The UK grid is already solved we do not need more mass PV/Tidal/Nuclear/Wind

GreatApe

bengalknights wrote: »

I sense a European collective punishment coming to prevent this happening.

If they want to forego £3-4 billion in electricity exports and become poorer as a result, good luck to them.
But stopping electricity exports to the UK is as smart and as likely as stopping BMW exports to the UK.

GreatApe

Robin9 wrote: »

Throw in a time of low supply from wind power and there will be power cuts

This definitely wont happen because green ideology will be thrown under a bus if it means power cuts !! What this means is the UK grid, and other grids will need full 100% thermal/hydro backup

As such the UK will maintain or build at least 50 GW of Gas-fired power stations, nuclear stations, pump hydro and interconnectors to nations where supply can be guaranteed during the winter peaks. This probably means ~40GW of gas fired stations need to be in the UK mix and paid for even if they are only ever used for a few hours a year. This is one of the hidden costs of a green heavy grid

Martyn1981

bengalknights wrote: »

I sense a European collective punishment coming to prevent this happening.

Plus of course most interconnectors are two way. Year before last the UK was burning coal like crazy to help keep France powered up due to the number of nuclear reactors that were down due to problems.

Going forward France is planning to reduce the percentage of leccy from nuclear down to 50% (if nuclear is an economic choice, which it no longer is), so we can expect a drop in exports from them. Plus French exports are mainly due to the fact that nuclear can't demand follow, so they need to dump excess (at very low prices). France could easily drop to net zero over the year, in the future.

ed110220

This is wrong on so many levels it's difficult to know where to start

Probably most fundamentally is that primary energy use is still overwhelmingly fossil fuel. Primary energy isn't just the source of electricity but all other energy sources, eg oil used for transport fuels, natural gas used for heating and industrial processes etc. If we're going to decarbonise we need to replace those with low carbon energy, which will mean a large expansion of low carbon electricity generation. We don't just need to replace current fossil fuel electricity generation, we also need to replace all the other major fossil fuel uses, mainly by electrification.

Another major problem with your notion is that you seem to view interconnectors as just sources of electricity. The full benefits of interconnectors are to enable electricity exchange, not just shunting the responsibility for building more low carbon generation to neighbouring countries. By trading electricity over a wider area the variations in demand and supply tend to be smoothed and the strengths of one technology can be used to cover the weakness of another. For example if wind output was high in the UK, we could export to Norway, thereby enabling them to hold back water in their hydro plants to be released later when wind output was lower. You also have to consider that if we consume less imported low carbon electricity, say from France, or even generate enough to export, then that electricity will displace fossil fuels elsewhere. Eg if we import less from France, the electricity that France would send us will displace say coal in Germany or gas in Italy or Spain etc.

silverwhistle

ed110220 wrote: »

This is wrong on so many levels it's difficult to know where to start

Now can you see why so many of the regulars have the OP on ignore, including myself?


Don't think I'd argue with any of your post though, which is why we need top level support to put the structures in place for increases in on-shore as well as off-shore wind, solar including domestic, pump-storage and other pricing, payback, smoothing, storage and distribution mechanisms.



So far I've seen only vacuous statements of intent from the top.

markin

Norway Hydro Will be over stretched, all off Europe seems to be relying on it, and it can't supply all of Europe when wind is low all over the EU.


The french don't seem to be fully committed to replacing the ageing fleet, So you you won't be able to rely on import from them when needed.

Robin9

GreatApe wrote: »

That is plenty. 1.5KW average demand = 13,140 KWh a year while the average property uses something like 3,300 KWh of electricity leaving a spare 9,840 KWh which is well in excess of the ~2,000 KWh an average car doing the average 8,000 miles would need................

It doesn't work like that.

Imagine a street of 50 houses designed to an ADMD (After diversity maximum demand) of 1.5kw = 300amps (split over 3 phases so 100 amps /phase) The mains cable will be designed to carry this. You can't suddenly say you are going to quadruple this - fuses in the substation will blow, the cable will burnt out.

GreatApe

Robin9 wrote: »

It doesn't work like that.

Imagine a street of 50 houses designed to an ADMD (After diversity maximum demand) of 1.5kw = 300amps (split over 3 phases so 100 amps /phase) The mains cable will be designed to carry this. You can't suddenly say you are going to quadruple this - fuses in the substation will blow, the cable will burnt out.

Can you explain further because from your example above it looks like there is plenty of capacity in the line. UK homes on average use about 1.6 amps so 50 homes = 80 amp average draw so still 220 amp spare on your example

50 EVs on this street needing 4KWh top up on average over a 20 hour period (not all cars are used for commuting plenty are at home during the day too) only adds 44 Amos average to the line. Still plenty spare

You just smart charge the card so the line never passes 300 amps
Sure while each car could rapid charge at say 30 amps they won't all be rapid charging for 20 hours straight

It's the same way electric showers work
In your example of 300 amps max. Well electric showers use 50 amps so just 6 of the homes using electric showers will blow the line. In fact closer to 5 will blow the line. And as you know this isn't really realistic problem because even if 10 of the homes have electric showers they are nowhere near likely to all be on at the same time or even half of them to be on at the same time

In short there is plenty of spare capacity in homes because average useage has gone down but even if it hasn't as you say the line is designed for 1.5kw average but UK average use is closer to 0.3kw

GreatApe

markin wrote: »

Norway Hydro Will be over stretched, all off Europe seems to be relying on it, and it can't supply all of Europe when wind is low all over the EU.


The french don't seem to be fully committed to replacing the ageing fleet, So you you won't be able to rely on import from them when needed.

Norway can build out about 15GW of links to it's southern neighbors
3 lines of 1.4GW each are already underway one to Scotland one to England one to Germany
Another 3 are likely in the 2020s imo and perhaps another 3 on top of that possible

And no one is relying on Norway it's just there so make use of it where viable
For the UK it will mostly supply one way power into the UK


Again not relying on France more the fact that it is there and it is available and it is cheap.
If they phase down their nukes the lines are still useful to trade wind power so it's not a dead investment

Also in the near to medium term France will actually have to export more electricity.
This is because she isn't closing her nukes but is continue to build PV and wind
France in 5 years will export significantly more electricity both to the UK and to Italy

Also I think it's unlikely France will !!!! down many nukes
To close 1 reactor will need them to build 1 big CCGT when they realise to phase out 60GW of nuclear requires them to build 60 GW of NG they won't do it. The most likely outcome is imo the French will reduce to 50% nuclear by increasing other generation. If they produce 250TWh more and export 250TWh more they can reduce nuclear to 50% without reducing nuclear output

But as noted these links to France are useful even if they do phase down nuclear which would be over many many years probably over 30 years in the meantime we can import cheap nuclear from them

GreatApe

ed110220 wrote: »

This is wrong on so many levels it's difficult to know where to start

Probably most fundamentally is that primary energy use is still overwhelmingly fossil fuel. Primary energy isn't just the source of electricity but all other energy sources, eg oil used for transport fuels, natural gas used for heating and industrial processes etc. If we're going to decarbonise we need to replace those with low carbon energy, which will mean a large expansion of low carbon electricity generation. We don't just need to replace current fossil fuel electricity generation, we also need to replace all the other major fossil fuel uses, mainly by electrification.

Another major problem with your notion is that you seem to view interconnectors as just sources of electricity. The full benefits of interconnectors are to enable electricity exchange, not just shunting the responsibility for building more low carbon generation to neighbouring countries. By trading electricity over a wider area the variations in demand and supply tend to be smoothed and the strengths of one technology can be used to cover the weakness of another. For example if wind output was high in the UK, we could export to Norway, thereby enabling them to hold back water in their hydro plants to be released later when wind output was lower. You also have to consider that if we consume less imported low carbon electricity, say from France, or even generate enough to export, then that electricity will displace fossil fuels elsewhere. Eg if we import less from France, the electricity that France would send us will displace say coal in Germany or gas in Italy or Spain etc.

Electricity useage for transportation will be much lower thanks to software

If you exchange human driven oil vehicles for human driven electric vehicles the demand would be as high as 150 TWh but if we have self drive software the demand for electricity for transportation will be perhaps as low as 30 TWh because average vehicles can be smaller and much more efficient and also carry more passengers. Going from 4.5 mile per kWh EV designs to 9 mile per kWH designs halves Energy needs. Going from average 1.25 persons per car to 2.5 persons halves Energy needs once again

Regarding heating.
We are a long way off from electrifying heating
That is a problem for post 2030 and yes that will require mass offshore wind power but you don't build it before it is needed and let it sit idle. Once the government decides it wants people to switch to 16p a unit electricity from 4p a unit NG then it can commission offshore wind to supply it. So if you want go out there and call for a boiler ban but don't call for more offshore until you get the boiler ban into law.