Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

michaels

Imports are interesting, recently we have been doing much less than in the winter/early spring but they have now bounced right back.  Not sure if they are very sensitive to the price of on the day gas?

EVandPV

Octopus Energy throws UK energy crisis lifeline with plan to guarantee homebuyers NO BILLS

As the country grapples with a crippling crisis due to the spiralling global cost of gas, Britain has been scrambling to wean itself off fossil fuels so consumers can avoid forking out extra cash. Now, a renewable project between Octopus and Ilker will let homebuyers purchase homes with solar panels, battery storage and air source heat pumps so that they are self-sufficient.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1620873/octopus-energy-Ilker-homes-energy-bills-uk-gas-renewables-greg-jackson

Martyn1981

Nice to see some figures on falling RE costs. The article goes on to explain that whilst costs keep falling thanks to the learning curve (a percentage cost reduction for each subsequent doubling of production), there is also now the added benefit of cheaper financing costs as RE not only becomes cheaper and more productive, but also less risky. A virtuous circle.

[US data, but I assume the principal holds true for worldwide RE projects.]

Cost Of Renewables Falls As Installed Capacity Increases

Researchers Mark Bolinger, Ryan Wiser, and Eric O’Shaughnessy collected data on renewables from 908 wind farms and 822 solar operations in the United States, all of them larger than five megawatts in capacity. For the wind farms, they collected data from today back to 1982 when modern, utility-scale wind farms first appeared in the US. For solar, the data goes back to 2007, which is when the first utility-scale solar photovoltaic projects larger than five megawatts were built in the US. The research was published recently in the journal iScience.

What the researchers found is that the people operating renewables like solar and wind farms are learning to do so more efficiently, lowering the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE). Mark Bolinger, a research scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, tells Ars Technica the same is true for financing those renewable energy facilities.

The researchers determined LCOE-based learning rates were 15% for wind and 24% for solar. “Once you calculate those historical learning rates, you can then apply them to forward-looking deployment projections,” Bolinger says. For example, if by 2030 the cumulative deployment of wind doubled twice, it would imply a 30% reduction in the LCOE. “The whole thing about learning curves is that you’re looking at historical relationships, and then you’re extrapolating them.”

In their summary, the researchers focus on the historical declines in the cost of renewables. From an average of $440 per MWh over the first few years of the market (1982–1984), the LCOE for wind declined by 93% through 2020, to an average of $32 per MWh in 2020 dollars.. Utility scale solar LCOE declined by 85% over a much shorter period from more than $230 per MWh during the first few years of the market (2007–2010) to $34 per MWh in 2020.
“Though we portray these LCOE reductions over time, it is worth clarifying that within a learning curve framework, it is cumulative deployment, rather than time itself, that drives the cost reduction. In other words, a decline in LCOE over time is a manifestation, but not a direct measurement, of learning,” the researchers report.

michaels

Tlakign of renewable costs, and sorry not to Google, but asking Martyn is probably the quickest route - when are the new round CFD results announced? Thanks

Exiled_Tyke

michaels said:

Tlakign of renewable costs, and sorry not to Google, but asking Martyn is probably the quickest route - when are the new round CFD results announced? Thanks

CFD round four has gone to the sealed bid auction stage. This will be completed on the 15th June.  Which looks like we are on the longest possible timeline. In which case announcements should be made early July.

Martyn1981

I try to keep an eye out for wave energy news, as it's so small, but great potential, if it can be solved. Here's an article on a potential method, and also a link to the company's site, as I wanted to visualise what they were doing. The site shows the timeline of their work so far, a decade of hard work.

CorPower to launch wave energy converter

CorPower Ocean is to launch its next-generation C4 wave energy converter alongside its new CorPack Concept which it says will provide the building blocks for future wave energy farms.

The launch on 15 June comes as the wave energy developer prepares to deliver its flagship HiWave-5 Project in northern Portugal, with ocean deployment planned later this year. 

The new full-scale CorPower C4 device will ultimately form part of a four-system wave energy array, located off the coast of Aguçadoura, creating one of the world’s first grid-connected wave farms.

The HiWave-5 Project is the result of a decade of intense product development and three decades of research on wave hydrodynamics, CorPower said. 

CORPOWER'S WAVE ENERGY CONCEPT

 

zeupater

Martyn1981 said:

I try to keep an eye out for wave energy news, as it's so small, but great potential, if it can be solved. Here's an article on a potential method, and also a link to the company's site, as I wanted to visualise what they were doing. The site shows the timeline of their work so far, a decade of hard work.

CorPower to launch wave energy converter

CorPower Ocean is to launch its next-generation C4 wave energy converter alongside its new CorPack Concept which it says will provide the building blocks for future wave energy farms.

The launch on 15 June comes as the wave energy developer prepares to deliver its flagship HiWave-5 Project in northern Portugal, with ocean deployment planned later this year. 

The new full-scale CorPower C4 device will ultimately form part of a four-system wave energy array, located off the coast of Aguçadoura, creating one of the world’s first grid-connected wave farms.

The HiWave-5 Project is the result of a decade of intense product development and three decades of research on wave hydrodynamics, CorPower said. 

CORPOWER'S WAVE ENERGY CONCEPT

 

Hi

Research into capturing wave-power must have been going on for as long as I can remember & nothing other than small scale technology demonstrators have come from it yet ... I'm pretty sure that it was making the headlines and being covered as a 'just around the corner' technology by the likes of Blue Peter etc in the '70s, so plenty of university research funding over the years just seems to have employed university researchers to 'research' throughout their entire career, a considerable part thereof probably now being withdrawn from a number of pension pots!

Problem with wave-power is that it's another intermittent generation source ... surely at some point someone will engage brain then pull their finger out and take the long-time sensible option of dumping the sea-based myriad of diversionary 'possibilities' and concentrate on developing/funding tidal flow, barrages & artificial lagoons, all of which would have a fully predictable pattern & level of generation as long as the sea exists & the gravitational forces between Earth, Moon & Sun orbit in pretty much their current state, whilst wave-power, well in fully (or near) calm sea states the clue's in the description ... what's worse is that forecasting weather & sea states morphs into guesswork as timescales increase and calm sea states tend to coincide with the times that wind turbines are struggling to rotate, which probably is something to seriously consider!

HTH - Z

EVandPV

China brings forward launch of solar power plant space station that would beam energy back to Earth

The first launch for China's project is scheduled for 2028, when a trial satellite orbiting at a distance of around 400km (248 miles) will test the technology used to transmit energy from the power plant.

https://news.sky.com/story/amp/china-brings-forward-launch-of-solar-power-plant-space-station-that-would-beam-energy-back-to-earth-12629255

QrizB

zeupater said:

Research into capturing wave-power must have been going on for as long as I can remember ...

I remember seeing Salter's Ducks on Tomorrow's World in the late 70s.

Here's a short video from the University of Edinburgh:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYPdQaPyyN0

thevilla

zeupater said:

Martyn1981 said:

I try to keep an eye out for wave energy news, as it's so small, but great potential, if it can be solved. Here's an article on a potential method, and also a link to the company's site, as I wanted to visualise what they were doing. The site shows the timeline of their work so far, a decade of hard work.

CorPower to launch wave energy converter

CorPower Ocean is to launch its next-generation C4 wave energy converter alongside its new CorPack Concept which it says will provide the building blocks for future wave energy farms.

The launch on 15 June comes as the wave energy developer prepares to deliver its flagship HiWave-5 Project in northern Portugal, with ocean deployment planned later this year. 

The new full-scale CorPower C4 device will ultimately form part of a four-system wave energy array, located off the coast of Aguçadoura, creating one of the world’s first grid-connected wave farms.

The HiWave-5 Project is the result of a decade of intense product development and three decades of research on wave hydrodynamics, CorPower said. 

CORPOWER'S WAVE ENERGY CONCEPT

 

Hi

Research into capturing wave-power must have been going on for as long as I can remember & nothing other than small scale technology demonstrators have come from it yet ... I'm pretty sure that it was making the headlines and being covered as a 'just around the corner' technology by the likes of Blue Peter etc in the '70s, so plenty of university research funding over the years just seems to have employed university researchers to 'research' throughout their entire career, a considerable part thereof probably now being withdrawn from a number of pension pots!

Problem with wave-power is that it's another intermittent generation source ... surely at some point someone will engage brain then pull their finger out and take the long-time sensible option of dumping the sea-based myriad of diversionary 'possibilities' and concentrate on developing/funding tidal flow, barrages & artificial lagoons, all of which would have a fully predictable pattern & level of generation as long as the sea exists & the gravitational forces between Earth, Moon & Sun orbit in pretty much their current state, whilst wave-power, well in fully (or near) calm sea states the clue's in the description ... what's worse is that forecasting weather & sea states morphs into guesswork as timescales increase and calm sea states tend to coincide with the times that wind turbines are struggling to rotate, which probably is something to seriously consider!

HTH - Z

Ah yes. Why don't we restrict research to "winners" said Michael Gove I think....