Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

NedS

Croft12 said:

NedS said:

QrizB said:

Exiled_Tyke said:

This got me thinking about the future of TOU tariffs, growth of EV use and whether it will become viable for the electricity companies to control more of our households than just the EV charger. If they could run the heating (particularly hot water) and may be even some appliances then I wonder how much curtailment could be taken out as well as emergency peak usage of non-RE production.  

If it was priced right, I'd be happy to fit a smart switch controlled by Octopus to my HW tank immersion heater to let them control my HW heating (much like they do my EV and IOG).

It would need to be closer to £50, though, rather than the £900 I paid for the EV charger!

I've handed my battery over to Octopus as part of their IOF tariff. The App shows I'm part of a 1080 property VPP, and the other evening we were contributing ~6MW to the grid between us (interestingly, this figure only appears to include the forced export from the battery, not the excess solar that I'd naturally be exporting anyway).

Octopus discharge my battery daily during the 4-7pm peak down to it's 20% reserve to support peak grid demand, and pay me 29.8p for the privilege. The battery then sits at it's 20% reserve until the following day where it recharges during the middle of the day helping to mop up all that summer excess solar. Octopus can change the regime around daily to support the grid as required.

My spreadsheet modelling tells me no other tariff can get close to IOF in summer where we are large net exporters, so to be able to help balance the grid in this way rather than just dump huge amounts of excess solar on the grid during the middle of the day when it's least needed seems like a win-win to me.

Where do it show your VPP details in the app?

If you are participating in a VPP (e.g, Octopus IOF), click the Virtual Power Plant link (1st link) on the main page and it gives details of the number of homes participating and the current amount of power being provided to the grid. It's not there is you are not on a VPP type tariff (which is currently only Octopus IOF in the UK AFAIK).

Martyn1981

This pumped hydro project in Scotland is looking ever more likely. And it's a biggie at 1.8GW/37GWh, for comparison the Dinorwig PHS is 1.8GW/9.1GWh.

1.8GW pumped hydro energy storage project in Scotland launches

Yesterday (22 July), SSE Renewables revealed plans to progress a 1.8GW pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) project at Loch Fearna, Scotland, with a consortium led by Gilkes Energy.

The Fearna PHES project envisages developing tunnels and a new power station to connect SSE Renewables’ existing reservoir at Loch Quoich with an upper reservoir at Loch Fearna.

If pursued, the project could produce around 37GWh of stored energy capacity, thus providing additional stability and flexibility to the GB grid. It would export energy for 20 hours at 1.8GW. A grid connection offer totalling 1.795GW has already been secured.

SSE confirmed the project could reach commercial operations in the mid-2030s, subject to reaching a final investment decision.

Screwdriva

Looks like another Chinese Solar giant is on its way out...

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

ed110220

Martyn1981 said:

This pumped hydro project in Scotland is looking ever more likely. And it's a biggie at 1.8GW/37GWh, for comparison the Dinorwig PHS is 1.8GW/9.1GWh.

1.8GW pumped hydro energy storage project in Scotland launches

Yesterday (22 July), SSE Renewables revealed plans to progress a 1.8GW pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) project at Loch Fearna, Scotland, with a consortium led by Gilkes Energy.

The Fearna PHES project envisages developing tunnels and a new power station to connect SSE Renewables’ existing reservoir at Loch Quoich with an upper reservoir at Loch Fearna.

If pursued, the project could produce around 37GWh of stored energy capacity, thus providing additional stability and flexibility to the GB grid. It would export energy for 20 hours at 1.8GW. A grid connection offer totalling 1.795GW has already been secured.

SSE confirmed the project could reach commercial operations in the mid-2030s, subject to reaching a final investment decision.

Let's hope this finally goes ahead. Here's a news report from last year stating that the UK has almost 7 GW, 135 GWh of "shovel ready" pumped hydro but as far as I'm aware it all remains shovel ready. UK has almost 7GW of shovel-ready pumped hydro, says IHA

The world added 8.4 GW of pumped hydro in 2024, almost all in China (7.75 GW) China on track to exceed 2030 pumped storage hydro target by 8%, industry body says | Reuters

zeupater

Martyn1981 said:

This pumped hydro project in Scotland is looking ever more likely. And it's a biggie at 1.8GW/37GWh, for comparison the Dinorwig PHS is 1.8GW/9.1GWh.

1.8GW pumped hydro energy storage project in Scotland launches

Yesterday (22 July), SSE Renewables revealed plans to progress a 1.8GW pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) project at Loch Fearna, Scotland, with a consortium led by Gilkes Energy.

The Fearna PHES project envisages developing tunnels and a new power station to connect SSE Renewables’ existing reservoir at Loch Quoich with an upper reservoir at Loch Fearna.

If pursued, the project could produce around 37GWh of stored energy capacity, thus providing additional stability and flexibility to the GB grid. It would export energy for 20 hours at 1.8GW. A grid connection offer totalling 1.795GW has already been secured.

SSE confirmed the project could reach commercial operations in the mid-2030s, subject to reaching a final investment decision.

Hi

... which, of course, needs to be considered as an integral component of a combined tidal flow/pumped hydro solution where the stored hydro  provides energy to compensate for the periods either side of 'slack tide' conditions. 

Joined-up thinking can seriously affect the logical outcome of success ... in this case you'd not only have power being planned & delivered to a schedule known literally centuries into the future, but also the solution to  baseline energy provision which should be considered as being just as reliable as nuclear for strategic energy purposes .... but then again, the issue boils down to a single concept which seems to stretch the capabilities of many (/most/almost all!) decision makers - logic ....   

HTH - Z

Martyn1981

Looks like all those 2GW 'bootstraps' being deployed to help move leccy around the UK, are going to be kept busy.

Scottish off shore wind farm, estimated at ~4GW and 2030 completion.

One of world's largest offshore wind farms approved

One of the world's largest offshore wind farms has been approved by the Scottish government.

The Berwick Bank project in the Firth of Forth off the East Lothian coast could generate enough electricity to meet the annual energy needs of every household in Scotland twice over.

Located about 23 miles (38km) off the Borders coastline at St Abbs, developers SSE Renewables want to construct up to 307 turbines.

The Scottish government said the approval was subject to the company producing a detailed seabird compensation plan outlining how any adverse impact would be tackled.

That plan will need to be approved by Scottish ministers ahead of the project proceeding.

NedS

zeupater said:

Martyn1981 said:

This pumped hydro project in Scotland is looking ever more likely. And it's a biggie at 1.8GW/37GWh, for comparison the Dinorwig PHS is 1.8GW/9.1GWh.

1.8GW pumped hydro energy storage project in Scotland launches

Yesterday (22 July), SSE Renewables revealed plans to progress a 1.8GW pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) project at Loch Fearna, Scotland, with a consortium led by Gilkes Energy.

The Fearna PHES project envisages developing tunnels and a new power station to connect SSE Renewables’ existing reservoir at Loch Quoich with an upper reservoir at Loch Fearna.

If pursued, the project could produce around 37GWh of stored energy capacity, thus providing additional stability and flexibility to the GB grid. It would export energy for 20 hours at 1.8GW. A grid connection offer totalling 1.795GW has already been secured.

SSE confirmed the project could reach commercial operations in the mid-2030s, subject to reaching a final investment decision.

Hi

... which, of course, needs to be considered as an integral component of a combined tidal flow/pumped hydro solution where the stored hydro  provides energy to compensate for the periods either side of 'slack tide' conditions. 

Joined-up thinking can seriously affect the logical outcome of success ... in this case you'd not only have power being planned & delivered to a schedule known literally centuries into the future, but also the solution to  baseline energy provision which should be considered as being just as reliable as nuclear for strategic energy purposes .... but then again, the issue boils down to a single concept which seems to stretch the capabilities of many (/most/almost all!) decision makers - logic ....   

HTH - Z

I agree. We may not have an abundance of natural resources ideally suited to pumped storage, but we are an island with strong tidal flows and there seems to be little attempt to exploit the natural resources we do have. 

Exiled_Tyke

On the subject of storage, I've just come across this in the Gresham annual report.  (This is a shock to me, did any of you know about it?)

"We have spoken on several occasions about the regulatory risk that has manifested, which relates to the national control room owned and operated by NESO, whose task is to balance supply and demand in real time via the BM. NESO did not, and seemingly could not, utilise batteries properly due to a lack of appropriate systems and technical infrastructure, leading to the very low utilisation (or “skipping”) of batteries. The Board and the Manager have had to work very hard to get this issue noticed and addressed, working with peers and trade associations, NESO, government policy makers, Ofgem and the media, as this issue was not well understood beyond the BESS industry...

...Our work is not done, however. The pace of change in the grid control room and underpinning systems remains very slow and the Board and Manager will continue to highlight the skip rate issue until it is fully resolved. Nonetheless, it is encouraging to see a positive trend during 2024 and evidence of real progress."

In case anyone needs them (sorry if this is patronising):  NESO is the National Energy Systems Operator and BM is the Balancing Mechanism.   

This seems to suggest that the country is relying on other forms of energy (than battery energy) to balance the grid (and I guess this probably means gas.)  I'm also wondering whether this is leading to excess curtailments as batteries fill up and then not being drained when needed.   

Whilst this appears to be a very poor situation (and terrible for the BESS industry, shareholders and potential investors (wondering why current returns are so poor) it should mean that there is potential for significant improvement in the use of BESS and therefore RE. 

NedS

Exiled_Tyke said:

On the subject of storage, I've just come across this in the Gresham annual report.  (This is a shock to me, did any of you know about it?)

"We have spoken on several occasions about the regulatory risk that has manifested, which relates to the national control room owned and operated by NESO, whose task is to balance supply and demand in real time via the BM. NESO did not, and seemingly could not, utilise batteries properly due to a lack of appropriate systems and technical infrastructure, leading to the very low utilisation (or “skipping”) of batteries. The Board and the Manager have had to work very hard to get this issue noticed and addressed, working with peers and trade associations, NESO, government policy makers, Ofgem and the media, as this issue was not well understood beyond the BESS industry...

...Our work is not done, however. The pace of change in the grid control room and underpinning systems remains very slow and the Board and Manager will continue to highlight the skip rate issue until it is fully resolved. Nonetheless, it is encouraging to see a positive trend during 2024 and evidence of real progress."

In case anyone needs them (sorry if this is patronising):  NESO is the National Energy Systems Operator and BM is the Balancing Mechanism.   

This seems to suggest that the country is relying on other forms of energy (than battery energy) to balance the grid (and I guess this probably means gas.)  I'm also wondering whether this is leading to excess curtailments as batteries fill up and then not being drained when needed.   

Whilst this appears to be a very poor situation (and terrible for the BESS industry, shareholders and potential investors (wondering why current returns are so poor) it should mean that there is potential for significant improvement in the use of BESS and therefore RE. 

Yes, I was very aware as I'm invested in the two remaining listed BESS funds on the FTSE - GRID and GSF. Share prices plummeted last year as these funds were unable to fully monetise their assets due to under utilisation by NESO as described.

As you suspect, gas-fired power stations were primarily used as the balancing mechanism. As I understand it, things started to improve a little around the end of last year, but as the report highlights, there is still much to do. I think the main issue here is that NESO are responsible (amongst other things) for balancing the grid - they do not care where that balancing capacity comes from, only that the grid is balanced. They are not responsible for reducing FF use or CO2 output, for example, so there are limited drivers in place to encourage the use of BESS other than it will disappear as an option if it is not used. To an extent, this may already be happening as GRID is already selling much of their capacity to other operators (see recent deals announced with Octopus and SSE) so those resources become unavailable for NESO balancing use.

You might be forgiven for thinking all this stuff is easy - use BESS to store excess renewable energy (to help minimise curtailment) and deploy back to the grid as required, but I get the impression it is anything but easy. The grid operators have a remit to operate the grid, but are not allowed to own or operate infrastructure such as BESS etc that may help the grid operate efficiently. They also have no political interests or remit in meeting green targets, only keeping the lights on. it is all very disjointed.

The result of the BM mess with NESO is that investment in commercial scale BESS has all but evaporated until investors have a clearer idea of the revenue streams possible from such infrastructure, and what little publicly owned (FTSE listed) BESS infrastructure that exists is moving into private ownership as investment funds try to establish realistic valuations of their assets (essential in order to raise more capital investment).

Summary - it's a mess. It was a huge mess last year. It's still a mess, they know it's a mess but the system is so disjointed that no one is really responsible for the mess, and I'm currently paying for the mess as my investments in BESS have plummeted.

pete-20-11

NedS said:

Croft12 said:

NedS said:

QrizB said:

Exiled_Tyke said:

This got me thinking about the future of TOU tariffs, growth of EV use and whether it will become viable for the electricity companies to control more of our households than just the EV charger. If they could run the heating (particularly hot water) and may be even some appliances then I wonder how much curtailment could be taken out as well as emergency peak usage of non-RE production.  

If it was priced right, I'd be happy to fit a smart switch controlled by Octopus to my HW tank immersion heater to let them control my HW heating (much like they do my EV and IOG).

It would need to be closer to £50, though, rather than the £900 I paid for the EV charger!

I've handed my battery over to Octopus as part of their IOF tariff. The App shows I'm part of a 1080 property VPP, and the other evening we were contributing ~6MW to the grid between us (interestingly, this figure only appears to include the forced export from the battery, not the excess solar that I'd naturally be exporting anyway).

Octopus discharge my battery daily during the 4-7pm peak down to it's 20% reserve to support peak grid demand, and pay me 29.8p for the privilege. The battery then sits at it's 20% reserve until the following day where it recharges during the middle of the day helping to mop up all that summer excess solar. Octopus can change the regime around daily to support the grid as required.

My spreadsheet modelling tells me no other tariff can get close to IOF in summer where we are large net exporters, so to be able to help balance the grid in this way rather than just dump huge amounts of excess solar on the grid during the middle of the day when it's least needed seems like a win-win to me.

Where do it show your VPP details in the app?

If you are participating in a VPP (e.g, Octopus IOF), click the Virtual Power Plant link (1st link) on the main page and it gives details of the number of homes participating and the current amount of power being provided to the grid. It's not there is you are not on a VPP type tariff (which is currently only Octopus IOF in the UK AFAIK).

I'm on IOF and can't see a virtual power plant link.

Unless I'm looking in the wrong place.