Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

GreatApe

One of the most interesting bits of news over the last year or so is that GE claims its next gen 12MW offshore turbine will be 63% CF if that is true then offshore wind will become a massive source of energy worldwide. I dont know if it is marketing guff or upto 63% CF meaning just the best sites during the best years but if it is not marketing guff then integrating such offshore wind into grids becomes very effective

Assuming it is true if the UK could build out 80GW of such 63% CF offshore wind it would generate ~440 TWH annually. A UK with electrified transport in 2050 would need perhaps 500TWh annually therefore 80GW of such wind farms would supply upto 88% of electricity and transport needs with the remainder as imports and CCGTs

The higher the CF of the wind farms the less problems you have integrating it into the grid and less need to store or curtail so these next gen turbines if they really are ~63% are a huge improvement over the ~45% CF of the best farms today.

Offshore wind is shaping up to have the potential to be a large primary energy source and in some nations like the UK possibly the dominant source of electricity.

GreatApe

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

But take care with the figures & speculation that result in the postulations as there seems to be long history of manipulation & guesswork as opposed employing a supportable approach ...Start at the basic assumptions, apply what you know to be the case and work from there!

On the RE/storage front, that's where the government really need to pull their socks up and sharpen their pencils .... in order to reduce reliance on backup FF plant the UK needs to add schedule-able RE generation, so tidal becomes essential & above that someone needs to stop worrying about the potential 'anti' fall-out from beginning to plan for a national scale strategic store of pumped hydro (think Dinorwig scale generating plant with many times the volume of stored water) - at some time a number of select valleys will need to be flooded despite the inevitable protests else (cheap) FF standby plant will be around for the foreseeable future!

HTH
Z

Your not going to flood the nation to save the nation from sea level rises due to claimitchange :rotfl:

Wind power just needs to get so cheap you do not mind curtailing 10-15% of it rather than flooding land to try and store it

If the next gen offshore wind turbines get 60% + capacity factory you can go mostly wind without worrying about storage for probably 2+ decades

Something like 80% offshore wind and 20% CCGT&imports is also not a bad future
Sure you use natural gas in power stations still but it would not be not much compared to what is used in homes and other buildings for heating. At that point you should concentrate on electrifying home heating rather than worrying about the 10-20% from CCGTs in electricity generation

Anyway this is a long time away

michaels

I have seen the suggestions that with suitable inter-connectors to Norway we could use their hydro infrastructure to store our wind power. No idea of the economics of this though.

Batteries is interesting - who knows if there might be a breakthrough round the corner that might reduce the cost by a factor of 10. If you see them as electronics then such innovation would be the norm but if they are engineering then even mass production and continuous improvement is unlikely to bring anything like that level of advance in the next 20 years.

Martyn1981

michaels wrote: »

Thanks for your thoughts. I was more wondering whether storage will ever become economic to deal with the still, cloudy winter RE troughs rather than needing to keep back up fossil fuel plants on line that only run for shorter and shorter periods?

As Z suggests, based on past experience, please take care with the numbers supplied. For instance the UK car fleet is 30m not 35m, and average mileage is 7,900 miles pa, or about 2MWh not 4MWh.

michaels wrote: »

I have seen the suggestions that with suitable inter-connectors to Norway we could use their hydro infrastructure to store our wind power. No idea of the economics of this though.

Yes, Norway has so much suitable topography, that there is currently an estimated 20GW of additional hydro generation that could be easily built out if they wanted too.

On top of that, they could become Europe's batteries, with the addition of catchment lagoons, allowing for PHS (pumped hydro storage) effectively storing cheap excess solar and wind for later.

pile-o-stone

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Yes, Norway has so must suitable topography, that there is currently an estimated 20GW of additional hydro generation that could be easily built out if they wanted too.

Though these areas may be populated or be areas of natural beauty and so flooding them may not be popular, especially if they're being flooded to store energy for other countries.

Hydro isn't environmentally sound if it means flooding environmentally sensitive areas like wetlands, marshes, etc. or if ti disrupts fish migration or the distribution of mineral rich silt downriver.

Martyn1981

pile-o-stone wrote: »

Though these areas may be populated or be areas of natural beauty and so flooding them may not be popular, especially if they're being flooded to store energy for other countries.

Hydro isn't environmentally sound if it means flooding environmentally sensitive areas like wetlands, marshes, etc. or if ti disrupts fish migration or the distribution of mineral rich silt downriver.

You might be right, and there are some NIMBY (their heading not mine) issues listed in the multitude of articles, but I'm not sure if any of them relate to your concerns. They seem to be more to do with additional power cables in the 'wilderness' areas.

Norway Could Provide 20,000MW of Energy Storage to Europe

Oil-rich Norway could become Europe’s ‘green battery’

zeupater

Martyn1981 wrote: »

As Z suggests, based on past experience, please take care with the numbers supplied. For instance the UK car fleet is 30m not 35m, and average mileage is 7,900 miles pa, or about 2MWh not 4MWh ...

Hi

That's pretty much in line with my own approach & why the caution flag was raised ...

Supporting data ...

The latest data according to DfT NTS (National Travel Survey) statistics (26/07/18) suggests that in 2017 the average mileage fell to 6747 from the previous year's 7326 .... https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/nts09-vehicle-mileage-and-occupancy#car-mileage

Regarding cars registered for use on GB roads from the latest DfT statistics (14/06/18) ... "At the end of March 2018, there were 37.9 million licensed vehicles" ... of which 82.7% were cars ... additionally "there were 1.2 million licensed vehicles in Northern Ireland" and the "distribution of vehicles by body type was broadly similar to Great Britain", giving a GB car total of 31.3million(37.9*0.827) with the total for the UK as a whole being 32.3million ((37.9+1.2)*0.827) ... https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/729581/vehicle-licensing-statistics-january-to-march-2018.pdf

What is interesting is that the NTS doesn't seem to cover registered vehicles with little or sporadic usage such as classic vehicles etc, therefore the actual average mileage is likely to be a little high if applied to the entire fleet although for the accuracy required in these type of discussions it's probably not statistically relevant ...

Other points obviously include the EV charging window ... MrsZ is able to charge during the daytime, but the majority would likely choose to do so overnight when PV without a strategic or distributed storage solution isn't very efficient!

HTH
Z

GreatApe

Martyn1981 wrote: »

As Z suggests, based on past experience, please take care with the numbers supplied. For instance the UK car fleet is 30m not 35m, and average mileage is 7,900 miles pa, or about 2MWh not 4MWh.

At the end of March 2018, there were 37.9 million vehicles licensed for use on the roads in Great Britain, of which 31.3 million were cars and this number is likely to grow as the UK population is likely to ~10 million over the next 20 years

Car traffic grew by 1.1 per cent from 2016 to 254.4 billion vehicle miles (bvm) – the highest annual car traffic estimate ever; van traffic continued to grow more quickly than any other motor vehicle type, rising 2.7 per cent from 2016 to 50.5 bvm; and lorry traffic increased by 1.2 per cent from 2016, continuing a trend of steady growth for the past five years.

cars 255 billion miles @ say 3.5 miles per kWH = 73TWh
vans 50 billion miles @ say 2 miles per kWh = 25 TWh
Lorry 22 billion miles @ say 0.5 miles per kWh = 44 TWh
So somewhere in the region of 140 TWh for road transport electrification and perhaps +15% to that for population growth to 2040 also maybe 10% losses in transmission/charging/standby

Yes, Norway has so much suitable topography, that there is currently an estimated 20GW of additional hydro generation that could be easily built out if they wanted too.

On top of that, they could become Europe's batteries, with the addition of catchment lagoons, allowing for PHS (pumped hydro storage) effectively storing cheap excess solar and wind for later.

Not required why would you go to extreme lengths to get rid of the last few % of CCGT in electricity generation when he majority of homes and businesses are heated with NG?
If you want to reduce NG usage you would first start decarbing base load heating and then seasonal heating pretty much the very last thing you do is try to get rid of CCGTs in the grid

Now to 2040 is going to be decarbing electricity.
2030-2050 is going to be cars
2040-2060 is going to be heating
Some time beyond 2050 you can start to worry about CCGTs in the grid

GreatApe

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Norway Could Provide 20,000MW of Energy Storage to Europe[/URL]

a watt is a unit of power not a unit of energy you should know better

how much energy can Norway store for Europe and which country is going to want to be dependent on a nation of 5 million for its economic lifeblood not being cut off?

GreatApe

pile-o-stone wrote: »

Though these areas may be populated or be areas of natural beauty and so flooding them may not be popular, especially if they're being flooded to store energy for other countries.

Hydro isn't environmentally sound if it means flooding environmentally sensitive areas like wetlands, marshes, etc. or if ti disrupts fish migration or the distribution of mineral rich silt downriver.

Norway is not a solution and even if it was I would not want the UK dependent on a single foreign power being eternally benevolent enough not to mess with our electricity supply

Natural gas in large quantities will be with us much longer than coal and oil its not even worthy of considering what/how the last few % points of NG will exist the grid