Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

lstar337

Martyn1981 wrote: »

But, the same could be said for companies like the big auto makers having giant wind turbines installed, or take it one step further, customers using less leccy as they become more efficient.

This is something that has always bothered me, because as we all spend our money to try to reduce our consumption, energy companies are likely to increase prices to cover. It is in their interest to protect their profit margins after all.

lstar337

Martyn1981 wrote: »

I'm responding to this separately as it's a very interesting subject.

It is, isn't it. It's why I felt compelled to jump in on michaels post, because It is something I have thought about before.

Martyn1981 wrote: »

I doubt that we would see a significant shift in the UK as PV is too variable across seasons, with a 4:1 ratio for May or June v's December (30d pitch south facing, or 3:1 for 50d pitch).

True, but I was thinking more in the future I guess. I like to think that someday panel tech will allow us in the UK to harness a lot more of the suns power. Or maybe, storage plus consumption drop will make it much easier.

Martyn1981 wrote: »

But ...... perhaps EV's will change this too by pushing up leccy demand. Though then we face the discussions on whether we should feel sorry for the oil producers, oil shippers, refinery workers, transport drivers, petrol station staff etc etc ...... since disruption always brings ...... well ..... disruption.

I didn't consider EV's. They will have a huge effect. As for jobs lost, I was thinking of this only a week or so ago. I am a big fan of The Expanse books & tv show, and in that future (200 or so years away) most of the human race lives on what the government call 'Basic Assistance' a member of the government explains that "the people are not lazy or useless, we just don't have any jobs for them to do". It's crazy to think that that is a future we could well be heading for. Certainly if/when my children ask me about what they should do as a profession, the first thing I will get them to do is to make a list of jobs where the worker cannot be easily replaced by a robot.

michaels

1) I was thinking of a tariff where the grid component is hidden in the per unit cost, if the grid supplies less overall but has to still meet the same peak requirement) then the per unit grid cost goes up?


2) Does renewable use always lead to smoothing of demand? IN my scenario renewable use would actually lead to more variation in demand, average demand down, peak demand unchanged. This means the peak grid capacity would remain the same but there would be less 'baseload' to spread the capital cost over so cost per unit would go up.

zeupater

michaels wrote: »

.... renewable use would actually lead to more variation in demand, average demand down, peak demand unchanged. This means the peak grid capacity would remain the same but there would be less 'baseload' to spread the capital cost over so cost per unit would go up.

Hi

... However, storage smooths demand & strategic storage smooths demand on a longer term basis .....

What needs to be realised is that there's a link between storage and unit price ... if the industry gets 'greedy' (eg - maintain profit value over fewer unit sales) then the renewable self generation, direct purchase agreements and storage alternatives become more cost attractive to both consumers & industrial/commercial users which drives more business away ... at some time Ofgem will need to allow customers to have the option to arrange their grid connectivity directly with grid operators ... at this point the supply industry will seriously lose out - they (the industry) obviously know this and will be wary of pushing unit prices too far in order to avoid a complete Catch-22 melt-down of their business models of their own making ...

... and that's not even mentioning connected micro-grids with communities operating aggregated import/export agreements in order to share various microgeneration technologies within community power schemes ...

HTH
Z

Martyn1981

lstar337 wrote: »

It is, isn't it. It's why I felt compelled to jump in on michaels post, because It is something I have thought about before.

True, but I was thinking more in the future I guess. I like to think that someday panel tech will allow us in the UK to harness a lot more of the suns power. Or maybe, storage plus consumption drop will make it much easier.

I didn't consider EV's. They will have a huge effect. As for jobs lost, I was thinking of this only a week or so ago. I am a big fan of The Expanse books & tv show, and in that future (200 or so years away) most of the human race lives on what the government call 'Basic Assistance' a member of the government explains that "the people are not lazy or useless, we just don't have any jobs for them to do". It's crazy to think that that is a future we could well be heading for. Certainly if/when my children ask me about what they should do as a profession, the first thing I will get them to do is to make a list of jobs where the worker cannot be easily replaced by a robot.

I think for UK households to go off-grid they either need wind generation, which for most of us is simply impossible due to the inefficiencies of small scale wind and urban turbulence, or they need a significant amount more PV and storage.

With PV costs falling and a possible doubling of efficiencies, generating enough in the winter might become possible, but to meet the edge case of coping with all situations just isn't worth it when we have a grid available.

One possible solution is something I mentioned a long way back, and that's the methane fuel cell boiler, but this is still being played with and very expensive, but .....

...... at approx 50% efficiency at leccy generation (plus the heat it gives off), then matched with batts and PV, this could work to allow a household to disconnect from the leccy grid, and charge up batts (when PV is low) during the heating months. Couple the leccy output with ASHP's and it might tick all the boxes, except cost.

Edit - I've just read an article on the benefits of distributed generation. It's for the US, so won't necessarily translate directly to the UK, but I thought it was interesting and timely.

The State(s) Of Distributed Solar !!!8212; 2017 Update

States with policies supporting a larger proportion of distributed energy from small-scale, often locally owned solar, give their residents and businesses big energy savings and their local economies an economic boost, more so than when solar investments are left to incumbent, often investor-owned utilities.

Martyn1981

michaels wrote: »

1) I was thinking of a tariff where the grid component is hidden in the per unit cost, if the grid supplies less overall but has to still meet the same peak requirement) then the per unit grid cost goes up?

Will the grid supply less?

Will the peak demand from the grid remain the same in your scenario where you are suggesting a move away from the grid? [Remember we aren't just talking about PV, you also have to take into account PPA's from wind farms, and the deployment of batts to shift demand away from peak periods - something being offered to large leccy consumers to avoid peak prices, on a no money down basis by large companies like Siemens, already.]

michaels wrote: »

2) Does renewable use always lead to smoothing of demand? IN my scenario renewable use would actually lead to more variation in demand, average demand down, peak demand unchanged. This means the peak grid capacity would remain the same but there would be less 'baseload' to spread the capital cost over so cost per unit would go up.

Before discussing the negative social impacts of your scenario (and ignoring any positive ones), are you confident that your scenario is correct/reasonable?

Martyn1981

Interesting idea, though the comments section raises a fair few negatives.

Smoke This! Clean “Biocoal” From Hibiscus Cannabinus & Hemp Helps Reduce GHG Emissions

Biocoal from forest waste and other plants has neither sulfur emissions nor mercury in its ash and, unlike other biomass products, is easy to grind. Its burn is cleaner than that of regular coal, which helps reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. It also performs like traditional coal but with reduced ash content. The densification process helps boost energy capacity, alleviates concerns related to heavy metals, and adds to agri-economies.

GreatApe

michaels wrote: »

But the aluminium smelter will only want say 20% of the leccy that it previously wanted from the grid and its demand will be when the wind isn't blowing so the grid supplier will struggle to supply at those times - so lower volumes to support the same infrastructure and increased variability of demand - both of these surely make the 'per unit supplied' price for the grid much higher, for everyone not just the aluminium company?

The marginal cost of production is just fuel so about 2p a unit in the UK (1p gas in a CCGT out as about 2p electricity) everything else is mostly fixed overheads (and profit which is quite high for the transmission networks as there is no competition)

What this means is if we use more, the unit cost will fall and if we use less the unit costs will rise. This is assuming the additional usage is not during the very peak hours of winter.

The good news over the last 10-15 years is that we have reduced peak usage a lot thanks to replacing lighting with LEDs and CFLs that has helped keep prices lower than they otherwise would be. I recall when peak demand was close to 60GW it is now closer to 50GW so that is 10 large power stations less peak demand despite having added millions of people millions of homes and businesses to the population.

As a rule of tumb to reduce eletricity prices
Reduce peak demand and increase overall capacity utilization.
Electric cars could do this by drawing only when its not peak demand.
Lighting still has some way to go as there are still millions of old light bulbs in use.

GreatApe

lstar337 wrote: »

Mart, I think (could be wrong) that michaels is talking about long term grid use dwindling.

I think he is saying that as grid use drops (if more people/companies are able to secure their own supply), the costs to use it will increase as there will not be so many people to spread the load.

Simplistically, if the grid costs £100 to service/maintain/use, and 100 people/companies are using it, then it costs the all £1 and they are all happy. However, if 90 people/companies go off and secure their own local renewable supply, then only 10 people are left using the grid and they all pay 10 times what they were paying before, then they are not happy.

It will be interesting to see if/how renewables disrupt the grid in the future. At what point is the grid no longer viable?

As renewables/energy consumption reduction/storage improve, will domestic properties even need or want to be grid connected? I don't see why they would.

michaels, feel free to tell me to shutup if that wasn't the point of your post/question.

Also, sorry for all the //////'s in my post. I don't really know why I did that.

Generally speaking this should not be a big fear because right now people are being connected to the grid by the millions so we are not even in a steady state affair.

Even in the UK some 200,000 homes and also businesses are being connected to the grid. And mostly in the UK we build in urban areas or close to them so the cost is shared among more people

Battery tech will also help the grid lower its own costs
Lighting going to CFLs/LEDs will/have helped the grid lower its costs for instance if a local area was near capacity as the homes switched to CFLs/LEDs peak usage dropped which means more homes could be added to that area without having to upgrade the transformers and cables etc

DNOs are going nowhere they are super cheap and super effective and super long life.
Even the national grid isn't going anywhere how are we going to get all that wind power from 10s 100s of km away to urban areas without a national grid?

Also why would you want to grid rid of the grid. Its just mostly copper and aluminium wires that will last a lifetime compare that to 100s of kg of batteries that will need to be scrapped and replaced every decade or two.

GreatApe

lstar337 wrote: »

The example michaels gave above specifically mentioned a company installing their own turbines and using the power.

If they can install a turbine and be self sufficient, why would they need the grid?

I think that was the main point.

Even people here (at this early-ish stage of renewables) talk about going 'off grid'. When the economics permit, why wouldn't everybody? Granted, we are talking some time into the future.

A company would not go off grid because that would be a very stupid business decision

The reason is even if you could supply all your own power and energy needs with your own solar/pv you would have the grid connection just as a backup.

A large plant like a aluminium smelter or a car factory or a steel mill if they went down for just one day that would be very very bad on the bottom line.

Take a car factory building 1,500 cars a day at an average price of $35,000 if they lost one day output it would cost them $52 million in revenue and maybe $25 million in marginal profit.

How much is a 50 MW grid connection just for backup?
My guess less than $1 million per year.
Basically the cost of the grid connection is less than 1 hours production loss
What would you do? Pay the <$1 million or cross your fingers and hope that in the whole year you wont have any periods where your own supply was down for even an hour?

The grid connection also allows you to export any excess and during maintenance periods when power use is low again export the power rather than curtailing it. The grid connection basically pays for itself

The idea that large power users will leave the grid is a fantasy that doesn't make sense