Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Martyn1981

michaels said:

Martyn1981 said:

Article showing that RE capacity deployment grew last year. Also suggesting that it will start to grow faster again this year/next. It also mentions positive policy changes, such as in the US, now that they have a normal man in charge.
I'd assume/suggest that we should see significant growth in annual deployments again, as RE costs keep getting cheaper (more bang for your buck), cheaper RE, means less dithering about RE v's FF spending, and of course AGW denial is falling, and becoming less tolerable, as the climate crisis grows.

Global renewable energy industry grew at fastest rate since 1999 last year

The world’s renewable energy industry grew at its fastest pace since 1999 last year, despite the disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, and may have established a standard for growth in the future, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The global energy watchdog revealed that the delivery of renewable energy projects, including windfarms and solar power projects, grew by 45% last year in a step change for the global industry.

Wind power capacity doubled over the last year, while solar power grew by almost 50% more than its growth before the pandemic, due to the growing appetite for clean energy from governments and corporations.

Good news but I hate headlines like this, sure the rate may have picked up but the comparison to what was added in terms of volume last year compared to 1999 is so different as to not be relevant - going up from 2 to 3 is 50% growth, as is going up from 2 trillion to 3 trillion, but comparing the two percentage changes is not really very useful.

What?
So, in 2020 RE capacity rollout was 45% more than in 2019. Confirmed by a quick look at the graph, which my MKI eyeball suggests is something like 270GW v's 190GW.

Martyn1981

Bit of a brainache and head spinner this one (for me):

US renewables industry scores strongest-ever first quarter

The US renewables industry added 40% more clean energy in the first three months of 2021 than the same period in 2020, industry research has shown.

2020 had been the strongest year for renewables deployment in the country to date.

The Clean Power Quarterly Market Report, released today by the American Clean Power Association (ACP), shows that US project developers installed 2500MW of wind, 1200MW of solar and 100MW of battery storage between January and March.

Obviously, up is good, but on the other hand the amounts rolled out don't seem like a lot for the US, but on my third hand (don't mention nuclear Mart), an annualised amount of 10GW wind, 4.8GW solar, and 0.4GW of storage ain't bad.



Sticking with Renews articles, here's one on storage, and seems to be 'just' for balancing RE to the grid, not FFR, peaker replacement, etc ..... just buy it cheap when excess, and sell it high when RE is short.

RES to build UK mega-battery

RES has received permission to build a 100MW energy storage project in Yorkshire, northern England.

The 99.9MW Lakeside energy storage project in north Yorkshire raises RES’ UK storage portfolio to 420MW.

The project will be located in the Selby district and has consent for 51 energy storage containers and 42 transformers.

Construction is expected to begin in late 2022, and the site is set to be fully operational by late 2023. 

The utility-grade batteries will store electricity from the national grid at times of low demand and high renewables generation, with the stored energy exported back to the grid at times of high demand and lower renewable electricity generation.

QrizB

Martyn1981 said:

Bit of a brainache and head spinner this one (for me):

US renewables industry scores strongest-ever first quarter

The Clean Power Quarterly Market Report, released today by the American Clean Power Association (ACP), shows that US project developers installed 2500MW of wind, 1200MW of solar and 100MW of battery storage between January and March.

Obviously, up is good, but on the other hand the amounts rolled out don't seem like a lot for the US, but on my third hand (don't mention nuclear Mart), an annualised amount of 10GW wind, 4.8GW solar, and 0.4GW of storage ain't bad.

Maybe Q1 is not a good time for solar PV installation in the US?

According to the link below, during 2020 the US installed 19.2GWp of PV; there must be something funny in the quarterly numbers.

https://www.seia.org/us-solar-market-insight

silverwhistle

QrizB said:

Maybe Q1 is not a good time for solar PV installation in the US?

Not even in Texas this year, let alone the colder states! You do wonder what that event will do to the domestic PV and battery market, as there are plenty of people who could afford to install it.

Martyn1981

I watched a vid on this heat storage idea yesterday, and found it really interesting. The vid is from the father/son team at Now You Know (who also present Tesla Time News). They start by explaining that the company, it's idea(s), and the process, are so 'simple' that it's hard to get your head around, and I have to agree, it simply sounds too easy if you look at their sebsite:

Store Wind and Solar Power as Heat in Sand

So I'd recommend watching the vid, or having it play in the background whilst you do something more constructive, and see what you think. But simply put, they will take RE leccy generation and use it to heat up a thermal store, preferably one filled with sand, that has pipes running through it, and a heat exchanger can add heat to the store, or remove it. The store will need about 0.5m of insulation, but of course that becomes a smaller and smaller issue as you go bigger, in effect shrinking in proportion to the volume.
The sand will of course be cheap, or even unwanted, and follows the vein of Prof Saddoway who when talking about battery storage said:   ”If you want to make something dirt-cheap, make it out of dirt. Preferably dirt that's locally sourced.”

The pipeworks are not 'special' so can be manaufactured at existing factories, and the heat can be stored for months, making it a great way to not only store RE generation, but also to shift seasonal excesses.

Just as an example that was pondered in the vid, if your community has an old quarry nearby, you could pop in the pipes, fill with sand and rocks, and then top over (maybe establish fields, buildings, farming, PV etc) and you have a seasonal heat store.

Well worth a listen, and I for one will keep my fingers crossed that the idea/project has legs.

Dirt Simple Energy Storage | In Depth

QrizB

Martyn1981 said:

... they will take RE leccy generation and use it to heat up a thermal store, preferably one filled with sand, that has pipes running through it, and a heat exchanger can add heat to the store, or remove it.

Geothermal, but using a man-made heat store? It will be interesting to see how their pilot plant gets on. The conversion efficiency to/from electricity will be key (someone's already invented storage heaters for space heating, after all).

michaels

QrizB said:

Martyn1981 said:

... they will take RE leccy generation and use it to heat up a thermal store, preferably one filled with sand, that has pipes running through it, and a heat exchanger can add heat to the store, or remove it.

Geothermal, but using a man-made heat store? It will be interesting to see how their pilot plant gets on. The conversion efficiency to/from electricity will be key (someone's already invented storage heaters for space heating, after all).

There are similar projects in the UK already up and running, heat removed for cooling in the summer is stored in the ground for reuse in the winter.

Martyn1981

QrizB said:

Martyn1981 said:

... they will take RE leccy generation and use it to heat up a thermal store, preferably one filled with sand, that has pipes running through it, and a heat exchanger can add heat to the store, or remove it.

Geothermal, but using a man-made heat store? It will be interesting to see how their pilot plant gets on. The conversion efficiency to/from electricity will be key (someone's already invented storage heaters for space heating, after all).

Actually, I thought that the cost of 'normal' heating v's the cost of leccy generation from RE would be key. But I'm assuming that the resistive heating element (see what I did there?) of this will be close to 100% efficient, and the losses in the system would be perhaps 10-20% (just a guess). So can RE leccy prices compete with FF costs? Can hot air, compete with higher costs of a heat pump, but better COP
...... and so on.

Then I started pondering, should we consider the cost of generation from a PV farm (for example), or the cost of the 'excess' RE generation that would be diverted to schemes like this.
After that I thought it might be seen as a way of creating a price floor for RE gen, let's just say 1p/kWh (£10/MWh) purely as an example in the UK, even if that resulted in heat at 2p/kWh, it would add another string to RE's bow, since anything raising the minimum price, or reducing/avoiding negative prices, will only make RE generation more profitable/viable.
It all still sounds too 'easy' to me, but I'd love to see this Gov (or any other) invest some of their battery funding to a small project, perhaps for a new build housing site, or commercial building, and see just how it stacks up.

My last thought kinda went off the rails - we are redoing our patio soon, so should I dig a great big hole, line it with 'free' PIR (as skips are full of it, shove in some pipes and sand, then join Agile and start diverting cheap or even negative priced leccy into it ...... I'm guessing they'd have some questions for me regarding where the hell it's all going. 

EricMears

Martyn1981 said:

My last thought kinda went off the rails - we are redoing our patio soon, so should I dig a great big hole, line it with 'free' PIR (as skips are full of it, shove in some pipes and sand, then join Agile and start diverting cheap or even negative priced leccy into it ...... I'm guessing they'd have some questions for me regarding where the hell it's all going. 

"PIR"   ?  Only Google hits I seem to find are for "Passive Infra-Red" !

ABrass

EricMears said:

Martyn1981 said:

My last thought kinda went off the rails - we are redoing our patio soon, so should I dig a great big hole, line it with 'free' PIR (as skips are full of it, shove in some pipes and sand, then join Agile and start diverting cheap or even negative priced leccy into it ...... I'm guessing they'd have some questions for me regarding where the hell it's all going. 

"PIR"   ?  Only Google hits I seem to find are for "Passive Infra-Red" !

Kingspan or Celotex. Polyisocyanurate foam, very good at insulating things.