Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

shinytop

Martyn1981 said:

shinytop said:

Martyn1981 said:

michaels said:

Grid carbon intensity down to 37g per kwh last night

https://www.electricinsights.co.uk/#/dashboard?start=2022-03-13&&_k=c26io0

So the miles I drove today had a marginal co2 footprint of 10g per mile.

Wow, wind and solar (mostly wind) covered about 60% of demand for most of the day. And gas got squeezed really low. I can see why intraday storage schemes seem to be accelerating and making the news more and more. Certainly gonna be needing them on a regular basis soon.

Silly thought of the day, but looking at the last CfD offshore wind contracts, and the wind/PV caps in the recent auction, then new RE with intraday storage (assuming ~20% of generation needs to be stored) is probably about half the cost of HPC now, or pretty soon.

Are there any plans to actually build any? Could BEIS design contracts that include storage?  

Yeah loads of articles posted on this thread about batteries being deployed. Some big ones for Scotland got mentioned just recently.

Edit - Hang on, I can see what you mean now. I didn't mean the cost of leccy from a co-located RE generation and storage facility, though of course developments like that are probably going to happen. No, I just meant generally the average cost of leccy when generated by new RE, which is looking good for £50/MWh or less, plus the higher cost leccy that has gone through supply side storage (perhaps 20% for intraday storage?). There's also arbitrage to be considered, but I was focusing just on costs here, not potential income.   

So I was just thinking that if storage costs £50/MWh or less (based on small scale domestic battery storage at perhaps 5p to 10p/kWh), and generation gets under £50/MWh, then the overall average cost of that new gen, plus the storage costs, would be around £55-£60/MWh, roughly half the cost of HPC soon, since it'll be over £110/MWh after April's inflationary uplift.

That's what I was getting at.  Instead of building RE and hoping someone else builds the storage at a a reasonable price, why not build an integrated package.  It all seems a bit piecemeal/hoping for the best otherwise. 

Verdigris

That scheme to combine solar, diurnal winds and storage, in Morocco, sounds very attractive, especially as the HVDC interconnector will only come here, so an element of energy security.

I doubt the idiots in government will see it that way because it means dealing with "forrin people". (not that it stops them fawning to Saudi Arabia, of course, who can sell their oil to whom they like, or not)

ABrass

shinytop said:

Martyn1981 said:

shinytop said:

Martyn1981 said:

michaels said:

Grid carbon intensity down to 37g per kwh last night

https://www.electricinsights.co.uk/#/dashboard?start=2022-03-13&&_k=c26io0

So the miles I drove today had a marginal co2 footprint of 10g per mile.

Wow, wind and solar (mostly wind) covered about 60% of demand for most of the day. And gas got squeezed really low. I can see why intraday storage schemes seem to be accelerating and making the news more and more. Certainly gonna be needing them on a regular basis soon.

Silly thought of the day, but looking at the last CfD offshore wind contracts, and the wind/PV caps in the recent auction, then new RE with intraday storage (assuming ~20% of generation needs to be stored) is probably about half the cost of HPC now, or pretty soon.

Are there any plans to actually build any? Could BEIS design contracts that include storage?  

Yeah loads of articles posted on this thread about batteries being deployed. Some big ones for Scotland got mentioned just recently.

Edit - Hang on, I can see what you mean now. I didn't mean the cost of leccy from a co-located RE generation and storage facility, though of course developments like that are probably going to happen. No, I just meant generally the average cost of leccy when generated by new RE, which is looking good for £50/MWh or less, plus the higher cost leccy that has gone through supply side storage (perhaps 20% for intraday storage?). There's also arbitrage to be considered, but I was focusing just on costs here, not potential income.   

So I was just thinking that if storage costs £50/MWh or less (based on small scale domestic battery storage at perhaps 5p to 10p/kWh), and generation gets under £50/MWh, then the overall average cost of that new gen, plus the storage costs, would be around £55-£60/MWh, roughly half the cost of HPC soon, since it'll be over £110/MWh after April's inflationary uplift.

That's what I was getting at.  Instead of building RE and hoping someone else builds the storage at a a reasonable price, why not build an integrated package.  It all seems a bit piecemeal/hoping for the best otherwise. 

https://www.energy-storage.news/majority-of-10gw-battery-energy-storage-coming-online-in-next-two-years-in-us-paired-with-solar-pv/

From 10GW of battery storage expected to be deployed in the US over the next two years, more than 60% will be installed with solar PV, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Martyn1981

shinytop said:

Martyn1981 said:

shinytop said:

Martyn1981 said:

michaels said:

Grid carbon intensity down to 37g per kwh last night

https://www.electricinsights.co.uk/#/dashboard?start=2022-03-13&&_k=c26io0

So the miles I drove today had a marginal co2 footprint of 10g per mile.

Wow, wind and solar (mostly wind) covered about 60% of demand for most of the day. And gas got squeezed really low. I can see why intraday storage schemes seem to be accelerating and making the news more and more. Certainly gonna be needing them on a regular basis soon.

Silly thought of the day, but looking at the last CfD offshore wind contracts, and the wind/PV caps in the recent auction, then new RE with intraday storage (assuming ~20% of generation needs to be stored) is probably about half the cost of HPC now, or pretty soon.

Are there any plans to actually build any? Could BEIS design contracts that include storage?  

Yeah loads of articles posted on this thread about batteries being deployed. Some big ones for Scotland got mentioned just recently.

Edit - Hang on, I can see what you mean now. I didn't mean the cost of leccy from a co-located RE generation and storage facility, though of course developments like that are probably going to happen. No, I just meant generally the average cost of leccy when generated by new RE, which is looking good for £50/MWh or less, plus the higher cost leccy that has gone through supply side storage (perhaps 20% for intraday storage?). There's also arbitrage to be considered, but I was focusing just on costs here, not potential income.   

So I was just thinking that if storage costs £50/MWh or less (based on small scale domestic battery storage at perhaps 5p to 10p/kWh), and generation gets under £50/MWh, then the overall average cost of that new gen, plus the storage costs, would be around £55-£60/MWh, roughly half the cost of HPC soon, since it'll be over £110/MWh after April's inflationary uplift.

That's what I was getting at.  Instead of building RE and hoping someone else builds the storage at a a reasonable price, why not build an integrated package.  It all seems a bit piecemeal/hoping for the best otherwise. 

Yep, it'll be great to see RE and storage built together, if that's the best economical solution, but it's all happening now as we start to see a growing market for storage. Also, as I explained in previous post and replies, RE deployments such as wind and PV are ideally suited for on-site storage, but it doesn't need to be added until such time as it's needed/viable. The industries themselves have pointed this out, and expect storage to be installed as and when it makes sense.

It was always going to be this way since there needs to be enough regular excess to make storage viable, and the steady expansion of storage now (not just in the UK) seems to reflect that.

I'm not sure that 'hoping' comes into it, it seems fairly natural and predicted, and a good economical investment/addition.

Verdigris

I would have thought storage would be a no brainer for solar operators. Cream off the midday peak to sell at a premium price at teatime.

2nd_time_buyer

... it will be interesting to see what percentage of RE is acceptable to be "dumped"? 

Conseivably it might be cheaper to increase RE to such an extent that capacity is much in excess, than to store it in batteries. It might also be better for the environment, once you consider batteries may only have a shelf life of 10 years. The lifetime of a wind turbine may also increase if it is used less.

With the amount of storage that could be in BEVs, and increased number of interconnects, and variable rate tarriffs. My hunch is that the amount of storage needed might be less than we think for normal scenarios. And in abnormal scenarios e.g. two weeks of windless grey, then batteries won't be enough anyway.

Martyn1981

Verdigris said:

I would have thought storage would be a no brainer for solar operators. Cream off the midday peak to sell at a premium price at teatime.

It would seem so, but until there is an excess of RE generation (not just generation) the mid day price will reflect the gas price, since it can demand follow. The same will apply at teatime where the price is going to reflect gas, or the gas that will be pushed off the grid by the stored PV.

So there might be little to no arbitrage in that situation to make up for the additional costs of the storage.

But in the future when RE pushes gas completely off the grid, let's say at midday, then the leccy price will fall as RE v's RE looks for a market. That (cheap) stored RE can then be sold at a higher price at teatime, especially if demand is high and RE gen is low, and ever more expensive gas generation (they won't all have the same generation costs) comes on line. [Obviously, the current geo-political issues, and gas prices make additional RE and storage viable today, if there was no chance of gas prices falling back down in the foreseeable future.]

But yes, I also think it will be a no-brainer. I don't know when RE will reach the right point in terms of generation cost, penetration, or storage cost, but I get the feeling it's not too far off now.

2nd_time_buyer

Verdigris said:

I would have thought storage would be a no brainer for solar operators. Cream off the midday peak to sell at a premium price at teatime.

I am not entirely convinced that the teatime "peak" will exist going forward. Take yesterday, the evening peak was around 45GW compared to around 40GW during the day. So only about 10% difference. It would not take too much energy-shift to balance the books.

Going forward, I suspect the biggest variations in price will depend on whether the wind is blowing or not.

I think solar will always be a better than wind in terms of matching supply and demand. As by definition, solar is always generating in daylight hours.

Exiled_Tyke

Martyn1981 said:

Verdigris said:

I would have thought storage would be a no brainer for solar operators. Cream off the midday peak to sell at a premium price at teatime.

It would seem so, but until there is an excess of RE generation (not just generation) the mid day price will reflect the gas price, since it can demand follow. The same will apply at teatime where the price is going to reflect gas, or the gas that will be pushed off the grid by the stored PV.

So there might be little to no arbitrage in that situation to make up for the additional costs of the storage.

But in the future when RE pushes gas completely off the grid, let's say at midday, then the leccy price will fall as RE v's RE looks for a market. That (cheap) stored RE can then be sold at a higher price at teatime, especially if demand is high and RE gen is low, and ever more expensive gas generation (they won't all have the same generation costs) comes on line. [Obviously, the current geo-political issues, and gas prices make additional RE and storage viable today, if there was no chance of gas prices falling back down in the foreseeable future.]

But yes, I also think it will be a no-brainer. I don't know when RE will reach the right point in terms of generation cost, penetration, or storage cost, but I get the feeling it's not too far off now.

Which takes us to a massive overlap with the Ripple WT thread!   Current expectations with early payout news and of course prices suggest that Ripple investors may do very well in the short term (Let's hope so). But at some point wholesale electricity prices will, as you suggest, be led by wind production. At this point all WT's will suffer from lower prices when they are producing the most.  I hope the impact on Ripple investors won't be too great (and we take a while to get there). 

Verdigris

Is the wholesale price ever likely to get down to 2p/kWh?

I can foresee a danger in Johnson's statement, today, that he's going to take a huge gamble on nuclear. As you can't readily switch nuclear on and off, will wind and solar be forced to constrain to maintain grid balance? On the other hand, nuclear will never be cheap (unless fusion happens) so I suppose that will tend to support renewable prices, as long as we have somewhere to utilise it.

Which brings us back to storage...