More Green Records and Milestones

GreatApe

michaels wrote: »

However suppose the nuke costs as much as Hinckley C then it may be that your alternative wind/solar/CCGT/Battery mix ends up not costing any more and hopefully we could find something useful to do with the dumped wind/solar - aluminum smelting or hydrolysis of water to make hydrogen as an intermediate to jet fuel?

I'm not suggesting the UK should go for nuclear, we are too small a market just 12-16 reactors would saturate us that is not enough to have a decent learning curve.

I would say what we have is a good mix, a combination of coal and gas and keep the existing nukes as far as it is safe to do so. Any wind/solar added should be done so with the clear understanding that it is a subsidy and a big one that we choose to prioritize over say more doctors/nurses

It is too late now but had the EU not gone for solar/wind it could potentially have gone for 100 reactors across the 28 nations. If that had started in 2000 it would have been completed by 2030 and would have taken the EU towards 70% nuclear 30% combo of hydro/N-Gas. That would have been a very green grid.

The current path by 2030 wont be anything close to that, in Germany it looks like they will be using more or less the same amount of coal come 2025 all their efforts and subsidies went to displacing clean safe nuclear power. 25 years of effort for that doesn't seem all that grand an achievement especially when you consider the result has been one of Europes most expensive electricity costs for consumers

michaels

GreatApe wrote: »

no that is not possible you do not build a capital intensive industry like aluminium smelting or even a big hydrogen plant and then just run it just 25% of the year while the wind is blowing strong. Those types of facilities literally need to run all the time

The true value of intermittent supply is easy to calculate, its simply the marginal fuel cost

Take a hypothetical uk grid with 50GW of CCGT and 50GW of offshore wind.

Lets say a tornado destroys all the wind farms, what is the additional cost to the county a year after the tornado vs a year before?

Well its just the additional fuel needed to run the CCGTs at a higher CF since there are no more wind farms displacing fuel used int he CCGTs

At current gas prices its £25/MWh. So that is the value of solar/wind just £25/MWh. IF you add massive quantities of batteries to a farm to make it load following then its value is whatever the wholesale price is

So when people jump up and down that offshore wind is only £57.5 (£63 in todays money) they clearly do not realize that the £63 is more than twice the true value of intermittent supply

That is to say the true subsidy for any intermittent uncontrollable supply is the strike price minus the marginal fuel price in this example £63 - £25 = £38/MWh

I guess we don't know what that gas might cost in future.

The storage might be able to reduce peak load and thus CCGT plants required as it could be charged by CCGT as well as solar/wind so that may affect the maths.

The capital cost of the wind and solar is paid for during the subsidy period, 15 years for latest contracts, but will go on generating at very low marginal cost for much longer whereas for nuclear the subsidy lasts 60(?) years.

GreatApe

michaels wrote: »

Then again new nuke is going to cost us £102.50 per mwh so any use of solar/wind plus storage instead of this is almost certain to be cheaper.

A new 300mw solar plus storage subsidy free plant is soon to be announced, the storage moves the mid day generation to the evening when it can address peak load rather than displacing nuclear base load.

What plant is that?

The way the system is set up is wrong,

Power suppliers should be paid in two parts, first a fee of £25/MWh for all the MWh they feed into the grid and then an annual £180 million per GW of guaranteed January supply

What that means is a wind farm would only get £25/MWh for its output

A CCGT or coal plant or nuclear plant would be given £180 million to just sit there and any fed in power paid also £25/MWh

A battery bank would also get this £180 million to just sit there, so long as it was big/secure enough to guarantee 1GW output for an entire month during Jan. That means a 720 GWh battery pack would be given £180 million. That works out to £0.25 per year per 1KWh of batteries

This basically shows up how futile batteries are they simply are not a solution to fixing intermittent supply in the uk or similar profile markets. That is to say you cant really build battery packs to reduce the number of conventional power stations needed to guarantee supply (well you can but you max out at about 10% which is neither here nor there)

They are better in sunny markets which have peak demands and peak solar months matching. So there is a future for solar+batteries in places like navada/spain/australia but it does little to nothing for the uk

GreatApe

michaels wrote: »

I guess we don't know what that gas might cost in future.

The storage might be able to reduce peak load and thus CCGT plants required as it could be charged by CCGT as well as solar/wind so that may affect the maths.

The capital cost of the wind and solar is paid for during the subsidy period, 15 years for latest contracts, but will go on generating at very low marginal cost for much longer whereas for nuclear the subsidy lasts 60(?) years.

Well if you insist on cutting down on fossil fuel use and you accept that we will put that above other needs like say additional healthcare then offshore wind seems the path to take in the uk. Perhaps as much as 30-35GW of offshore wind before we start having to curtail more and more of it

Larger countries like China/India might be better off going the French model because they can incorporate 600+ reactors and get the learning curve sorted. China is pretty much already there they have $2/watt nukes they should really be pushing hard for 300 reactors by 2030. Since they are a developing country (with high wage growth) they should aim to front load their nukes. But even with them it looks likely that they may top out at about 200 reactors come 2030 primarily as they seem to have delayed/abandoned inland nukes

The problem in America and much of europe is nukes were seen as great while electricity demand was booming, they were able to add nukes and no one complained. But when electricity consumption is saturated the coal/gas mongers cry bloody murder and dont want their industries destroyed by nuclear

France was able to go high nuclear because it had little to no internal coal/gas/oil deposits. Germany UK USA etc stopped at 20-30% nuclear as they had large coal/gas deposits and didnt want nuclear to eat too much into that. Had the UK/USA/Germany etc also had no coal deposits I suspect those nations would have also gone 70% nuclear in the 1970s/80s

A_Medium_Size_Jock

GreatApe wrote: »

I'm not suggesting the UK should go for nuclear, we are too small a market just 12-16 reactors would saturate us that is not enough to have a decent learning curve.

I would say what we have is a good mix, a combination of coal and gas and keep the existing nukes as far as it is safe to do so. Any wind/solar added should be done so with the clear understanding that it is a subsidy and a big one that we choose to prioritize over say more doctors/nurses

It is too late now but had the EU not gone for solar/wind it could potentially have gone for 100 reactors across the 28 nations. If that had started in 2000 it would have been completed by 2030 and would have taken the EU towards 70% nuclear 30% combo of hydro/N-Gas. That would have been a very green grid.

The current path by 2030 wont be anything close to that, in Germany it looks like they will be using more or less the same amount of coal come 2025 all their efforts and subsidies went to displacing clean safe nuclear power. 25 years of effort for that doesn't seem all that grand an achievement especially when you consider the result has been one of Europes most expensive electricity costs for consumers

Quite so.

I almost hate to bring politics into this but the reason for this "current path" is yet another of the EU's failings.
This pretty much sums up why:

For the last 20 years, Europe has felt a duty to set an example through radical climate policy-making at home. Political leaders were convinced that the development of a low-carbon economy based on renewables would give Europe a competitive advantage. European governments have advanced the most expensive forms of energy generation at the expense of the least expensive kinds. No other major emitter has followed the EU’s aggressive climate policy and targets. As a result, electricity prices in Europe are now more than double those in North America and Europe’s remaining and struggling manufacturers are rapidly losing ground to international competition. European companies and investors are pouring money into the U.S., where energy prices have fallen to less than half those in the EU, thanks to the shale gas revolution.
Although EU policy has managed to reduce CO2 emissions domestically, this was only achieved by shifting energy-intensive industries to overseas locations without stringent emission limits, where energy and labour is cheap and which are now growing much faster than the EU.

http://business.financialpost.com/opinion/eus-green-energy-debacle-shows-the-futility-of-climate-change-policies

Look at Germany too:

In 2000 Germany passed a major green initiative which forced providers to purchase renewable energy at exorbitant fixed prices and feed that power through their grids for a period of twenty years. Promulgated by a Socialist-Green coalition government – this initiative has since been embraced by Germany’s Conservative-Liberal majority, led by Chancellor Angela Merkel. In fact Merkel has doubled down on Germany’s renewable energy push in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan – ramping up government’s plan to phase in renewables while taking the country’s nuclear power industry offline.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/03/14/germanys-green-energy-disaster-a-cautionary-tale-for-world-leaders/#13e2c5c654e9

Even the latest EU "Green Energy Plan" came almost immediately under fire:

Environmental groups have come out in force against the EU’s green energy plan, published on the 30th of November, claiming that it fails to address fundamental problems with its current energy policy.

https://www.envirotech-online.com/news/environmental-laboratory/7/breaking-news/why-is-europe39s-green-energy-plan-a-failure/41198

It is to be hoped that - once free of EU restrictions - the UK can formulate an effective strategy for the future with the aid of the Brexit enquiry into our energy security.

GreatApe

Nuclear plants are vary interesting. Then actual reactor is only about the size of a bus its not that big or expensive

The cost is actually the building which has to be huge both for fundamental reasons like moving lots of waste heat to heat exchangers in the sea but also due to overregulation like requiring protective reinforcements so the plant can withstand a jumbo jet crash which really is a ridiculous overreaction

Anyway one possible solution is small moulder nuclear subs 20-50 meters below water. The advantages are much smaller more compact design. The water provides defence against the jumbos and being directly in water saves moving huge quantities of water through heat exchangers and pipes.

There is also a lot of experience via many hundreds of naval reactors that have been operating since the 1950s

The chances of it happening is close to zero but something like 20,000 such sub's with 200MW reactors would be cheap (after the first 50 or so) and could rapidly take the world to a 100% green grid.

It would also massively reduce lead times no 10 year wait to build a huge ground reactor just order a sub and its up and running in 3 month's time. Put it 20 miles offshore and its also easier on public acceptance and lower risk as the exclusion zones in the event if an accident is mostly empty sea

Anyway pointless speculations
It's a slow ramp of wind solar and biomass the path is set

GreatApe

A_Medium_Size_Jock wrote: »

Quite so.

I almost hate to bring politics into this but the reason for this "current path" is yet another of the EU's failings.
This pretty much sums up why:

http://business.financialpost.com/opinion/eus-green-energy-debacle-shows-the-futility-of-climate-change-policies

Look at Germany too:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/03/14/germanys-green-energy-disaster-a-cautionary-tale-for-world-leaders/#13e2c5c654e9

Even the latest EU "Green Energy Plan" came almost immediately under fire:

https://www.envirotech-online.com/news/environmental-laboratory/7/breaking-news/why-is-europe39s-green-energy-plan-a-failure/41198

It is to be hoped that - once free of EU restrictions - the UK can formulate an effective strategy for the future with the aid of the Brexit enquiry into our energy security.

Not sure how you can link this to the EU
The simple facts are fossil fuels are cheap and effective

Large countries (or groups of smaller countries like the EU) can go nuclear if they decide to do 50+ reactors (ideally 100+) everyone else sticks with fossil fuels and puts up some wind mills and PV panels if they are rich enough to conclude reducing coal use is more important than additional healthcare spending

In or out of the EU that's our road. Fossil fuels plus some wind mills because we can afford them and think it an acceptable enough priority

michaels

GreatApe wrote: »

What plant is that?

The way the system is set up is wrong,

Power suppliers should be paid in two parts, first a fee of £25/MWh for all the MWh they feed into the grid and then an annual £180 million per GW of guaranteed January supply

What that means is a wind farm would only get £25/MWh for its output

A CCGT or coal plant or nuclear plant would be given £180 million to just sit there and any fed in power paid also £25/MWh

A battery bank would also get this £180 million to just sit there, so long as it was big/secure enough to guarantee 1GW output for an entire month during Jan. That means a 720 GWh battery pack would be given £180 million. That works out to £0.25 per year per 1KWh of batteries

This basically shows up how futile batteries are they simply are not a solution to fixing intermittent supply in the uk or similar profile markets. That is to say you cant really build battery packs to reduce the number of conventional power stations needed to guarantee supply (well you can but you max out at about 10% which is neither here nor there)

They are better in sunny markets which have peak demands and peak solar months matching. So there is a future for solar+batteries in places like navada/spain/australia but it does little to nothing for the uk

I still don't see why we can assume gas will always cost £25 per mwh, energy prices have always been volatile and are currently low by historical norms. This is also without putting any negative value on the co2 emissions.


Surely if say peak demannis twice base demand then you could supply January using 75% of peak demand ccgt and enough battery storage to balance production and demand across each 24 hours. This the value of the batteries would equate to the capital saving of only building 3/4 of the ccgt capacity othrwise required. So as per your example you don't need enough storage for January you only need enough to transfer from demand trough to demand peak for a single day.

Following you example therefore a 12gwh battery pack could replace a 'peaker' 1gw ccgt and thus the value increases 60 fold to £15, still perhaps 7x less than the current cost but not a figure that looks impossible in the next decade.

GreatApe

michaels wrote: »

I still don't see why we can assume gas will always cost £25 per mwh, energy prices have always been volatile and are currently low by historical norms. This is also without putting any negative value on the co2 emissions.


Surely if say peak demannis twice base demand then you could supply January using 75% of peak demand ccgt and enough battery storage to balance production and demand across each 24 hours. This the value of the batteries would equate to the capital saving of only building 3/4 of the ccgt capacity othrwise required. So as per your example you don't need enough storage for January you only need enough to transfer from demand trough to demand peak for a single day.

Following you example therefore a 12gwh battery pack could replace a 'peaker' 1gw ccgt and thus the value increases 60 fold to £15, still perhaps 7x less than the current cost but not a figure that looks impossible in the next decade.

Natural gas will be cheap for a very long time

The Americans aren't the only ones with shale deposita they are just the first to exploit them. Large cheap shale deposits will be found in every continent just in the same way large coal large oil and large conventional gas deposita are found on every continent. Even the UK bowl and might be a monster size deposit yet to be explored.

So while £25/MWh gas might move it could move up or down


And yes I am aware that even in peak winter demand varies however that demand variation has been compressed over the last 15 years as peak demands have fallen more than night demands (primarily due to more efficient light bulbs and computers/TVs). This will continue for another 10-15 years.

If we look at Feb 2017 peak demand was 51.15 GW average demand was 39.35GW

However weekend demand and weekday varies too much to use that you need to look at the average of the highest single day. If you do that the peak stays the same but the average is 41.99GW

51.15 GW vs 41.99GW = 9.16 GW and that is how much CCGT you don't need if you have a truly massive battery. The battery would need to be 110GWh in this example

Compare the two

To build 9.16GW of CCGTs would cost less than £5 billion while OCGTs even less

So you need 110GWh of battery systems to cost less than £5B

That is a price of £45/KWh installed
Were not talking about battery cells but battery packs post install.
A Tesla powerwall 2 installed is about £500/KWh

So prices need to fall 10x but that is not very likely especially if you consider the fact that £70-140/kWh of the cost is the labor to install it (so even if current power packs were free they would need subsidy to compete with CCGTs)

There is also a simple logistical problem. We should be using batteries in cars before stationary storage.

100 million cars yearly x 50KWh each needs 5000 GWh annual batteries for just cara. That is 50 giga factories need to be built before you should worry about batteries on the grid to displace existing coal/gas plants and allow the remainder to operate more efficiently.

Not even factored in battery charge discharge loss or the flattening nature of peak demand

It really doesn't make economic sense to use batteries on stationary storage not when a full and proper accounting is made. Probably at least for another decade+ it's just an ecological waste. Just feed in the power into the grid so your next door neighborhood can use it. Don't waste 10% charging and discharging a battery. Not to mention the no EU is better used to deploy more wind/solar quicker.

Once curtailment kicks in then it might be worthwhile
Also possibly in solar farms where save inverter and lone savings can be made if the packs are in the solar farm

Anyway with the nuclear phase out its going to be a long slow expensive road

GreatApe

michaels wrote: »

I still don't see why we can assume gas will always cost £25 per mwh, energy prices have always been volatile and are currently low by historical norms. This is also without putting any negative value on the co2 emissions.


Surely if say peak demannis twice base demand then you could supply January using 75% of peak demand ccgt and enough battery storage to balance production and demand across each 24 hours. This the value of the batteries would equate to the capital saving of only building 3/4 of the ccgt capacity othrwise required. So as per your example you don't need enough storage for January you only need enough to transfer from demand trough to demand peak for a single day.

Following you example therefore a 12gwh battery pack could replace a 'peaker' 1gw ccgt and thus the value increases 60 fold to £15, still perhaps 7x less than the current cost but not a figure that looks impossible in the next decade.

It's simply not necessary to store much until about 25GW-30GW wind and that's a long way off in the uk even past that we would accept a level of dumping of excess before storage made any sense

Hopefully EVs + smart EV charging can mop up excess power instead of dedicated battery banks which will just add cost.

Right now batteries make no sense £7k for a Tesla power wall much better to just add another 8KWp of solar if the roof/garden allows