nation grid and solar

guestman

so this is the place you solar guys live, do any of you ever take note of the national grid to see how much solar and wind produce? I use to always think we must have decent production from free energy but after checking online I see we really don't. it seems every house would need solar panels and fit wind turbines all around the coast of the whole island!
http://gridwatch.co.uk/


seems nuclear is about a constant 8gw and the gas turbines power plants seems to do from 12 to 15gw , I think the most ive seen from wind over the last few days is 1.9 gw

Martyn1981

It's a bit more tricky to judge RE than just looking at Gridwatch, since about 1/3 of wind isn't centrally metered, so shows up as reduced demand, and most PV is similar, showing up as a mid day dip on sunny days.

Gas varies from 5GW to 20GW, depending on demand, and particularly wind/solar.

Coal is down from 30% of generation in 2014 to 23% in 2015 (when gas gen also dropped by a small fraction), and 16% over the last 12 months.

Wind is still building fast, even the relatively new off-shore generation should supply about 10% of demand by 2020, from ~10GW of installed supply.

Biomass is used seasonally, so now at between 1 and 1.5GW, but 1.5-2GW during higher demand periods.

Last year PV generation was greater than hydro, and should be nearly 50% more this year. It's also been matching (or exceeding) coal for most of the spring and summer, supplying around 5-6% of monthly leccy needs.

In 2014 RE generation supplied just under 20% of electricity, in 2015 it was 25%.

The national Grid has begun issuing contracts for storage (200MW just contracted) for grid stabilisation. Batts can respond faster (and cleaner) than banks of diesel gennies, and should actually save money.

SSE have advised that there is more wind (and gas back up capacity) available for construction in the next decade than all current coal and nuclear that is to retire during that period.

So loads happening, possibly the most important recently, is the Dutch contract for off-shore wind, delivery date 2020, that is significantly cheaper than the Hinkley contract, which itself is already far more expensive than on-shore wind and PV contracts today.

With storage costs falling fast, I doubt we'll see the rate of change slowing soon, so the next 5-10 years will be a blur of innovation and re-writing of the rules.

Mart.

Martyn1981

guestman wrote: »

it seems every house would need solar panels and fit wind turbines all around the coast of the whole island!

Not really.

Without storage, we'd only be aiming for about 10% of generation from solar, requiring about 30GWp of installs. Approx 20% of domestic properties are PV suitable, which at 4kWp/property would by ~20GWp. Commercial building are more suitable, perhaps 80%, but contractual/leasing issues are a problem. Installs of carpark canopies are growing in popularity too, plus there are of course supply side installs such as PV farms, so reaching 30GWp is a doddle.

For off-shore wind, that's also relatively easy. This site shows the total area needed to provide the whole worlds energy (energy, not electricity) just from off-shore wind in 2030 (the PV map is quite informative too).

Mart.

guestman

the company I work for has around ( or had ) 100'000 solar panels installed on its buildings that was in 2013 ( 22 mw ), this number will of gone up lots by now. solar is useless at night and winter so wind should have more investment, or at least that's how I see it.
do you know of any links to were I can read about current and upcoming wind farms ?

Martyn1981

guestman wrote: »

the company I work for has around ( or had ) 100'000 solar panels installed on its buildings that was in 2013 ( 22 mw ), this number will of gone up lots by now. solar is useless at night and winter so wind should have more investment, or at least that's how I see it.

But in your OP you commented on the low generation from wind at the moment, so you can't have it both ways.

Wind and hydro generate more in the GMT months, PV generates more in the BST months.

Pointing out that PV doesn't generate at night is rather sad. My hammer doesn't saw wood, but that's never concerned me. If that is your argument against PV, then I could use the equally sad argument that wind turbines don't work when the wind isn't blowing - but that approach achieves nothing.

RE relies on an appropriate mix and scale of technologies. For PV, the max is probably about 30GWp (we currently have about 12GWp). Without PV, wind fails as a singular solution, without wind, PV fails as a singular solution. In fact, pretty much all RE fails as a singular solution, which is why it needs to be judged rationally, as part of a team effort.

Also, to be fair, wind already gets far more investment than PV, so there's no need to worry anyway. We have more wind capacity than PV capacity, and wind has a higher capacity factor than PV.

Capacity factor is the amount generated as a percentage of generation against nameplate capacity. So if a powerstation ran flat out 24hrs per day, 365 days a year, it would have a cf of 100%.

PV has a cf of about 11% in the UK
on-shore wind is about 25% to 30%
off-shore wind is about 40% to 50%

As the subsidies are paid against generation, not capacity, the technologies that have higher cfs, also receive more funding proportional to installed capacity.

Domestic PV now receives approx £67/MWh
Current off-shore wind farms, coming on line this year will receive £120/MWh, hopefully this will fall to £85 for new installations by 2025 or so.

Between now and 2020 5GW of new offshore wind should come on line, which will recieve the higher subsidy, and on an amount of generation equal to approx 20GWp to 25GWp of PV capacity.

guestman wrote: »

do you know of any links to were I can read about current and upcoming wind farms ?

There are many sites, but I don't know what you'd find particularly interesting. If you google wind farms, or wind farm news, you should find lots of interesting news articles, or sites.

On-shore wind in the UK has now slowed right down, as the Tories kept their manifesto promise to gut the industry (despite 2/3 of the public supporting it, according to DECC's quarterly surveys). However, off-shore wind is literally non-stop at the moment, with prices falling fast, and ever larger turbines being installed, some now at 8MW, with 10MW on the way, and 50MW being researched.

You may find some articles of interest in the Green & Ethical News thread.

Mart.

guestman

the overall worry for me is that power plants seem to be shutting down faster than renewable energy is been produced!, that's the only reason ive become interested in looking it up. I havnt seen Fiddler’s Ferry running for ages, that's 10 mile or so from me, infact a load of lads were laid off recently.

jimjames

guestman wrote: »

the company I work for has around ( or had ) 100'000 solar panels installed on its buildings that was in 2013 ( 22 mw ), this number will of gone up lots by now. solar is useless at night and winter so wind should have more investment, or at least that's how I see it.
do you know of any links to were I can read about current and upcoming wind farms ?

You might find some info here

http://www.renewables-map.co.uk/default.asp

guestman

brilliant link! didn't think there was so many wind farms at all

Martyn1981

guestman wrote: »

the overall worry for me is that power plants seem to be shutting down faster than renewable energy is been produced!, that's the only reason ive become interested in looking it up. I havnt seen Fiddler’s Ferry running for ages, that's 10 mile or so from me, infact a load of lads were laid off recently.

I wouldn't worry about the amount of capacity, as RE is being rolled out at a decent rate. However, the main concern is of course with intermittency, so whilst average annual generation is ok, the issue going forward is having enough energy at any given point, to meet demand.

For example, PV generated approx 52.4GWh yesterday, the equivalent of a 2.2GW powerstation running flat out. But of course, it wasn't running at 2.2GW for 24 hours, actual generation varied from zero to ~7GW. For August, PV will have supplied between 5% and 6% of total leccy consumption.

At the moment, variable demand is being met by gas, which can demand follow. RE pushes gas off the grid, but these last couple of years, gas has held its own, by (in turn) pushing coal off the grid.

As RE is currently fluctuating within the min and max of gas generation, there are no issues of back-up and storage (though, as previously mentioned, the NG is investing in 200MW of batts for grid stabilisation).

Going forward, there could be an issue, but as I mentioned earlier SSE advise that there is plenty of new capacity awaiting approval ..

Today there is now nearly twice as much generating capacity from new gas-fired power stations and offshore wind potentially waiting to come on to the country’s electricity system by 2025 as there is old coal and nuclear coming off.

Last years jump in RE was quite impressive, moving from 20% to 25% of UK leccy supply. If you think about that, it's 10x faster than Hinkley C (HPC) which might come on line in 2028 supplying 7% of our leccy = 0.58% pa.

We may see a favourable decision on the Swansea Tidal Barrage. It's not a huge scheme, and quite expensive, requiring a subsidy slightly higher than HPC, but it should act as a learning exercise, allowing the construction of the Cardiff Tidal barrage scheme at 10x the scale, and at a lower price (per MWh).

We may also see Ice-Link, a 1GW interconnector to Iceland, at £96/MWh (slightly cheaper than HPC's £102, but only a 15yr subsidy compared to HPC's 35yrs).

And, of course, there are still the planned new nuclear reactors, providing up to 16GW of generation, more than the current 10GW fleet, that will have closed by 2030(ish). However, there are major concerns over the cost, as nuclear is now pricing itself out of the competition, as RE and storage costs tumble. But the option is still there, no doors have been shut, yet.

So everything is going in the right direction, but as we go into the next decade storage will become the next issue, but this too is moving forward quite well, with large schemes all over the world, so it may 'pop' soon, as costs fall.

If nothing else, the reduction in coal generation from 30% in 2014, to 23% in 2015, and possibly 16% this year, represents a massive leap forward as it is so CO2 intensive, and the pollution impacts on the population are very high, estimated at around £60/MWh (just the pollution costs on society - healthcare, shortened lives etc).

Mart.

guestman

I just looked up the storage solution, seems li ion batterys today can make this happen, imagen 15 years ago coming up with the idea of storing 200mw in normal deep cycle batts. my power tools are all now li ion and for the size of the batts you wouldn't think they'd last so long.


ive started watching a very interesting show on youtube hosted by robert llewellyn , fullycharged.

Martyn1981

guestman wrote: »

I just looked up the storage solution, seems li ion batterys today can make this happen, imagen 15 years ago coming up with the idea of storing 200mw in normal deep cycle batts. my power tools are all now li ion and for the size of the batts you wouldn't think they'd last so long.


ive started watching a very interesting show on youtube hosted by robert llewellyn , fullycharged.

Fullycharged is excellent.

The storage issue is a fun one. The arguments against it are almost identical to the ones used against PV about 5 years or so ago - too expensive, pipe dreams, too little, won't scale etc, but it's closing in on the point where it becomes economical, then it'll be unstoppable, so I'm not going to bet against it.

I know a few off-gridders who swear by their deep cycle lead acids, but I have to admit that technology intimidates me too much.

You may find this brochure interesting, for two reasons.

Firstly, there's the cost, $160/kWh (for 40MWh+ purchases), which at 5,000+ cycles, works out at a storage cost of 3.2c/kWh or $32/MWh, approx £23/MWh. That's roughly the cost difference between PV/on-shore wind v's nuclear today, though in reality, you wouldn't need to store all generation, only the excess, so if 50% needed storage, the actual cost increase on all of the RE generation, would be half that.

Secondly, worth a quick glance, just to see the last picture with a drawing of what the storage would look like - the large towering mass of 'shipping containers' on the LHS.

Also worth mentioning that this battery is the 1000/4000 (1MW/4MWh) model. They also have, but are not yet shipping, a 1000/6000 model (1MW/6MWh) which promises the same price of $160/kWh, but should be good for 10,000 cycles, thereby halving the storage cost to $16/MWh.

Tesla have an aim of producing batts at $100/kWh (5,000 cycles).

This all sounds a bit too good to be true today, but over the next 5-10 years I'm hoping to be shocked (pun intended) by many, many batts.

Mart.