Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

QrizB

Martyn1981 said:

michaels said:

My guess is that we could probably go to towards 80-90% RE before additional wind results in enough percent spill that it costs more per unit than HPC, subject to the proviso on gas fixed costs.  And of course once we start getting a lot of spill the economy will adjust to find uses for this 'free' energy such as storage, bit coin mining, export via inter connectors or whatever.

Are you sure, could we ever get to that point? With wind costs under £50/MWh and HPC at £107 (and inflationary uplift due in April), then HPC will soon be around 2.5x more expensive than wind, so for wind costs to equal HPC, you'd have to be using 40% of generation and wasting the other 60%.
With a good mix of RE sources, and storage I wonder what level of generation we will need, perhaps 150% of annual demand to allow for some spill and storage losses, but 250% for wind seems a tad excessive.

Yet 250% is the number you get for it to break even with HPC, using your numbers.

If you go with the BEIS long-term forecast of £60/MWh you still end up with ~200% RE generation (100% overcapacity) vs. the cost of HPC.

The Drax site thinks our average annual electricity demand is currently around 30GW (or, if you prefer, 270TWh/yr). If it's all offshore wind, with a 50% capacity ratio, that suggests a total installed capacity of around 120GW would do it.

I guess we'd need a major grid upgrade, some serious interconnectors and considerable H2/synfuels/storage capacity to go with that, since we'd be abating 75% of generation otherwise.

ed110220

I'm really interested in how the South Australia grid is evolving as it has the biggest share of solar+wind of any largish grid in the world (ie more than 1 GW average demand, so ruling out small islands, small grids serving other remote locations etc). I said two thirds, well I rounded a little, it's 62.9% over the past year. Solar doesn't make up as much as you might think, with wind being the largest contributor. Here are the stats for the most recent 12 months:-



Here's how it has changed since 1999. Most of the change has happened since 2010. As you can see the share of fossil fuels has collapsed, with coal disappearing entirely.



Here's the last 7 days. Solar+wind has made up as much as 112.1% of demand with just 4.9% coming from gas at 12pm AEST on 27 March and as little as 2.6% at 7am AEST on 29 March.



Source: Open NEM

Exiled_Tyke

The deniers are gonna deny.  And there can be no doubt that there are massive challenges left (as are continually discussed on these boards) but we are on a one-way journey.  Go back twenty may be even ten years and few would have expected this kind of progress. If this momentum can build hopefully we can get to negligible-FF levels  in the foreseeable future.

 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-60917445

Martyn1981

QrizB said:

Martyn1981 said:

michaels said:

My guess is that we could probably go to towards 80-90% RE before additional wind results in enough percent spill that it costs more per unit than HPC, subject to the proviso on gas fixed costs.  And of course once we start getting a lot of spill the economy will adjust to find uses for this 'free' energy such as storage, bit coin mining, export via inter connectors or whatever.

Are you sure, could we ever get to that point? With wind costs under £50/MWh and HPC at £107 (and inflationary uplift due in April), then HPC will soon be around 2.5x more expensive than wind, so for wind costs to equal HPC, you'd have to be using 40% of generation and wasting the other 60%.
With a good mix of RE sources, and storage I wonder what level of generation we will need, perhaps 150% of annual demand to allow for some spill and storage losses, but 250% for wind seems a tad excessive.

Yet 250% is the number you get for it to break even with HPC, using your numbers.

If you go with the BEIS long-term forecast of £60/MWh you still end up with ~200% RE generation (100% overcapacity) vs. the cost of HPC.

The Drax site thinks our average annual electricity demand is currently around 30GW (or, if you prefer, 270TWh/yr). If it's all offshore wind, with a 50% capacity ratio, that suggests a total installed capacity of around 120GW would do it.

I guess we'd need a major grid upgrade, some serious interconnectors and considerable H2/synfuels/storage capacity to go with that, since we'd be abating 75% of generation otherwise.

I was comparing the cost of new wind generation to HPC (as per Michaels post), not the average wholesale price. So for the cost of that wind (sub £50/MWh) to equal HPC (about to go to around £113/MWh) then you'd need getting on for 250% overcapacity before the 60% spill, assuming zero value, pushes the cost of that wind generation up to HPC levels.

But yes, we'd need a tonne of offshore wind overcapacity and little to no storage, or transmission upgrades and interconnectors for those levels of spill/curtailment/waste.

I thought our annual consumption was about 350TWh (40GW average). It was higher, and has been steadily falling, and of course 2020, and 2021 will have lower figures due to Covid, but still way above 262TWh (30GW average). Sometimes the figures given are UK generation, and ignore import, or are consumption not generation, can even be impacted by including (or excluding) demand side generation, such as small scale wind and solar. Pretty sure Statistica often shows UK figures well below 300TWh?

Just a guess, but I think demand will eventually double as we shift transport, industry and space heating onto leccy from FF's?

Energy in Brief pages 28 and 29 seem to show 320TWh of generation and about 30TWh of net import for 2020.


Edit - Just thought I'd add this part from the above document as it's simply 'nice to see' and shows how a good wind year (v's a poor one last year) can impact RE and FF figures:

The share of electricity generation from gas decreased from 40.7% to 35.7%, while the share from nuclear decreased from 17.4% to 16.1%. The decline in electricity supplied from fossil fuels was enabled by increased generation from renewables, which increased its share of generation from 36.9% to a record 43.1%. The increase in renewables’ generation came after unusually high wind speeds during Quarter 1 of 2020. 

Martyn1981

michaels said:

Martyn1981 said:

michaels said:

My guess is that we could probably go to towards 80-90% RE before additional wind results in enough percent spill that it costs more per unit than HPC, subject to the proviso on gas fixed costs.  And of course once we start getting a lot of spill the economy will adjust to find uses for this 'free' energy such as storage, bit coin mining, export via inter connectors or whatever.

Are you sure, could we ever get to that point? With wind costs under £50/MWh and HPC at £107 (and inflationary uplift due in April), then HPC will soon be around 2.5x more expensive than wind, so for wind costs to equal HPC, you'd have to be using 40% of generation and wasting the other 60%.

With a good mix of RE sources, and storage I wonder what level of generation we will need, perhaps 150% of annual demand to allow for some spill and storage losses, but 250% for wind seems a tad excessive.

But it's an interesting thought exercise, and crucially depends on the scale (and efficiency) of longer term storage, such as CAES, LAES, H2. We'll also have to see how the rest of Europe addresses the issue, as it would be great if we could export excess, and import shortfalls, helping to minimise store capacity and losses.

Agree with your figures but I was suggesting 'marginal' new wind spilling 60% rather than average wind when RE penetration reaches 80-90% of overall generation - which is probably where we would be in 2030 if the govt targets for new RE are achieved.  I wonder if HPC will be generating by then?

Right, yes I see it makes a difference if you are talking about the cost of the marginal 'new' wind added on top. But I'm not convinced that around 60% of new wind generation at that point would be spill.

I hope this of interest, and of course it's mostly guesswork on my behalf -  so let's put your two posts together where you say the high targets set by the Gov would achieve around 80-90% RE penetration, as I think they match in terms of generation and useable generation (after spill):

My guess is that we could probably go to towards 80-90% RE before additional wind results in enough percent spill that it costs more per unit than HPC,

Back of an envelope, those levels of RE would give total RE output equal to 100% of our current electricity consumption? (Although obviously that is net 100% as it wouldn't generate when we necessarily need it)

So looking at those RE capacity figures, which I too believe would be equal to around 100% of leccy needs (but of course won't be a perfect match, and we may not have enough storage capacity to prevent spill, we see

BEIS’s targets include increasing solar power from its current capacity of 14GW to 50GW, offshore wind from 11GW to 50GW, onshore wind from 15GW to 30GW, and nuclear power from 7GW to 16GW, according to the Financial Times.

So that's about 80GW of wind capacity, and with 50%/30% cf's gives us a rough average generation of 34GW, against an average demand of around 40GW, but with a seasonal bias towards the winter (for both). Of course wind could theoretically hit 80GW at times, and there will be other RE sources, perhaps bio-energy with some ability to demand follow, hydro (some flexible, some not), and solar, but with a lower winter bias. So it's entirely possible, IMO, for massive overcapacity in that situation (wind maxing out), but that would be the exception, not the rule, so additional wind generation at that point in time is, I believe, highly unlikely to have an average annual spill of 60%(ish).

Hope that makes sense, and I'm not trying to deny spill/curtailment/waste, certainly hope it doesn't come over that I am, but with a mix of RE, some flexibility, and growing storage, intraday (and longer term perhaps by 2030, not really sure), I just can't see additional wind curtailment averaging anything close to that figure.

But ...... I can't shake the feeling I'm fudging something, so if I am cheating it's not deliberate.

[I think the wind to PV seasonal and daytime differences are fair, when higher winter demand is balanced against them, and I've simply ignored nuclear, using the 80-90% theoretical RE as the discussion point. Winter hydro is higher due to water flow, but overall hydro is small, and pumped storage can demand follow ....... but still can't shake the feeling I'm fudging something?]

shinytop

Exiled_Tyke said:

The deniers are gonna deny.  And there can be no doubt that there are massive challenges left (as are continually discussed on these boards) but we are on a one-way journey.  Go back twenty may be even ten years and few would have expected this kind of progress. If this momentum can build hopefully we can get to negligible-FF levels  in the foreseeable future.

 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-60917445

The link in the article is really interesting. It certainly illustrates well how far we've come,how far we have to go and who the main movers and shakers are.

https://ember-climate.org/data/data-explorer/

EDIT - one this that's quite striking is how little solar there is in what I would think are very empty, sunny places like N Africa and the Middle East. 

Martyn1981

Martyn1981 said:

michaels said:

Martyn1981 said:

michaels said:

My guess is that we could probably go to towards 80-90% RE before additional wind results in enough percent spill that it costs more per unit than HPC, subject to the proviso on gas fixed costs.  And of course once we start getting a lot of spill the economy will adjust to find uses for this 'free' energy such as storage, bit coin mining, export via inter connectors or whatever.

Are you sure, could we ever get to that point? With wind costs under £50/MWh and HPC at £107 (and inflationary uplift due in April), then HPC will soon be around 2.5x more expensive than wind, so for wind costs to equal HPC, you'd have to be using 40% of generation and wasting the other 60%.

With a good mix of RE sources, and storage I wonder what level of generation we will need, perhaps 150% of annual demand to allow for some spill and storage losses, but 250% for wind seems a tad excessive.

But it's an interesting thought exercise, and crucially depends on the scale (and efficiency) of longer term storage, such as CAES, LAES, H2. We'll also have to see how the rest of Europe addresses the issue, as it would be great if we could export excess, and import shortfalls, helping to minimise store capacity and losses.

Agree with your figures but I was suggesting 'marginal' new wind spilling 60% rather than average wind when RE penetration reaches 80-90% of overall generation - which is probably where we would be in 2030 if the govt targets for new RE are achieved.  I wonder if HPC will be generating by then?

But ...... I can't shake the feeling I'm fudging something, so if I am cheating it's not deliberate.

OOOOOOOOOOhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh for flips sake, it's finally crawled its way from the back of my brain to the front / fingertips.

It's a trick question, not deliberately, but a trick question.

At what level of curtailment would new wind cost as much as HPC ..... it would never happen, because curtailment would, if fairly attributed to generation that can't economically demand follow (such as wind, PV and nuclear), push up the effective cost of HPC too. So if 20% of generation was being curtailed because of over supply (not transmission issues) then HPC too would get 20% more expensive in terms of cost to output, just like any existing or additional wind generation.

So curtailment in the future when FF's have been effectively pushed off the grid at any given time, because we have large amounts of RE, HPC is operational, and perhaps in the earlier examples, demand is low at that time, is akin to storage costs and should be applied fairly to all technologies that can't economically demand follow.

BTW, regarding the question about a timescale for HPC generation, I believe it was 2025 for the start of generation, with a target of 2027(ish) for the second reactor and full commissioning. However today's news has announced further delays and costs overruns, so 2026/28, perhaps?

2nd_time_buyer

Martyn1981 said:

Martyn1981 said:

michaels said:

Martyn1981 said:

michaels said:

My guess is that we could probably go to towards 80-90% RE before additional wind results in enough percent spill that it costs more per unit than HPC, subject to the proviso on gas fixed costs.  And of course once we start getting a lot of spill the economy will adjust to find uses for this 'free' energy such as storage, bit coin mining, export via inter connectors or whatever.

Are you sure, could we ever get to that point? With wind costs under £50/MWh and HPC at £107 (and inflationary uplift due in April), then HPC will soon be around 2.5x more expensive than wind, so for wind costs to equal HPC, you'd have to be using 40% of generation and wasting the other 60%.

With a good mix of RE sources, and storage I wonder what level of generation we will need, perhaps 150% of annual demand to allow for some spill and storage losses, but 250% for wind seems a tad excessive.

But it's an interesting thought exercise, and crucially depends on the scale (and efficiency) of longer term storage, such as CAES, LAES, H2. We'll also have to see how the rest of Europe addresses the issue, as it would be great if we could export excess, and import shortfalls, helping to minimise store capacity and losses.

Agree with your figures but I was suggesting 'marginal' new wind spilling 60% rather than average wind when RE penetration reaches 80-90% of overall generation - which is probably where we would be in 2030 if the govt targets for new RE are achieved.  I wonder if HPC will be generating by then?

But ...... I can't shake the feeling I'm fudging something, so if I am cheating it's not deliberate.

OOOOOOOOOOhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh for flips sake, it's finally crawled its way from the back of my brain to the front / fingertips.

It's a trick question, not deliberately, but a trick question.

At what level of curtailment would new wind cost as much as HPC ..... it would never happen, because curtailment would, if fairly attributed to generation that can't economically demand follow (such as wind, PV and nuclear), push up the effective cost of HPC too. So if 20% of generation was being curtailed because of over supply (not transmission issues) then HPC too would get 20% more expensive in terms of cost to output, just like any existing or additional wind generation.

So curtailment in the future when FF's have been effectively pushed off the grid at any given time, because we have large amounts of RE, HPC is operational, and perhaps in the earlier examples, demand is low at that time, is akin to storage costs and should be applied fairly to all technologies that can't economically demand follow.

BTW, regarding the question about a timescale for HPC generation, I believe it was 2025 for the start of generation, with a target of 2027(ish) for the second reactor and full commissioning. However today's news has announced further delays and costs overruns, so 2026/28, perhaps?

As usual, top class commentary Martyn - you really should write a periodic article to the main MSE site to update the masses on the transition to RE.

In terms of more than intra-day storage. H2 generation using excess seems appealing for dumping energy. Do you know how feasible it is to store in vast quantities e.g. the equivalent of one months current gas supply?   

Martyn1981

2nd_time_buyer said:

Martyn1981 said:

Martyn1981 said:

michaels said:

Martyn1981 said:

michaels said:

My guess is that we could probably go to towards 80-90% RE before additional wind results in enough percent spill that it costs more per unit than HPC, subject to the proviso on gas fixed costs.  And of course once we start getting a lot of spill the economy will adjust to find uses for this 'free' energy such as storage, bit coin mining, export via inter connectors or whatever.

Are you sure, could we ever get to that point? With wind costs under £50/MWh and HPC at £107 (and inflationary uplift due in April), then HPC will soon be around 2.5x more expensive than wind, so for wind costs to equal HPC, you'd have to be using 40% of generation and wasting the other 60%.

With a good mix of RE sources, and storage I wonder what level of generation we will need, perhaps 150% of annual demand to allow for some spill and storage losses, but 250% for wind seems a tad excessive.

But it's an interesting thought exercise, and crucially depends on the scale (and efficiency) of longer term storage, such as CAES, LAES, H2. We'll also have to see how the rest of Europe addresses the issue, as it would be great if we could export excess, and import shortfalls, helping to minimise store capacity and losses.

Agree with your figures but I was suggesting 'marginal' new wind spilling 60% rather than average wind when RE penetration reaches 80-90% of overall generation - which is probably where we would be in 2030 if the govt targets for new RE are achieved.  I wonder if HPC will be generating by then?

But ...... I can't shake the feeling I'm fudging something, so if I am cheating it's not deliberate.

OOOOOOOOOOhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh for flips sake, it's finally crawled its way from the back of my brain to the front / fingertips.

It's a trick question, not deliberately, but a trick question.

At what level of curtailment would new wind cost as much as HPC ..... it would never happen, because curtailment would, if fairly attributed to generation that can't economically demand follow (such as wind, PV and nuclear), push up the effective cost of HPC too. So if 20% of generation was being curtailed because of over supply (not transmission issues) then HPC too would get 20% more expensive in terms of cost to output, just like any existing or additional wind generation.

So curtailment in the future when FF's have been effectively pushed off the grid at any given time, because we have large amounts of RE, HPC is operational, and perhaps in the earlier examples, demand is low at that time, is akin to storage costs and should be applied fairly to all technologies that can't economically demand follow.

BTW, regarding the question about a timescale for HPC generation, I believe it was 2025 for the start of generation, with a target of 2027(ish) for the second reactor and full commissioning. However today's news has announced further delays and costs overruns, so 2026/28, perhaps?

As usual, top class commentary Martyn - you really should write a periodic article to the main MSE site to update the masses on the transition to RE.

In terms of more than intra-day storage. H2 generation using excess seems appealing for dumping energy. Do you know how feasible it is to store in vast quantities e.g. the equivalent of one months current gas supply?   

Hiya, Michaels posted some great storage info a few months ago. I remembered it because it got me thinking about H2 v's CAES* so see the following posts/discussion too:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/78891606/#Comment_78891606


*I thought it important because H2 and CAES if deployed on a vast scale, seem to compete with each other for storage solutions such as underground salt caverns. So the potential scale is simply staggering. LAES is more efficient, and is already being deployed/built out by Highview on a large scale, following smaller test sites in the UK. But LAES is designed for tank storage (as can H2 and CAES) so not the theoretical weeks and months of storage that H2/CAES could deploy.

I also recall a discussion further back in time, where there was a link/article setting out UK potential for H2/CAES storage, but I find the MSE search function now to be very unhelpful, used to be great.


Edit - Not quite what I was looking for, but this discussion and the linked article provides this quote:

The potential storage volume from Britain’s salt fields ranges from >1TWh up to 30TWh and for disused oil and gas fields, the potential storage volume for individual sites ranges from 1TWh up to 330TWh.

2nd_time_buyer

Martyn1981 said:

2nd_time_buyer said:

Martyn1981 said:

Martyn1981 said:

michaels said:

Martyn1981 said:

michaels said:

My guess is that we could probably go to towards 80-90% RE before additional wind results in enough percent spill that it costs more per unit than HPC, subject to the proviso on gas fixed costs.  And of course once we start getting a lot of spill the economy will adjust to find uses for this 'free' energy such as storage, bit coin mining, export via inter connectors or whatever.

Are you sure, could we ever get to that point? With wind costs under £50/MWh and HPC at £107 (and inflationary uplift due in April), then HPC will soon be around 2.5x more expensive than wind, so for wind costs to equal HPC, you'd have to be using 40% of generation and wasting the other 60%.

With a good mix of RE sources, and storage I wonder what level of generation we will need, perhaps 150% of annual demand to allow for some spill and storage losses, but 250% for wind seems a tad excessive.

But it's an interesting thought exercise, and crucially depends on the scale (and efficiency) of longer term storage, such as CAES, LAES, H2. We'll also have to see how the rest of Europe addresses the issue, as it would be great if we could export excess, and import shortfalls, helping to minimise store capacity and losses.

Agree with your figures but I was suggesting 'marginal' new wind spilling 60% rather than average wind when RE penetration reaches 80-90% of overall generation - which is probably where we would be in 2030 if the govt targets for new RE are achieved.  I wonder if HPC will be generating by then?

But ...... I can't shake the feeling I'm fudging something, so if I am cheating it's not deliberate.

OOOOOOOOOOhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh for flips sake, it's finally crawled its way from the back of my brain to the front / fingertips.

It's a trick question, not deliberately, but a trick question.

At what level of curtailment would new wind cost as much as HPC ..... it would never happen, because curtailment would, if fairly attributed to generation that can't economically demand follow (such as wind, PV and nuclear), push up the effective cost of HPC too. So if 20% of generation was being curtailed because of over supply (not transmission issues) then HPC too would get 20% more expensive in terms of cost to output, just like any existing or additional wind generation.

So curtailment in the future when FF's have been effectively pushed off the grid at any given time, because we have large amounts of RE, HPC is operational, and perhaps in the earlier examples, demand is low at that time, is akin to storage costs and should be applied fairly to all technologies that can't economically demand follow.

BTW, regarding the question about a timescale for HPC generation, I believe it was 2025 for the start of generation, with a target of 2027(ish) for the second reactor and full commissioning. However today's news has announced further delays and costs overruns, so 2026/28, perhaps?

As usual, top class commentary Martyn - you really should write a periodic article to the main MSE site to update the masses on the transition to RE.

In terms of more than intra-day storage. H2 generation using excess seems appealing for dumping energy. Do you know how feasible it is to store in vast quantities e.g. the equivalent of one months current gas supply?   

Hiya, Michaels posted some great storage info a few months ago. I remembered it because it got me thinking about H2 v's CAES* so see the following posts/discussion too:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/78891606/#Comment_78891606


*I thought it important because H2 and CAES if deployed on a vast scale, seem to compete with each other for storage solutions such as underground salt caverns. So the potential scale is simply staggering. LAES is more efficient, and is already being deployed/built out by Highview on a large scale, following smaller test sites in the UK. But LAES is designed for tank storage (as can H2 and CAES) so not the theoretical weeks and months of storage that H2/CAES could deploy.

I also recall a discussion further back in time, where there was a link/article setting out UK potential for H2/CAES storage, but I find the MSE search function now to be very unhelpful, used to be great.

Thank you, although I have to admit I had to look Up CAES (compressed air energy storage) and LAES (liquefied air energy storage). 

The higher energy density of H2 and the potential compatibility with existing gas networks and other uses makes me inclined to think that it has a lot of potential.

I wonder if we could reverse gas rigs to pump hydrogen back down into the ground to replace the gas?