Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

silverwhistle

zeupater said:

.... there's no reason why MWh scale battery packs couldn't be located close to or within existing DNO substations which would totally negate the argument regarding distribution ....

My curious memory recalls an item in a staff magazine from ~30 years ago, in a subject completely unconnected with my work, regarding the building of a very small gas peaking plant near Reading (Earley rings a bell!) to deal with grid level restrictions. The same principal really.

Martyn1981 said:

I seem to recall some sort of power pricing in France for domestic households, and possibly Silverwhistle(?) mentioned something similar in Italy, where you pay a higher standing charge (equivalent) to have higher power levels ...... sounds like some bad Marvel character - "I have reached higher power levels!"

Indeed! Although I can't remember if it was standing charge or unit rate, the latter I feel. My limit was 3kW and the meter actually tripped at 3.3kW, although in 7 years I managed that very few times. A family might find it difficult to adapt but I had no issues.

A quick mea culpa, I burn biomass but as the trees concerned have largely come down of their own accord I feel it's better than them just being chipped and decomposed. Very local too, I'm glad it wasn't my car squashed by the last source of wood, an oak  200 yards from home!

QrizB

silverwhistle said:

zeupater said:

.... there's no reason why MWh scale battery packs couldn't be located close to or within existing DNO substations which would totally negate the argument regarding distribution ....

My curious memory recalls an item in a staff magazine from ~30 years ago, in a subject completely unconnected with my work, regarding the building of a very small gas peaking plant near Reading (Earley rings a bell!) to deal with grid level restrictions.

Burghfield Power Station, by any chance?

https://www.ssethermal.com/flexible-generation/operational/burghfield/

Interesting to see there's a solar farm not far from it these days (adjacent to the M4, and visible from it):

https://openinframap.org/#12.8/51.42632/-1.00392

zeupater

70sbudgie said:

[ ... ]

And this is the real reason why smart meters are so important (there is a discussion about this on the energy board). It is providing more granular data to provide up to date information on how electricity use is changing at a domestic level. I know @Zeupater says it is only 40% of demand (it is actually only 33% https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/electricity-chapter-5-digest-of-united-kingdom-energy-statistics-dukes) but that third is still important. The industry gathers it own data, but from higher points on the network, so diversity is already being applied. Smart meters also introduce the opportunity to offer incentives for positive behaviour change and therefore an ability to manage actual diversity figures (demand side management). Increasing the opportunity for network operation to increase capacity, instead of just equipment capacity having to be extended with more cables etc.

Hi

I read the reference to 33% in the DUKES22 report, but it doesn't actually tie back to the Electricity Flow Chart summarised analysis of data from other relevant data tables, where the demand is made up as (TWh) ...

• Iron & Steel  - 2.3TWh
• Other Industry - 82.8TWh
• Transport - 5.5TWh
• Domestic - 109.5TWh
• Other Consumers - 85.8TWh

... running to a total user demand of 285.9TWh, so domestic demand shows as 38.3% (109.5/285.9) which is close enough to ~40% to make little difference. The anomaly (38.3%-33%) is likely related to the handling & apportioning of centralised generation related issues in the form of ... Energy Industry Use - 22.1TWh (where pumped storage shouldn't be considered a demand on the supply side, rather it's a conversion/supply inefficiency as would be supply side batteries) & Exports - 4.2TWh (which isn't UK demand related) ... and ...Conversion, Transmission & Distribution Losses at a whopping 331.8TWh (an inefficiency level greater than the entire UK's actual demand!)

When considering a 'future state' of the electricity sector, we're likely to be looking at lower reliance on large scale centralised energy generation and see more generation closer to population centres, therefore being less dependant on distance transmission, which in turn  would significantly reduce the scale of losses currently incurred, which at the end of the day releases more generation capacity (if maintained at levels similar to that currently installed) to directly meet demand as opposed to demand+delivery inefficiencies ...

It's in reducing the current inefficiencies incurred in delivering electrons from source to point of use that whatever future distributed generating capacity will help close the supply/demand issue that we see when only considering past (centralised) generating solutions ... it's simply mindset & application ... 

On smart-meters ... I still don't see the cost/benefit analysis as being logical .... the DNO can easily enable real-time demand visibility for each substation & even down to transformer granularity, so they know where the demand is & can readily feed it directly to ESO .... so where does the benefit to generation & distribution planning come from if the smart-meter reporting schedule is based on historical time-slices designed for little else than ToU (Time of Use) billing ... ie HHM (Half Hourly Metering) enabling HHB (HH Billing).

Essentially the data being provided by the smart meters is collected by the DCC (Data Communications Company) at a frequency which may be of interest for billing, a rudimentary form of consumer moderation/compliance via ToU tariffs and even for basic forms of academic research ... however, for any form of grid operation, the issue comes back to granularity and what processing power would need to be in place to provide near real-time (maximum granularity) information from thousands of data nodes in each post code area over that required to acquire & analyse data from relatively few metering nodes attached to existing & future grid resources through which local demand is already being consolidated to a form which is just as relevant ...

To date, £billions have been spent on smart-meters and one of the foremost justifications for doing so is related to managing grid operations .... never yet seen an explanation that addresses this basic flaw in the logic employed, probably never will either, so, apart from the opportunities to offer a range of tariffs so complex that price comparison websites effectively become irrelevant, where is the promised payback to the consumer from the investment ... doubt there is one, so we'll never really see that £500+ cost per household per decade (or so, plus inflation etc!) for our smart-meters provide any real cost benefits either!

Now, considering the above, don't even think about gas smart-meters, they really come down to two household demands ... you either know when you're hungry & cook, or you look at what the thermostat's set to in the home when you're too cold ... that's it, job done ... Three course evening meal every day & wearing a T-shirt around the house in the winter is going to cost more than being a little more sensible ... job done, if that basic concept is unfathomable to anyone, they're either too rich to care or not mentally agile enough to use a smart-meter's IHD (in any meaningful way) anyway ... so issue solved, the gas smart meters are almost certainly just to reduce the need for meter readings between the gas meter safety inspections, so where's the benefit to anyone with at least the ability to breathe, isn't a multi-billionaire & currently provides regular meter readings ...     

HTH - Z

gefnew

Will this make a difference to the grid or not.
Doncaster: Public consultation over UK's biggest battery farm - BBC News

Martyn1981

gefnew said:

Will this make a difference to the grid or not.
Doncaster: Public consultation over UK's biggest battery farm - BBC News

That's interesting news.

But I wish there were more specs (I'm greedy like that). Usually storage is stated in power, hence 2.8GW, but I suspect on this occasion they meant energy (GWh). But the numbers still seem extremely large. The bit that's thrown me is the claim that it will be based on 50 shipping containers. Nothing unusual about the containers, loads of large scale batteries are built and deployed in containerised units, but 50 seems way too low for the power/energy claimed.

Tesla's Megapacks are 1MW or 2MW, with 3.9MWh per container, so 50 would give you ~195MWh. They are slightly bigger than a half container, but that still only gets us to around 100MW or 200MW and 390MWh.

But all great news, like the two massive batts to be deployed in Scotland at 400MW/800MWh each.

Alnat1

Very interesting as it's only around 10 miles away from me.

Shouldn't be too much for locals to protest about. A few shipping containers is much less of an eyesore than the 6 cooling towers they used to have as their view and there's been lots of pylons in the area for years. 

zeupater

Hi

Looks like it's really in concept stage at the moment, so probably a little early to flesh out any specs .... if anyone's interested, the proposer's information leaflet to kick off community conversations which contains additional details is available here ... https://www.banksgroup.co.uk/projects/renewables/thorpe-marsh/community-flyer/ 

HTH - Z 

70sbudgie

The link to Thorpe Marsh at the bottom of the BBC article identifies that it is a typo on the BBC article and it is 2.8GWhrs of storage. I also read it that the idea is to charge from excess wind from the nearby offshore windfarm and it sounds more like seasonal storage. So I wonder if it isn't lithium batteries?

A quick internet search identifies the old power station as 1GW and if the plan is to use the existing NG connection, then it suggests that it might max out at 1GW. Having said that, a previous scheme for the site for CCG turbines appears to have been for 1.5GW. 

The ratio of 1GW power to 2.8GWhrs storage fits @Martyn1981's numbers above.

Batteries do seem to be replacing gas for peaking plants.

Edit: I've just realised I got the numbers wrong, ~700MW would equate to 2.8kWhrs given the ratios above.

Coastalwatch

A bit off track but unsure where to place otherwise. I thought it might be interesting to those aware of the court case involving a certain Trevor Milton, founder of Nikola.

Update 17 October 2022

A federal jury found Trevor Milton guilty of defrauding investors by lying about the supposed technical achievements of the electric truck maker he founded. He faces a maximum prison sentence of 20 years with sentencing expected in January.

https://www.electrive.com/2021/07/30/trevor-milton-sued-by-new-york-attorney-general/

70sbudgie

Anyone else looked at https://www.carbonintensity.org.uk/
today?
Listening to the wind outside, I wondered how wide spread it is.
60% wind generation now.