Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

70sbudgie

It is part of the reason that investment in RE has increased so much. Even though we have had a low wind year (I can't remember if it was 2020 or 2021). One of the ironies of the climate crisis - wind energy reduces if it gets hotter.

QrizB

Solarchaser said:

I was sitting thinking earlier, the wind farm operators must be sitting pretty right now.

Only the ones who haven't sold in advance, and who aren't trading under a CfD or similar.

michaels

70sbudgie said:

QrizB said:

michaels said:

How does it work though, is most electricity bought at spot or is the majority purchased forward with only any on the day balancing payments being at the (gas determined) price?

I think most is forward-purchased. That's certainly what Ofgem expect when setting the cap.

But beware of unintended consequences. Meddling with markets doesn't always give the expected results.

My understanding is that suppliers only forward purchase for fixed rate tariffs. Which is why they have disappeared recently.

Currently, there are two main ways the suppliers buy electricity - PPA (power purchase agreement) and the market. The former is a contract agreed between the generator and the supplier. These are outside the market, but tend to loosely follow the market at agreement. They are becoming more popular and the suppliers that use them a lot tend to be promoting strong ethics, which is why they follow the market, so the generator doesn't lose out.

The market is sort of like a reverse auction. The generators bid with their price and this keeps going up until demand is met. Then all the generators get the same price. There is a post (either above or in a different discussion) about prices from recent auctions (though I think it might have referred to CfD auctions).

I think it will be interesting to see what the review comes up with.

I think this may have been the case for those who went broke as their model was about issuing fixes to customers who have already shown they are price sensitive so were expected to move on to the next fix hence no need to have hedged the cap - until there was....

The big firms with lots of cap customers would have expected them to remain on the cap and hedged (bought forward) appropriately, hence not going bust.

I think this is also why ofgem changed the rules so that new entrants are not allowed to undercut the cap if prices suddenly plunge as otherwise the companies that have hedged the cap could suddenly find themselves with no customers for their more expensive cap tariffs.

Martyn1981

Solarchaser said:

I was sitting thinking earlier, the wind farm operators must be sitting pretty right now.
Able to make a profit last year, their costs have not risen, but their sell price has almost trippled this year to 20p/kwh.
Cha ching!

Scotland sent around £1B of power to England last year, but is already over £1.5B this year.

Yeah, but as QrizB points out, if the RE generator is operating under a CfD, as all the off-shore wind farms do, then they still get the same money for what they sell, as the CfD tops up their income when sold below the strike price, but when sold above the strike price, they have to pay the difference back into the subsidy pot. So they get the same amount for all they sell, regardless of the market price.

zeupater

Massive challenge to Panasonic, but will they bottle it & hand the opportunity to their competitors ... then fade away into obscurity? ...

https://www.benchmarkminerals.com/membership/tesla-lays-down-2-twh-battery-challenge-to-panasonic/  

--------------

Tesla lays down 2 TWh battery challenge to Panasonic

Panasonic Energy is building a pipeline of 2 terawatt-hours (TWh) of battery and raw material supplies for Tesla ....

--------------

For context ... that's roughly 3x the current total global lithium battery supply capacity, so probably enough for the storage equivalent of ~27million 75kWh EVs (2,000,000,000,000/75,000) -or- somewhere around 150million Powerwall sized domestic batteries ....   

HTH - Z

Martyn1981

For all the number junkies, here are ESO's estimates for UK energy storage for 2050. I seem to recall estimates of about 20GW's for 2030, which is reflected further down in the article. It also gives some estimates for the type and scale of storage types.

TBH, the power seems reasonable, but the energy is less than I expected, with a best case estimate of 200GWh. Perhaps that's due to the 'net zero' part*, but later in the article it does mention TWh's of energy, suggesting H2, yet the CAES estimate for 2050 is only 30GWh. So clearly early days, and no winners/front runners yet. Plus I'm pretty sure much is going straight over my head as I've not read the full (237 page) report.

*Edit - Looking at part of the report, by 2050 BECCS (bio-energy with carbon capture and storage) will be responsible for a large chunk of the 'net', so perhaps bio-energy explains the lower storage figure, than I expected, as it can hopefully demand follow, to an extent. [I'm literally making this up as I go, so purely thoughts, not to be taken as fact nor policy. M.]

UK needs at least 50GW of energy storage for net zero by 2050, National Grid ESO says

The UK will have 50GW-plus of energy storage installed by 2050 in a best case scenario attainment of net zero, according to grid operator National Grid’s Future Energy Scenarios report.

70sbudgie

It has finally been decided that domestic RE etc might have a positive impact on house prices...
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/jul/20/green-upgrades-could-cut-uk-energy-bills-by-1800-a-year-finds-study?CMP=twt_a-environment_b-gdneco

shinytop

https://www.scmp.com/business/article/3185844/chinas-approvals-new-coal-plants-rebound-amid-renewed-focus-energy

An increase of 300 million tonnes.  A 7% increase but still more than the UK ever produced,  The phrase 'p155ing into the wind' comes to mind.  

Martyn1981

Construction of the UK - Germany HVDC interconnector is ready to start. A list of the existing and planned interconnectors can be found here, just scroll down to the table and see the 15.9GW of schemes, out to 2025

UK-German energy link reaches financial close

A multibillion-euro 725 km interconnector between the UK and Germany has reached financial close, paving the way for construction works to begin in the coming months.

The £2.4bn (€2.8bn) NeuConnect interconnector will form an “invisible energy highway” with subsea cables allowing up to 1.4GW of electricity to flow in either direction between the UK and Germany and will help deliver a more secure and resilient energy supply, particularly as more renewable generation is added.

michaels

Martyn1981 said:

Construction of the UK - Germany HVDC interconnector is ready to start. A list of the existing and planned interconnectors can be found here, just scroll down to the table and see the 15.9GW of schemes, out to 2025

UK-German energy link reaches financial close

A multibillion-euro 725 km interconnector between the UK and Germany has reached financial close, paving the way for construction works to begin in the coming months.

The £2.4bn (€2.8bn) NeuConnect interconnector will form an “invisible energy highway” with subsea cables allowing up to 1.4GW of electricity to flow in either direction between the UK and Germany and will help deliver a more secure and resilient energy supply, particularly as more renewable generation is added.

I know this is not a discussion thread but I think the fact that a cable link to the UK form Germany makes sense highlights how poor the European electricity infrastructure is as otherwise we would just add more short links and plug into the European network.  Perhaps it is cheaper to run subsea cables than new onshore capacity?