Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

NigeWick

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Note - Please remember, this isn't about whether you love or hate nuclear, or if like me you see it as better than coal and AGW, but falling behind RE - this is simply about the economics which look like being in favour of RE now, which allows us to drop the nuclear 'dream' regardless of personal feelings about the risks.

If one includes the 20,000 year clean up costs, renewables are already a lot cheaper than nuclear.

IMHO, the way forward is microgrids that have generation and battery storage of some kind. The smallest microgrid would be a home with solar and/or wind generation with a battery for when the V2G EV is not in the garage. This sort of system would offer great versatility as well as resilience. Imagine if some nasty people managed to get a bomb into a nuclear plant or cut the cables for larger grid scale energy generation.

Martyn1981

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Cool down nuclear plan because renewables are better bet, ministers told

Further info with another article:

Government needs U-turn over mania for nuclear plants

Here’s a report that must not be lost in the noise of Brexit. The National Infrastructure Assessment is a once-a-parliament affair from a body that was created to save us from the deadly combination of politicians’ machismo and the electoral cycle.

More prosaically, the National Infrastructure Commission’s job is to inject long-term strategic thinking into the critical business of building important stuff. Its first report contains a devastating conclusion: the government should drop its obsession with building more and more nuclear power stations.

Martyn1981

And further info again on the review of costs RE v's nuclear.

Here is the main report

Power sector modelling:
System cost impact of renewables
Report for the National Infrastructure Commission

Some extracts:

In terms of cost-effectiveness, there is little to choose between a high renewable and high nuclear world, provided there is sufficient flexibility on the system to deal with renewable integration costs.
However, we would note that this is highly sensitive to cost assumptions, with renewable costs more likely than nuclear to fall faster than expected

In a flexible system, reaching 70-80% renewable production by 2050 is the cost optimizing option, with no new nuclear beyond Hinkley Point C needed to meet carbon targets

In a less flexible system, more than 40% renewable production by 2050 increases the cost to consumers

In a high renewable world, system flexibility is therefore critical to cost effective decarbonization

Policies to support system flexibility are always a low regrets option and are key to enabling a high renewable world

It is difficult to reach carbon targets cost-effectively without new nuclear except at very high levels of renewable penetration

At the same time, its long lifetime increases the chance that nuclear investments could prove suboptimal over the long term, particularly given the potential for rapid renewable and battery cost declines

CCS rarely appears to be a cost effective option for reducing power sector emissions

From page 36, with figures based on a high electrification future of 595TWh pa:

40% RE scenario has £3bn in intermittency/balancing costs = £12.60/MWh

90% RE scenario has £7bn in intermittency costs = £13.07/MWh

Conclusion

Challenge for the future

The GB power market will require significant changes from the current generation mix to reach its 2050 carbon targets of near zero emissions

EVs and heat electrification could increase electricity demand by as much as 65% over the next three decades

Policy lessons

Under a flexible system, increasing renewables up to 70-80% of generation delivers the lowest system cost pathway, costing up to £3bn/year less than lower renewables pathways

However, flexibility matters to the cost of integrating renewables. A system bound by carbon targets, with fewer interconnectors, DSR and batteries would see 40% renewables as the lowest system cost pathway

Nuclear is the lowest cost alternative to renewables; CCS only enters if nuclear is restricted, increasing the cost savings from higher renewables

A high renewables pathway risks loss of load in extreme weather stress events, although system costs calculations already include the cost of such occurrences

Technology lessons

Amongst renewables, solar PV, onshore wind and offshore wind are the main sources of new renewables to enter economically under a carbon target. Building Tidal power requires a subsidy, but the impact on total system cost is minimal

Large amounts of flexible capacity, including DSR, batteries and gas reciprocating engines, are required with increasing levels of renewables

Smart EV charging reduces the capacity required of the power sector and can save consumers £28/year on average. A lack of smart EV charging can increase total system costs by £2bn/year.

Martyn1981

Same story again (sorry) but yet more info and twists/turns.

National Infrastructure Commission Urges UK To End Ban On Onshore Wind

The National Infrastructure Commission was formed in October of 2015 as an independent, non-ministerial government department responsible for providing advice to the UK Government on the country’s growing infrastructure needs and issues. On Tuesday, the Commission released its first National Infrastructure Assessment which urged Ministers to seize the “golden opportunity” to switch to lower cost and greener ways of generating energy to homes and businesses.

Importantly, however — as pointed out by the Commission’s Chairman Sir John Armitt — the Assessment shows that, contrary to popular belief and ‘wisdom’, a switch to greener energy technologies would not result in a hit on people’s pockets. And while the Assessment did not promise savings, it did conclude that a switch to low-carbon and renewable energy sources for both the UK’s power and heating — as well as a switch to electric vehicles — would result in prices staying the same by 2050 as they are today.

“Onshore wind is the cheapest form of new electricity generation so it’s no surprise that the Commission is calling on the UK Government to stop blocking new projects,” added Fabrice Leveque, Senior Policy Manager at Scottish Renewables. “Building a low-carbon energy system centred on renewables like solar and onshore wind would not only reduce consumer energy bills, it would also reflect public opinion which is strongly in favour of renewables.”

Similarly, since both onshore wind and solar have been relegated to ‘Pot 1’ for Contract for Difference auctions, and only one Pot 1 auction has been run to date, both technologies have been cut out of the running to support the low-carbon transition.

Martyn1981

2016 saw approx 200hrs of coal free generation in the UK, last year it was up to 600, and this year has now passed the 1,000hr mark.

UK passes 1,000 hours without coal as energy shift accelerates

Martyn1981

Just another article talking about dirt cheap RE generation on its way.

Danish offshore costs to 'fall 30%'

The cost of offshore wind in Denmark could average €46 a megawatt-hour by 2020, 30% lower than previous estimates, according to the Danish Energy Agency's updated levelised cost of energy calculator.

Martyn1981

Some extracts from the weekly Carbon Commentary newsletter:

1, National Grid scenario planning. The UK gas and electricity system operator published its annual scenario update. National Grid is an intelligent watcher of energy trends so it thought it helpful to track the number of times key individual words occurred and compare these figures with 2017. Here are some results, giving the 2017 number first and the 2018 second. ‘Vehicle to Grid’ 5 to 41, ‘Carbon Capture and Use’, 0 to 45, ‘Decentralised’ 0 to 36, ‘Hydrogen’ 45 to 168 and, most surprisingly of all, ‘Community’ 4 to 129. Here’s how I interpret these changes: National Grid now sees a real possibility of a 100% switch to low carbon energy, powered by small scale community renewables with balancing of energy supply carried out by car batteries (V2G) and by turning surplus power into usable fuels via electrolysis to make hydrogen.

2, Direct manufacture of hydrogen from light. Eventually, renewable hydrogen will be generated directly from light rather than through electrolysis. Efficiencies will be far lower (electrolysis transmutes 80% of electrical energy into the energy of hydrogen) but reduced costs will make up for this. Another advance was reported this week by a joint US/German team with almost 20% conversion of the energy of light into hydrogen in a water-based solution. As usual, the key problem is the very quick degradation of the catalyst but the team also reported improvements here. (Thanks to Kingsmill Bond).

3, Off grid energy. IRENA said that over 130 million people (slightly less than 2% of the world population) were served exclusively by off-grid electricity at the end of 2016, up from around 5 million in 2007. The number will have grown substantially since the data was collected. About 100 million people have access to solar lamps alone but nearly 25 million have more powerful home systems. This second number grew by 25% in 2017 alone. Huge amounts remain to be done but local microgrids and affordable financing are making a rapid growth in electricity available possible. About 1.2 billion people remain without any form of electricity. (Thanks to Gage Williams)

8, Hybrid wind + solar + battery. In north western Australia what may be the world’s first fully-hybrid renewable system reached the point of peak construction, and is ready to put up the first wind turbines. The Kennedy Energy Park pilot site will have 43 MW of wind, 12 MW of solar and battery capacity of 2MW/4MWh of storage. The location has higher levels of wind at night and very good insolation levels during the day, meaning that the site can promise lower intermittency than a conventional wind or solar farm. If successful, the hybrid renewables farm will eventually deliver up to 1.2 GW of electricity.

Martyn1981

Hmmmm where to post this? Domestic batts, maybe, PV news, perhaps, but overall it's news about integrating more RE into our grids, so here goes:

Tesla Virtual Power Plant In Australia Passes Initial Testing With Flying Colors

In February, Tesla and the government of South Australia announced a plan to create the largest virtual power plant in the world — 50,000 5 kilowatt rooftop solar systems, each paired with a 13.5 kilowatt-hour battery for a total system output of 250 megawatts and 625 megawatt-hours of storage. So far, the installation of rooftop solar and storage batteries has been completed on 100 homes and the results are everything Tesla expected them to be.

In a recent statement, the government praised the first virtual power plant (VPP) systems for, “delivering cheaper energy to South Australians who need it most,” and increasing the reliability of the state’s energy network. The results of preliminary testing show that the Tesla Powerwalls installed in homes can deliver the same type of performance when it comes to providing rapid and accurate response to frequency changes as the grid-scale Tesla battery array installed in South Australia at the end of last year.

The systems are installed with no money down and will be paid for over time as part of monthly utility charges. Even with those payments, the average monthly bills for the first 100 participants is about 30% less than they were paying for electricity previously.

gefnew

Hi All
A bit for you ev owners on the beeb.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44923014
Regards
gefnew

gefnew

Hi All
UK wind power to double.


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44926442
regards
gefnew