Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

thevilla

michaels said:

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?

I suspect a hvdc cable can't be overhead so imagine the cost and delay of burying them with associated disruption to existing infrastructure.    Multiple locations spreads the risk of the mythical 747 impact, nuclear accident etc. taking out a single point of failure.

70sbudgie

This short article explains a little about the technical benefits of HVDC. It also has a good picture showing the physical size of an HVDC cable.
https://electrical-engineering-portal.com/download-center/books-and-guides/electricity-generation-t-d/hvdc-transmission-systems

ed110220

michaels said:

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?

The other thing that implies this is that the flow of electricity is often in opposite directions through interconnectors between GB and France/Belgium/Netherlands. Eg it can be Belgium > GB and GB > France at the same time or vice versa. Which would suggest that shorter connections between them are congested.

It's interesting to look at the Open Infrastructure Map and compare Europe with other regions. Europe has lots of undersea high voltage direct current (HVDC) interconnectors but has no long distance overland HVDC lines and a less developed high voltage long distance AC transmission infrastructure than China or Brazil for example.  

Apart from 750 kV lines built between the then Soviet Union and its allies in Poland, Hungary and Romania, Europe doesn't really go above 400 kV on land. Brazil goes up to 800 kV and China up to 1100 kV. The higher the voltage, the lower the losses and to the more suitable it is for long distance transmission.

ed110220

thevilla said:

michaels said:

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?

I suspect a hvdc cable can't be overhead so imagine the cost and delay of burying them with associated disruption to existing infrastructure.    Multiple locations spreads the risk of the mythical 747 impact, nuclear accident etc. taking out a single point of failure.

HVDC can definitely be run overhead. All the world's longest power lines are HVDC. The longest and highest voltage is China's Changji-Guquan line at 3293 km long, 1100 kV and capable of transporting 12 GW. See https://web.archive.org/web/20200127003106/http://www.sgcc.com.cn/html/sgcc_main_en/col2017112406/2019-01/18/20190118183221870335071_1.shtml

You can see some of the pylons of the 2077 km long, 4 GW capacity Xingu-Estreito line in Brazil on Google Street view. They're not unusually large. Two of these lines carry 8 GW between them.

gefnew

This is not what you want with a wind turbine.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-62276831

QrizB

gefnew said:

This is not what you want with a wind turbine.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-62276831

To be fair, lots of things would be destroyed by a lightning strike. It's not unique to wind turbines.

Martyn1981

This week's Carbon Commentary newsletter from Chris Goodall. Purely a personal stand out, is item 10 with floating solar ......... off-shore in the North sea, progressing. Wow, how quickly things evolve, just a few years ago I'd have thought off-shore 'floatovoltaics' weren't possible. Fun times.

Industry news

Things I noticed and thought were interesting

Week ending 24th July 2022
 
1. Electric shipping.  Most commentators assume that batteries will be of limited use for sea transport. Short distance ferries may switch to electricity but all longer journeys will require internal combustion engines, probably using synthetic kerosene or ammonia. An article in Nature contends that this is too pessimistic. At battery prices of $100/kWh, freight transport journeys of up to at least 1,500 km will be most cheaply operated using electricity. This is before the severe environmental consequences of shipping are properly costed. If these are included, the range over which batteries are cheaper rises to 5,000 km. A range of just 1,500 km would cover a reasonable fraction of world trade. For example, short-distance shipping for EU countries accounts for about 1.7 billion tonnes yearly out of about 11 billion tonnes of worldwide sea transport.
 
2, Heat batteries. We are seeing increasing interest in storing energy in the form of heat. Surplus electricity can be used to create very high temperature materials to provide future energy for industrial processes. One leader in this field, Rondo Energy, signed up the innovative Greek cement manufacturer Titan as an investor alongside Breakthrough Energy Ventures and others. Rondo claims 98% plus conversion efficiency of power to long-storage heat, at least as good as batteries. Cement makers need the 1000+ degree temperatures Rondo’s technology achieves in order to make their products. (Use of Rondo heat storage will avoid the use of gas or other fuel sources but it doesn’t decarbonise the chemical reactions in cement making).
 
3, Impact of high energy prices. The latest data shows that US gasoline consumption is about 10% down on recent, pre-Covid, averages and the fall has been steepest in recent weeks. High retail prices are cutting US demand by over 1 million barrels a day, or more than 1% of the global production of oil.
 
4, Steel making. The complicated transition away from steel made using coal continues. Hitachi Energy invested money in the leading Swedish start-up H2 Green Steel, which counts major automobile makers as investors. As with other investors, Hitachi committed to buy steel made using hydrogen for its own products. H2 Green Steel promises a 5 million tonnes a year plant in northern Sweden by 2030. In Germany, Salzgitter said it wanted to invest more than €700m of its own money in Direct Reduction steelmaking, but complained it could not get confirmation of the state subsidies to make the switch, although the country has promised a total of €5bn for steel decarbonisation. Salzgitter wants a steel plant making 1.9 million tonnes to be ready by 2025 and BMW has promised to buy some of its output. In the UK, Tata Steel has also grown impatient with government indecision, threatening to withdraw from the country completely unless it obtains substantial state aid to switch to electric arc furnaces. 
 
5, Low carbon aviation. US/UK company ZeroAvia raised $68m for its plans to make medium range hydrogen fuel cell aircraft. Independent experts are sometimes unconvinced by ZeroAvia’s approach but some of the new money comes from major airline IAG, an existing investor. UK synthetic fuels pioneer Zero Petroleum was boosted by a commitment from the national air force to co-develop synthetic fuels for airplanes using its technology. Although current global production totals are small, sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) suppliers are now established in most markets. One IATA projection is that these competitors will provide 5 billion litres by 2025, or about 1% of global aviation fuel requirements.

6, Interconnectors. The first interconnector between the UK and Germany reached financial close. The backers have raised €2.8 billion, largely from banks, to build a $745 km link between Wilhelmshaven on the German North Sea coast and a connection point on the outer Thames estuary east of London. This is an expensive project to make money from; I calculate that it will require an average wholesale price differential of at least €20 per MWh between electricity prices in the two countries to cover its financing costs. In normal times, that would be tricky to achieve. The €20 figure is before even considering the electricity losses during transmission and the costs of running the link.
 
7, Alternative proteins. Consulting firm BCG produced interesting research showing that investment in alternative protein manufacturing, thereby reducing meat consumption, would cut emissions more than capital invested in decarbonising other industries such as steel. It calculates a figure of 4.4 gigatonnes per $ trillion invested, compared to 1.5 gigatonnes for the same amount of money put into low carbon cement. However BCG doesn't make the obvious point that simply switching from meat to high protein lentils in the global diet would have the same effect on emissions but require virtually zero capital investment, probably improving human health at the same time.
 
8, Green fuels for Denmark. The EU said that the huge ‘Green Fuels for Denmark’ project met its criteria for major subsidy. This long-awaited scheme will now probably go ahead, with the full 1.3 gigawatt electrolyser farm installed by 2027. A 2-3 gigawatt wind farm near Bornholm in the Baltic sea will be the source of the power. The hydrogen will be principally used to make synthetic fuels for industry and transport. Sufficient fuel for 30% of the needs of Copenhagen airport, for one large container ship and most of the buses in the Danish capital will be provided by the scheme.
 
9, Renewable natural gas in Germany. Marco Alvèra, the former head of Italian gas distributor SNAM and a strong hydrogen proponent, is now CEO of Tree Energy Solutions (TES). TES plans to build one of the world’s largest energy hubs in Wilhelmshaven (see also note 6), importing a target of 5.5 million tonnes of hydrogen from renewables-rich countries. It will then convert it to renewable methane, which is the main constituent of natural gas, and ship it via pipeline to major customers, probably via the existing gas networks. TES' full plans, backed in the last week by major new investors including HSBC, would eventually replace about a quarter of Germany’s total natural gas needs. 
 
10, Floating solar. German utility RWE invested in SolarDuck, a Dutch developer of floating solar parks. The companies will now build what they call a ‘full scale offshore pilot in the North Sea’. The intention is then to employ floating solar as part of the development of many large offshore wind farms. SolarDuck’s solar farms sit several metres above the level of the sea and are positioned between the turbines. Many are sceptical about the survival of panels in windy open seas. But SolarDuck successfully operated Its existing small scale installation during the severe storms of the first months of 2022 while positioned about 15 km off The Hague.  

Martyn1981

This article is worth a read, explaining how we bought some extremely expensive leccy from Belgium, nearly £10/kWh, on July 20th.

It wasn't a huge amount, but was necessary due to bottlenecks in the UK network, plus some additional local issues. Certainly suggests to me that the need for storage on the transmission or distribution networks is growing. Also that a VPP (virtual power plant) using demand side storage, such as domestic batts being paid to export, might have helped a bit.

Looks like we are entering the next phase of the shift to RE/low carbon - distribution and storage - fun/exciting times ahead.

How London Paid a Record Price to Dodge a Blackout

Last week, unbeknown to many outside the power industry, parts of London came remarkably close to a blackout — even as it was recovering from the hottest day in British history. On July 20, surging electricity demand collided with a bottleneck in the grid, leaving the eastern part of the British capital briefly short of power. Only by paying a record high £9,724.54 (about $11,685) per megawatt hour — more than 5,000% higher than the typical price — did the UK avoid homes and businesses going dark. That was the nosebleed cost to persuade Belgium to crank up aging electricity plants to send energy across the English Channel.

The world is investing about $300 billion per year in power grids, an amount that has barely changed since 2015, according to the International Energy Agency. It isn’t enough, as the global economy electrifies and deals with a shifting generation map, with intermittent renewable energy like solar and wind replacing polluting — but dependable — coal- and gas-fired stations.

Now, grid bottlenecks create perverse situations. In Spain, for example, there are times when solar electricity producers in the south have to switch off their plants while, in the north, gas-fired power stations are turning on to meet demand. In some corners of the US, electricity prices often drop below zero, with power plants forced to sell their energy due to grid constraints. Meanwhile, in other corners of the US, consumers are facing calls to reduce power demand on peak days and face record prices.

Aging infrastructure, often 30 or 40 years old, needs to be replaced. But refurbishment and expansion come up against local opposition to more pylons and overhead cables. In the UK, authorities are bypassing popular resistance by moving some parts of the grid offshore, using undersea cables. “Fish don’t vote,” goes the industry’s joke. It is, however, an expensive undertaking.

2nd_time_buyer

@Martyn1981 Going back the very first post on this thread (back in 2015) there is an article saying that Chinese greenhouse gas emissions may peak by 2025, says study

Do you know if that is still on track?
 

Martyn1981

2nd_time_buyer said:

@Martyn1981 Going back the very first post on this thread (back in 2015) there is an article saying that Chinese greenhouse gas emissions may peak by 2025, says study

Do you know if that is still on track?
 

Oooh that's annoying. Wish I'd thought of that.

Well, personally I have no idea, we see RE rolling out at impressive levels, especially in China, but also energy demand outside of Europe growing ..... especially in ..... yep, China.

But it looks like recent predictions are extremely similar to those made in 2015, here's an extract from an article from May this year:

China’s international climate pledge (its nationally determined contribution, or NDC) promises to peak CO2 emissions “before 2030” and to reduce the country’s carbon intensity – its emissions per unit of GDP – by “over 65%” in 2030 from 2005 levels.

Our analysis suggests that both of these goals will be significantly overachieved. We project that China will peak CO2 emissions in 2025 – or slightly after – at around 11.9GtCO2 excluding LULUCF. And we expect China to achieve a 67% reduction in carbon intensity below 2005 levels by 2030. Other researchers have also projected earlier peaking, at similar levels.

I don't know how accurate these predictions will be, but I think the fact they seem to have remained broadly similar 7yrs on, and crucially much closer to the date/deadline, can't be bad news.

Guest post: Why China is set to significantly overachieve its 2030 climate goals

China, which is currently the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, is said to be “doubling down” on coal and gas in the wake of a domestic energy crisis and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

China is continuing to build up its domestic fossil fuel production capacity and strengthening its portfolio for energy imports, even as it accelerates renewable power deployment.

Its energy decisions over the next few years will have large implications for its emissions trajectory towards 2030, its pathway towards the 2060 carbon-neutrality goal, and for global warming as a whole.

These recent developments are reflected in our latest Climate Action Tracker assessment of China’s current targets, policies and climate action, published today, which shows its emissions are likely to increase in the short term.

Yet our assessment shows the country is also set to significantly overachieve the targets it promised internationally for 2030, with emissions peaking by 2025. This means that China could increase the ambition of its targets, even without changing the path of its emissions this decade.

On the other hand, we find that this emissions trajectory – and China’s current targets – are incompatible with what would need to happen on a global level to limit warming to 1.5C. If all countries adopted an equivalent level of ambition, we would expect warming to reach 3C.

This article unpacks the details behind our outlook and points to possible ways in which China could take further steps to enhance its commitments towards achievement of global climate targets.