sports aircraft which are not built in that big a number

cells

not a flying drone electricity generator but these apparently cost $55k kit only or $125k ready to fly. to give people an idea of what current small flying machines cost at quite low volumes (only a few hundred sold over many years)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Airplane_Factory_Sling_2#/media/File:Sling2_OnGround_ZUSOL.jpg

I think the flying drones in many ways would be simpler as they don't need to meet the needs of a human or carry fuel or need a complex ICE engine etc. and of course they could have a much bigger market and thus be produced in much larger numbers to see economies of scale push their costs down to below the cost of current light sports aircraft

jamesd

cells wrote: »

those numbers by themselves mean nothing at all (also why the hell do these drones need to be 50km from a grid point?)

You specified low visual impact and given their size that means well away from most human sight. Most high energy wind in the UK is also in areas that are quite some way from a connection point.

If you're thinking of Scotland you'll need to add considerably more because the National Grid from Scotland to England and on to the main demand in SE England is already needing more capacity, so new generators there are being asked to pay for some of that extra grid cost. The annual grid capacity charges for Scotland are also around 20% higher to deal with the relative remoteness of that generation from the demand. In case you didn't know about capacity charges, those are based on the highest amount of power to be transmitted at three different high load points in the year. The charge is because National Grid has to build for those peak transmission levels, so there is charge based on that.

cells wrote: »

but its easy to prove that the connection cost will be trivial

That depends on how cheap the generators are. If they are expensive it's cheap. If they are cheap it's relatively expensive. The connection cost is too high to be a low part of the cost of cheap generation.

cells wrote: »

The car comparison is of course just a guess. no one knows what mass produced kite drones will cost not even Google because no one mass produces kite drones. ... I think $150k for mass produced drones is a reasonable guess

I prefer to go with the designers who have presumably checked this than some random person on the internet claiming it'll be as cheap as commodity cars. It doesn't help that you keep on inventing different numbers while I go and look for actual costs and quote them to you.