Wind being curtailed tonight

1961Nick

GreatApe wrote: »

EV deployment isn't going to be that rapid

Over 2000 TM3s were registered in August & that figure is supply limited at the moment. In 5 years time there could easily be 2M EVs on the road in the UK. That would still only represent 15% of registrations over that period.

GreatApe

mmmmikey wrote: »

Cars stand idle overnight when they're not being used - someone has to pay for that, does that mean cars are a waste of money? Gas fired power stations stand idle overnight when demand falls and they're not as economic and/or clean as other power generation sources - someone has to pay for that, does this mean they're a waste of money? And so on.....

My point is that you have to take a broader view of this. You could of course argue that if I only used my car once a year then it would be an expensive luxury and a waste of money, so there is a point at which the economics become questionable. But you can't in my view sensibly argue that just because something isn't 100% utilised all the time it is a waste of money.


It seems to me that there's a level at which curtailment is perfecty acceptable and sensible and a level at which we max out and the economics are blown, but to suggest that the minute you see any curtailment wind farms no longer make sense is, in my view, bonkers.

Correct but the UK should put in place the infrastructure so we don't have to curtail as much wind

This can be done in at least three ways

More interconntors especially to Norway and of economic Canada and USA

Electrify heating with hybrid boilers particularly good (because they don't add demand when the grid is not clean)

Electrify transportation. This is happening and will happen irrespective of what we do but it's not fast enough to mop up much of the curtailed wind while the two other options above would be faster and larger in scope


You can also just build higher CF wind farms and wind turbines so you don't have to curtail as much. Going from 40% CF to 60% CF at the farm level reduces curtailment significantly

ABrass

Interconnectors don't help with frequency stability do they? So they won't help a tiny bit in the scenario listed in the OP.

ABrass

On a separate point, and way off topic, what are these mystery hybrid gas electric boilers that keep getting mentioned? A quick google doesn't show anything sensible, in fact the first link I followed about them said they were advised against...

GreatApe

1961Nick wrote: »

Over 2000 TM3s were registered in August & that figure is supply limited at the moment. In 5 years time there could easily be 2M EVs on the road in the UK. That would still only represent 15% of registrations over that period.

A small figure relative to what we are talking about
Roughly speaking you can view 1 EV as adding 1KW of demand for the low periods

So even if we have 2 million EVs that's equal to just 2GW demand
Well we are going to add about 10GW of wind over the next 5 years

EVs are not a full solution they help reduce curtailment but not a huge amount
Instead we need more interconntors and we need to electrify heating more rapidly

Also I think the more you deploy EVs the more 'average' people will use them and you may find an average EV user just plugs in as soon as they get home at 6pm pretty much the worst time to plug in both carbon wise and grid resource wise. There will need to be regulation to limit what times EVs can charge so even if someone plugs in at 6pm it doesn't start charging until perhaps midnight

JKenH

mmmmikey wrote: »

My point is that you have to take a broader view of this. You could of course argue that if I only used my car once a year then it would be an expensive luxury and a waste of money, so there is a point at which the economics become questionable. But you can't in my view sensibly argue that just because something isn't 100% utilised all the time it is a waste of money.

No, but the higher the utilisation then the lower the unit cost. If you are looking to keep costs down then you want to maximise utilisation. (Demand is variable so you will never have 100% utilisation whatever the source). However if you increase the proportion of VRE in the grid you will have to increase the overall capacity of the grid and that will make the rest of the grid less efficient.

GreatApe

ABrass wrote: »

On a separate point, and way off topic, what are these mystery hybrid gas electric boilers that keep getting mentioned? A quick google doesn't show anything sensible, in fact the first link I followed about them said they were advised against...

It's just a concept

A normal boiler plus an electric element (3KW or 10KW)
Able to use electricity or gas depending on if there is excess green or not

The cost of adding an electric element to the boiler would be negligible
You can buy a 10KW electric shower for about £50 retail and that's retail and a whole shower unit so adding an element to a gas boiler might cost just a fiver

You can have the boiler smart, most new boilers are anyway
Or you can have it dumb (eg use electricity when frequency above 50.1HZ and gas below 50.1HZ)

It's a way to dump a huge quantity of power and energy to displace natural gas useage

And unlike pure electricity setups like heat pumps or electric tanks these don't add to grid demand when the grid is fossil fuel powered

1961Nick

GreatApe wrote: »

Also I think the more you deploy EVs the more 'average' people will use them and you may find an average EV user just plugs in as soon as they get home at 6pm pretty much the worst time to plug in both carbon wise and grid resource wise. There will need to be regulation to limit what times EVs can charge so even if someone plugs in at 6pm it doesn't start charging until perhaps midnight

Maybe....but those that require a big charge every night will look for a cheap tariff.

GreatApe

ABrass wrote: »

Interconnectors don't help with frequency stability do they? So they won't help a tiny bit in the scenario listed in the OP.

Interconntors can do frequency control the only problem is this is at the expense on the other side
However this isn't a huge problem because we will have most out connection to Norway and France both with sufficient domestic inertia
The bigger 'problem' is that interconntors are typically used full power so don't have spare to ramp up.

Frequency control won't be a problem with hybrid boilers it would create huge synetic inertia

You could also regulate electric heaters to be frequency dependant
Below 49.8HZ your electric heater you bought from Argos doesn't work

Could also regulate tank elements to be the same
Below 49.8HZ they don't work (cut out)
As existing tank elements burn up and are replaced by these frequency dependant elements you add a lot of synthetic inertia and control. This will stop blackouts like the one experienced recently. Or at least greatly reduce the chance

Could incorporate this type of frequency control into a lot of things
Fridges and freezers
Chargers for phones and laptops
Hoovers
Pretty much anything non essential
And of course EV chargers

ABrass

GreatApe wrote: »

It's just a concept

A normal boiler plus an electric element (3KW or 10KW)
Able to use electricity or gas depending on if there is excess green or not

The cost of adding an electric element to the boiler would be negligible
You can buy a 10KW electric shower for about £50 retail and that's retail and a whole shower unit so adding an element to a gas boiler might cost just a fiver

You can have the boiler smart, most new boilers are anyway
Or you can have it dumb (eg use electricity when frequency above 50.1HZ and gas below 50.1HZ)

It's a way to dump a huge quantity of power and energy to displace natural gas useage

And unlike pure electricity setups like heat pumps or electric tanks these don't add to grid demand when the grid is fossil fuel powered

Oh I see. Magic hand waving about things that don't exist. Adding the element increases size, cost (as you'd need a sparky to connect it and possibly replace the distribution unit, plus the increased draw may require larger tails and a higher rated supply meter), complexity, requires smart features to be built in and will add volume. You can't just use a dumb system as if you were to put that in in bulk you'd destabilise the grid.

I'm going to say your numbers are, as ever, unrealisable.

But it doesn't matter as it's an unrealistic unrequired and fundamentally dead end concept. If it existed now, and wasn't a huge additional cost, then maybe it could help span the period where it could be useful. But since it doesn't exist by the time it could be introduced it'd be too late anyway.

Edit: and there is no advantage at all for the customer, which would make it a hell of a hard sell.