Wind being curtailed tonight

GreatApe

85% non fossil as we speak

3.5GW gas in the system yet wind being curtailed.
I guess the grid needs those thermal plants to provide ancillary services like frequency control.

Arguably 2.6 GW of French nuclear imports also being curtailed, interconntors like wind farms typically don't offer the same as thermal coal or gas plants especially inertia

Like I keep saying the grid is solved already
If we had more wind or more nuclear it would just be curtailed during times like now. Hence no need for more mass wind or more nuclear beyond what is under constructed and what has been committed to

At this point we need synthetic inertia and voltage control and more interconntors. No point in building build mass wind farms when a lot of it will be curtailed

Time to magic up new demand sources
Get on with electrifying heating
Offer a longer night time low rate window
Perhaps from midnight to 6am @4p per unit
And perhaps extend this to 11pm to 7am as the new interconntors and wind farms come online

Martyn1981

GreatApe wrote: »

85% non fossil as we speak

3.5GW gas in the system yet wind being curtailed.
I guess the grid needs those thermal plants to provide ancillary services like frequency control.

Arguably 2.6 GW of French nuclear imports also being curtailed, interconntors like wind farms typically don't offer the same as thermal coal or gas plants especially inertia

Like I keep saying the grid is solved already
If we had more wind or more nuclear it would just be curtailed during times like now. Hence no need for more mass wind or more nuclear beyond what is under constructed and what has been committed to

At this point we need synthetic inertia and voltage control and more interconntors. No point in building build mass wind farms when a lot of it will be curtailed

Time to magic up new demand sources
Get on with electrifying heating
Offer a longer night time low rate window
Perhaps from midnight to 6am @4p per unit
And perhaps extend this to 11pm to 7am as the new interconntors and wind farms come online

Weird! Posting on a green and ethical board that the grid is solved today, when it's only about 1/3rd RE today, on average, and 1/3rd low carbon going forward as existing nuclear shuts down over the next decade.

Given that demand will rise, possibly twofold with the electrification of transport, heating and industrial processes, then we are down to ~1/6th of future leccy need.

So solved ...... or 6x more needed plus intra-day and medium term storage.

EricMears

Martyn1981 wrote: »

. . . .

Whatever happened to the ignore policy ?

Martyn1981

EricMears wrote: »

Whatever happened to the ignore policy ?

Ken ran a campaign against me, so I pushed back.

But the function still works, just go to User CP, select the option, then type in my name.

mmmmikey

The OP is based on the premise that curtailment makes wind power generation unnecessary or uneconomic which in my view is completely false.

There's no inherent reason why having spare wind capacity on a windy day makes wind turbines uneconomic, it just means it will take longer to see a return on investment. Firstly, consider a wind turbine with a design life of 10 years if it runs every day. If it only runs every other day it will last 20 years or so, no doubt a bit less but the point should be clear. Any reduced usage just means that the wind turbine will last longer before it reaches end of life so the investment benefit is reduced somewhat but not lost.

Secondly, putting the first point to one side for a moment, even if curtailment meant that you can only run your turbine 9 days out of every 10 so you got a 10% lower return on investment, that doesn't mean the investment isn't worthwhile, merely that it is not as good as it would otherwise have been. To put it another way, if a bucket full of electricity costs £10 to generate with a fully utilised wind turbine that is better than it costing £11 a bucket load for a curtailed wind turbine. But if the same bucket full of electricty costs £12 to generate using a domestic nuclear power plant or whatever, it is still more economic to generate electricty using curtailed wind generators.

Finally, the raison d'etre for wind turbines is to reduce the CO2 emissions from fossil fuel generation, not simply to reduce energy costs. The only valid comparison, therefore, is with other clean generation.

So to sum up, my considered view is that the original post is anti-green politics and prejudice disguised as science and complete and utter Bol....ks!

Martyn1981

mmmmikey wrote: »

The OP is based on the premise that curtailment makes wind power generation unnecessary or uneconomic which in my view is completely false.

In addition, over-capacity* is currently seen as an economic solution to higher RE penetration of the World's grids.

*Hope this makes sense, but occasional curtailment is fine. As storage gets cheaper and over production larger, then we'll see that option deployed in many and varied forms.

Of course the counter-argument is that falling RE generation costs will also allow for the continued waste/spill option to remain economic.

1961Nick

GreatApe wrote: »

85% non fossil as we speak

3.5GW gas in the system yet wind being curtailed.
I guess the grid needs those thermal plants to provide ancillary services like frequency control.

Arguably 2.6 GW of French nuclear imports also being curtailed, interconntors like wind farms typically don't offer the same as thermal coal or gas plants especially inertia

Like I keep saying the grid is solved already
If we had more wind or more nuclear it would just be curtailed during times like now. Hence no need for more mass wind or more nuclear beyond what is under constructed and what has been committed to

At this point we need synthetic inertia and voltage control and more interconntors. No point in building build mass wind farms when a lot of it will be curtailed

Time to magic up new demand sources
Get on with electrifying heating
Offer a longer night time low rate window
Perhaps from midnight to 6am @4p per unit
And perhaps extend this to 11pm to 7am as the new interconntors and wind farms come online

That sounds like it's "solved" for one pinprick in time!

Surely it would be better to have far more curtailment & then figure out how to use that low value energy effectively.

GreatApe

1961Nick wrote: »

That sounds like it's "solved" for one pinprick in time!

Surely it would be better to have far more curtailment & then figure out how to use that low value energy effectively.

I didn't say we need no new non-fossil generation I said we need no more than what is under construction and what has been committed to at least until new demand arrives

So complete HPC, complete the 8.2GW of interconntors under construction and about to start, complete the 20GW or so additional offshore wind capacity by 2030 and ideally extend the old nukes lives

And when we have all of that we will be curtailing marginal green a lot of the time

Take yesterday night and this morning. From 11pm yesterday to 6am today that's 7h there was marginal green curtailment. Now imagine we did indeed have all the infrastructure that is under construction and committed to. Well for at least those 7h all that additional infrastructure at great cost and pollution to build...would all be sitting idle

And this isn't just yesterday night, every single night of this week was like this
Anytime CCGTs fall below about 4-5GW we are at marignal green Curtailment


As I keep saying...the grid is already solved with what exists what is under construction and what we have committed to. Beyond that for now there is no need for any additional mass solar or wind or nuclear

Edit: actually looks like it marginal green was curtailed from about 9pm to 7am so 10h yesterday

GreatApe

mmmmikey wrote: »

The OP is based on the premise that curtailment makes wind power generation unnecessary or uneconomic which in my view is completely false.

There's no inherent reason why having spare wind capacity on a windy day makes wind turbines uneconomic, it just means it will take longer to see a return on investment. Firstly, consider a wind turbine with a design life of 10 years if it runs every day. If it only runs every other day it will last 20 years or so, no doubt a bit less but the point should be clear. Any reduced usage just means that the wind turbine will last longer before it reaches end of life so the investment benefit is reduced somewhat but not lost.

Secondly, putting the first point to one side for a moment, even if curtailment meant that you can only run your turbine 9 days out of every 10 so you got a 10% lower return on investment, that doesn't mean the investment isn't worthwhile, merely that it is not as good as it would otherwise have been. To put it another way, if a bucket full of electricity costs £10 to generate with a fully utilised wind turbine that is better than it costing £11 a bucket load for a curtailed wind turbine. But if the same bucket full of electricty costs £12 to generate using a domestic nuclear power plant or whatever, it is still more economic to generate electricty using curtailed wind generators.

Finally, the raison d'etre for wind turbines is to reduce the CO2 emissions from fossil fuel generation, not simply to reduce energy costs. The only valid comparison, therefore, is with other clean generation.

So to sum up, my considered view is that the original post is anti-green politics and prejudice disguised as science and complete and utter Bol....ks!

Why should the British citizen pay big corporations to build wind farms that will sit idle more the time?

What you don't understand is that marginal generation is important
Once everything we have under construction and committed to is built any additional wind turbine might be sitting idle almost all the time

So it's not 9 units instead of 10
It's perhaps closer to 3 units instead of 10
Of course the general public will have to pay a big corporation for those 10 units curtailed or not thanks to the CFD

BTW I have offered a solution to this problem
Regulate into existence dual fuel boilers. Electric and gas
If we had those we wouldn't need to curtail anything
They are cheap and effective and will add about 10GW of variable electricity demand in the summer and even more in the winter. This means you can build another 14GW or so of offshore wind without curtailing any of it.

There is also a second solution to this problem, just regulate into existence higher capacity factor wind farms and pay CFDs at the farm level. This can be done by 'over clocking' wind farms. Add more turbines in the same way a homeowner can add more panels to their PV system without adding more inverters or grid connection etc

And of course the third solution of more interconntors especially to Norway and if possible also to Canada/USA

GreatApe

1961Nick wrote: »

That sounds like it's "solved" for one pinprick in time!

Surely it would be better to have far more curtailment & then figure out how to use that low value energy effectively.

To further add to this

Yesterday's 10h of 'pinprick' curtailment of marginal non-fossil was probably in the region of 30GWh

If we had all the infrastructure of 2024 in place tonight in 2019 then the curtailment would have been in excess of 100GWh probably closer to 150GWh

If you allocate a value of £50/MWh that is a lost £7.5 million just last night
And every night of the last 7 days would have seen something similar
The public won't accept this both in the hit to their pockets and in newspaper headlines

The only rapid solution to this I can see is dual fuel boilers
And or many additional interconntors to Norway. Two are already under construction or about to start. Another two and ideally more should be commissioned ASAP. If feasible perhaps also a couple of large connections to Canada/USA the five hour time zone difference and unlinked weather patterns would be useful

As I keep saying I'm not anti renewables I'm just saying look down the road when walking don't just look directly at your feet or you are going to walk into a few walls and lamp posts along the way

1961Nick

GreatApe wrote: »

I didn't say we need no new non-fossil generation I said we need no more than what is under construction and what has been committed to at least until new demand arrives

So complete HPC, complete the 8.2GW of interconntors under construction and about to start, complete the 20GW or so additional offshore wind capacity by 2030 and ideally extend the old nukes lives

And when we have all of that we will be curtailing marginal green a lot of the time

Take yesterday night and this morning. From 11pm yesterday to 6am today that's 7h there was marginal green curtailment. Now imagine we did indeed have all the infrastructure that is under construction and committed to. Well for at least those 7h all that additional infrastructure at great cost and pollution to build...would all be sitting idle

And this isn't just yesterday night, every single night of this week was like this
Anytime CCGTs fall below about 4-5GW we are at marignal green Curtailment


As I keep saying...the grid is already solved with what exists what is under construction and what we have committed to. Beyond that for now there is no need for any additional mass solar or wind or nuclear

Edit: actually looks like it marginal green was curtailed from about 9pm to 7am so 10h yesterday

11pm through to 6.00am is the time we'll all be charging our EVs. It'd make sense to be planning lots of new windmills now to cope with the extra demand.