Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Martyn1981

Posting mostly for selfish reasons, and a bit of sadness ...... when I skimmed the list of articles and clicked on this one, I thought it said South Wales (as in 'old').

Tesla Megapack Batteries Coming To New South Wales

The Wallgrove battery will have a capacity of 50 MW and 75 MWh, making it the second largest battery in the country after the Hornsdale battery. What is newsworthy about the Wallgrove battery is that it will be the first in Australia to use Tesla’s Megapack storage batteries which have a capacity of 3 MWh each — fifteen times more than the Powerpack batteries used previously at Hornsdale and other locations. The Megapack batteries significantly reduce installation times once they arrive onsite.

silverwhistle

Pile_o_stone said:

The thing I don't understand with the Scottish Nationalists is that they desire independence from a UK that is moving towards a devolved model so they can hand powers over to an EU that is moving towards greater integration and centralisation of powers. 

The UK really isn't though, whatever central government may say. I'd also observe that there is more regional devolution in many EU countries, and any integration has to be agreed and negotiated rather than imposed, like the US and big multi-nationals try to do from without.

silverwhistle

Those megapack batteries at 3MWh each would on  their own be a useful local reinforcement embedded within networks and not just associated with generation sites. I know my local DNO in the past had small generators of shipping container size in some critical spots for peak lopping.

Martyn1981

silverwhistle said:

Those megapack batteries at 3MWh each would on  their own be a useful local reinforcement embedded within networks and not just associated with generation sites. I know my local DNO in the past had small generators of shipping container size in some critical spots for peak lopping.

Couldn't agree more, I really think something like that could be used to mop up supply side excesses when needed, support increased demand side generation by storing excess PV, and reduce the need for the supply to the area to cope with annual peaks and the associated costs.
What if each local sub station had something like this, but sized appropriately, would we then be able to install much larger amounts of PV? Our supplies are typically 80A+ (about 20kW) so the cables can cope with much higher loads than the 3.68kW export standard, it's just the ability to cope with it locally at the time of generation that is a problem.
I mention this as I assume as time goes on, with more PV being deployed and bigger systems possible and more economic*, then it seems that we can kill multiple birds with less stones ....... (too early to mention birds again?)

*3.68kW wasn't a bad number with low installs and 250Wp panels, but now that we approaching 400Wp standard panels and similar installs now reaching 6kWp+.

EVandPV

On the subject of large scale storage, here's a chemistry I'd never heard of before which sounds like a good alternative to lithium ......

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2020/10/24/why-vanadium-flow-batteries-may-be-the-future-of-utility-scale-energy-storage/#1e2906932305

Martyn1981

EVandPV said:

On the subject of large scale storage, here's a chemistry I'd never heard of before which sounds like a good alternative to lithium ......

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2020/10/24/why-vanadium-flow-batteries-may-be-the-future-of-utility-scale-energy-storage/#1e2906932305

We haven't talked about these for a few years, but I seem to recall that the UK and Australia have been working on these (the name Redox springs to mind) and a US firm was selling large scale flow batts at reasonable prices going back a bit.
They share an advantage that hydrogen, liquid air, and pumped hydrogen [edit] also have, in that you can increase the storage (energy) component very cheaply by simply increasing the 'cheap' storage part, such as tanks. The difference with ordinary batts is that to increase storage you need to add more batteries, which cost a lot since you are also adding more capacity (power) too.

Martyn1981

Speaking of large scale longer term storage, we have this item, which if I'm playing with the numbers correctly would have up to 1.2GW and 30GWh of storage potential. Just throwaway estimates at this point, but for comparison we are told that the UK will probably need around 20GW+ of storage to cope with a very high to 100% annual RE penetration. [Dinorwig is about 1.7GW and 9GWh.]

SSE Renewables receives government consent for Coire Glas pumped storage scheme

SSE Renewables says the Scottish Government has granted consent for its proposed Coire Glas project, the UK’s largest newly planned hydro pumped storage scheme.

SSE Renewables says this decision marks another step toward helping Scotland and the UK deliver their net-zero ambitions. If commercially approved, Coire Glas could double the UK’s pumped storage volume capacity and provide the national grid with the low-carbon balancing flexibility needed to reduce energy costs to consumers while helping decarbonize the power system, according to a press release. The project’s future commercial development is subject to identifying the right market investment framework.

The Coire Glas project, located near Loch Lochy in Lochaber in the Scottish Highlands, would be the UK’s first new pumped storage scheme in over 30 years. Initially approved for a 600-MW scheme in December 2013, revised plans were submitted in April 2018 to the Scottish Government for an up-to-1500-MW scheme. The changes were designed to maximize the potential of the site and help the UK in its transition to a net zero energy system by 2050.

The newly-approved scheme would be capable of producing power for 24 hours non-stop and would have a pumped storage capacity of up to 30 GWh, SSE Renewables said.

Pile_o_stone

Solarchaser said:

Speaking for myself only, from 2014 we were promised more devolved powers that never arrived, and promised that everything that came back from EU would go to Scotland rather than the UK and that hasn't happened.
The internal market bill is further stripping of devolution. 

So in short when the UK gov tells us about more devolution coming, I straight up dont believe them, as the actions point in the other direction.

The EU, im a fence sitter.
What I'd like to see is an independent Scotland inside the EU for maybe 5 years, and then an in/out referendum, because I just dont know if its a positive or negative thing.

If brexit has taught us anything, its how much the media and the current government lies to us from bendy bananas, to £350m to the NHS and even no control over our borders.

As the wee nyaf said in that film "I want the truth"
And its crystal clear we will never get that with the current government 

I'm not sure you can get the truth from any government, and the larger the government is the more they hide their misdeeds in the herd. If I were living in Scotland I'd vote for independence, but outside the EU. When I see the SNP on TV, all the arguments they make for EU membership are the same ones the UK government make for Scotland to stay in the UK. When they talk about independence, they make the same arguments the Brexiteers made about leaving the EU. It all seems very muddled and hypocritical. I was working in Scotland during the last Indyref and the one guy who impressed me was the Green Party leader who said that people should ignore the economic arguments and ask themselves simply whether they wanted to live in an independent country or not, even if it made them worse off financially. 

silverwhistle

I hadn't spotted the update on Coire Glas which I've been keeping an eye on as an SSE shareholder. I think the main issue is the mechanism for payment for the service provided and how the investment will be paid back. Unlike wind there can be no PPA or a resort to the standard wholesale markets,more like the retainer cost for spinning reserve. 

Exiled_Tyke

Martyn1981 said:

Speaking of large scale longer term storage, we have this item, which if I'm playing with the numbers correctly would have up to 1.2GW and 30GWh of storage potential. Just throwaway estimates at this point, but for comparison we are told that the UK will probably need around 20GW+ of storage to cope with a very high to 100% annual RE penetration. [Dinorwig is about 1.7GW and 9GWh.]

SSE Renewables receives government consent for Coire Glas pumped storage scheme

SSE Renewables says the Scottish Government has granted consent for its proposed Coire Glas project, the UK’s largest newly planned hydro pumped storage scheme.

SSE Renewables says this decision marks another step toward helping Scotland and the UK deliver their net-zero ambitions. If commercially approved, Coire Glas could double the UK’s pumped storage volume capacity and provide the national grid with the low-carbon balancing flexibility needed to reduce energy costs to consumers while helping decarbonize the power system, according to a press release. The project’s future commercial development is subject to identifying the right market investment framework.

The Coire Glas project, located near Loch Lochy in Lochaber in the Scottish Highlands, would be the UK’s first new pumped storage scheme in over 30 years. Initially approved for a 600-MW scheme in December 2013, revised plans were submitted in April 2018 to the Scottish Government for an up-to-1500-MW scheme. The changes were designed to maximize the potential of the site and help the UK in its transition to a net zero energy system by 2050.

The newly-approved scheme would be capable of producing power for 24 hours non-stop and would have a pumped storage capacity of up to 30 GWh, SSE Renewables said.

I find this most interesting because (just to name drop for a moment) a couple of years ago I was chatting with the Chief Electricity Engineer at the National Grid. I'm sure he told me that Dinorwig wasn't value for money and he couldn't see any similar schemes being built in the foreseeable future. Perhaps I got it wrong or perhaps with the decreasing costs and massive expansion of wind energy, the maths have changed???