Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Martyn1981

70sbudgie said:

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. 

Did it set a new record? I think it hit 19GW on Energynumbers which includes embedded wind gen. But back to gas again for now. 

70sbudgie

From https://gridwatch.co.uk/ it looks like it peaked at 16.1GW yesterday. Though my iterative method of locating the max wind wasn't the best so I might have got that wrong. 

It looks like it's been a good month for wind so far...

Martyn1981

Two reasons for posting this article.

1. Because I mis-read it at first, and thought 'my' S. Wales was getting a monster batt. 

2. Interesting comparison made in the article, that this deployment is so, so much bigger than the then biggest batt in Aus (and most of the World), at Hornsdale. In fact this batt is around 10x bigger. Time flies, and I like to be reminded how quickly the scale of RE and storage is ramping up.

Akaysha Energy 850 MW/1680 MWh Battery Coming To New South Wales

Remember when Tesla installed a 100 MW/129 MWh Hornsdale battery in South Australia in 2017? At the time, it was the biggest battery in Australia and one of the largest in the world. My, how the world has changed. Akaysha Energy, a relative newcomer in the field of energy storage, has announced it will build an 850 MW/1680 MWh battery in New South Wales, Australia. That’s equivalent to the output from a large thermal generating station.

It’s not scheduled to go into service until 2025, but unless someone else comes along between now and then, the so-called Waratah Super Battery will be the largest energy storage facility in the world. It will sit on the former location of the Munmorah coal plant, which was demolished in 2017. Once completed, it will help replace the electricity that will be no longer be available after the Eraring thermal generating station — Australia’s largest coal plant — is shuttered in 2025.

Martyn1981

Just checked Energy Numbers and wind gen is showing as 19.7GW. I don't know if it has been higher today, but so close to the 20GW milestone.

Gridwatch is showing 16GW with their disclaimer that embedded wind isn't included, and may add ~30%.

2nd_time_buyer

Potentially bad news from PMQ today regarding onshore wind. It looks like there could be a 360 degree turn on the relaxation of planning announced a few weeks ago:

"PM sticking to position on onshore wind

Rishi Sunak was asked if he is still against building more onshore wind farms.

The Prime Minister said the important thing is to "stick by what we said in our manifesto" in 2019 as he emphasized his backing for more nuclear power and offshore wind."

zeupater

Martyn1981 said:

Just checked Energy Numbers and wind gen is showing as 19.7GW. I don't know if it has been higher today, but so close to the 20GW milestone.

Gridwatch is showing 16GW with their disclaimer that embedded wind isn't included, and may add ~30%.

Hi

I'd be wary of any assumptions based that figure:

The embedded 30% (Non-transmission contracted) reference has been referenced by the Gridwatch site or some time. With the huge expansion of offshore wind generating capacity ( likely not embedded .. ) compared to that seen onshore, it probably just needs the note to be updated to significantly reduce the figure ...

Anyway, if anyone's looking to include embedded wind into analysis of wind contribution vs demand, remember, it's seen by NG as a negative demand, therefore in adding the embedded wind element to the whole, you must also increase the total demand to balance the books! ...

HTH - Z

#Edit : fixed emoji

Exiled_Tyke

2nd_time_buyer said:

Potentially bad news from PMQ today regarding onshore wind. It looks like there could be a 360 degree turn on the relaxation of planning announced a few weeks ago:

"PM sticking to position on onshore wind

Rishi Sunak was asked if he is still against building more onshore wind farms.

The Prime Minister said the important thing is to "stick by what we said in our manifesto" in 2019 as he emphasized his backing for more nuclear power and offshore wind."

Without getting too political (I hope) I don't like nor trust the PM (though I'm sure he will be better than the last one). However I'm not overly pessimistic on this issue.  He didn't specifically say 'No' to onshore wind and he did of course specifically say he was supporting offshore.   I would hope that it won't be too long before the short term needs and economics take over and lead to growth in wind and soften the interest in nuclear.    And in other good news he has also banned fracking again - thank goodness. 

zeupater

2nd_time_buyer said:

Potentially bad news from PMQ today regarding onshore wind. It looks like there could be a 360 degree turn on the relaxation of planning announced a few weeks ago:

"PM sticking to position on onshore wind

Rishi Sunak was asked if he is still against building more onshore wind farms.

The Prime Minister said the important thing is to "stick by what we said in our manifesto" in 2019 as he emphasized his backing for more nuclear power and offshore wind."

Hi

The underlying issue is that whenever an onshore proposal is made there's almost immediately a huge negative reaction to the plans from the local community ... especially so from the locals that live the furthest away & seem to have considerable financial reserves/backing ...

I particularly find this odd when community projects are involved ... you know, the ones involving the locals which directly benefit the locals, yet a vocal cohort 'the locals' still resist and jam up the planning process to an extent that it's simply an easier & faster process to build capacity at sea ...

... then again, offshore projects are unlikely to be financially viable as community projects due to additional infrastructure costs & economies of scale, so does that lead to a suggestion that <tin foil hats on!> there's a potential link between the well structured anti-onshore wind brigade & those with vested interests in controlling future energy sector revenues through current investment capacity/capabilities ... shouldn't this at least be a consideration for anyone interested in embedded/demand side/distributed generation ...

... after all, if the future state energy sector were to be heavily demand side, embedded or community centric, then what are the implications for taxable corporate revenues? ... ooh ... nail, head & thud come to mind! <hats off everyone!>

HTH - Z

70sbudgie

zeupater said:

2nd_time_buyer said:

Potentially bad news from PMQ today regarding onshore wind. It looks like there could be a 360 degree turn on the relaxation of planning announced a few weeks ago:

"PM sticking to position on onshore wind

Rishi Sunak was asked if he is still against building more onshore wind farms.

The Prime Minister said the important thing is to "stick by what we said in our manifesto" in 2019 as he emphasized his backing for more nuclear power and offshore wind."

Hi

The underlying issue is that whenever an onshore proposal is made there's almost immediately a huge negative reaction to the plans from the local community ... especially so from the locals that live the furthest away & seem to have considerable financial reserves/backing ...

I particularly find this odd when community projects are involved ... you know, the ones involving the locals which directly benefit the locals, yet a vocal cohort 'the locals' still resist and jam up the planning process to an extent that it's simply an easier & faster process to build capacity at sea ...

... then again, offshore projects are unlikely to be financially viable as community projects due to additional infrastructure costs & economies of scale, so does that lead to a suggestion that <tin foil hats on!> there's a potential link between the well structured anti-onshore wind brigade & those with vested interests in controlling future energy sector revenues through current investment capacity/capabilities ... shouldn't this at least be a consideration for anyone interested in embedded/demand side/distributed generation ...

... after all, if the future state energy sector were to be heavily demand side, embedded or community centric, then what are the implications for taxable corporate revenues? ... ooh ... nail, head & thud come to mind! <hats off everyone!>

HTH - Z

I don't disagree that nimbyism is a big problem. But will the current energy crisis have an effect on that? Surely a windfarm is better than a nuclear power station visible from home?

The tin hat bit is way too cryptic for me to be able to process right now. Am I the only one that would appreciate a less politic translation?

Martyn1981

70sbudgie said:

zeupater said:

2nd_time_buyer said:

Potentially bad news from PMQ today regarding onshore wind. It looks like there could be a 360 degree turn on the relaxation of planning announced a few weeks ago:

"PM sticking to position on onshore wind

Rishi Sunak was asked if he is still against building more onshore wind farms.

The Prime Minister said the important thing is to "stick by what we said in our manifesto" in 2019 as he emphasized his backing for more nuclear power and offshore wind."

Hi

The underlying issue is that whenever an onshore proposal is made there's almost immediately a huge negative reaction to the plans from the local community ... especially so from the locals that live the furthest away & seem to have considerable financial reserves/backing ...

I particularly find this odd when community projects are involved ... you know, the ones involving the locals which directly benefit the locals, yet a vocal cohort 'the locals' still resist and jam up the planning process to an extent that it's simply an easier & faster process to build capacity at sea ...

... then again, offshore projects are unlikely to be financially viable as community projects due to additional infrastructure costs & economies of scale, so does that lead to a suggestion that <tin foil hats on!> there's a potential link between the well structured anti-onshore wind brigade & those with vested interests in controlling future energy sector revenues through current investment capacity/capabilities ... shouldn't this at least be a consideration for anyone interested in embedded/demand side/distributed generation ...

... after all, if the future state energy sector were to be heavily demand side, embedded or community centric, then what are the implications for taxable corporate revenues? ... ooh ... nail, head & thud come to mind! <hats off everyone!>

HTH - Z

I don't disagree that nimbyism is a big problem. But will the current energy crisis have an effect on that? Surely a windfarm is better than a nuclear power station visible from home?

The tin hat bit is way too cryptic for me to be able to process right now. Am I the only one that would appreciate a less politic translation?

Hopefully, yes. People may appreciate RE for its relatively fixed costs since the fuel source, if wind or sun, doesn't vary in price (from zero). I often wonder if pylons (during early electrification) were disliked, or loved because they were bringing leccy to the masses?

Not sure I notice pylons anymore, unless looking for them / at them. They blend into our subconscious (possibly?) A very promising trend is that whilst on-shore wind has always been popular, but less than PV and off-shore wind, its popularity has grown over a decade from around 67% to 75%, and opposition has fallen from around 12% to 8%. But what really excites me, is that support in rural areas has grown, and most importantly, support for new local RE (wind and PV) is higher in rural areas that already have RE.

Hope I'm not misunderstanding that, but it suggests to me that once 'you've' got over the shock of local RE, you no longer worry that much about more. Reality trumps fears.


Addendum - I'm seeing on other sites that ESO has apparently confirmed a new UK wind record yesterday of 19.936GW.

I'll keep an eye out for a news article. And 20GW must be doable soon, so long as we can distribute it all - yesterday we were exporting around 5GW.