The Alternative Green Energy Thread

Cardew

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/15/heat-pumps-could-bring-the-german-economy-to-its-knees/

Heat pumps could bring the German economy to its knees

michaels

Cardew said:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/15/heat-pumps-could-bring-the-german-economy-to-its-knees/

Heat pumps could bring the German economy to its knees

If only climate change wasn't going to wipe out humanity then these 'economics as usual' based arguments would be 100% valid.  Seems an odd argument - people would rather not spend what it will cost to save the planet so we shouldn't bother.  There was no mention in the piece of what the planet scale consequences of failing to reach net zero might be.  It is a bit like saying I would rather spend 10k per year in retirement rather than 5k, ignoring the fact that I only have a pension pot of 100k to last as long as I might need it.

JKenH

Viking Energy cashes in on £2 million shutdown

REF calculated that between August 17 and 26, 78% of Viking’s generating capacity was discarded.

For example, on Saturday, August 25, SSE estimated the wind farm could generate 6,298MWh throughout the day, but they were paid not to generate 6,297MWh—almost the entire amount.

https://www.thescottishfarmer.co.uk/news/24549788.viking-energy-cashes-2-million-shutdown/

Netexporter

But it's connected to the mainland now, so no further problem.

JKenH

Starmer vows to crack down on profiteering wind farms

Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to crack down on profiteering wind farms after one of Britain’s biggest energy companies was accused of acting like a “pirate” at a new site on Shetland.

The Prime Minister said it was “not acceptable” that Scotland-based SSE had received over £2m in compensation for being forced to switch off its Viking wind farm, and promised to address the practice.

Speaking to MPs at Prime Minister’s Questions, Sir Keir said: “It is a problem that was not fixed over the past 14 years, but a problem we are determined to fix.”

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/pirate-wind-farm-operator-accused-134732089.html

For those interested here is the question and answer recorded in Hansard

Q8.  Last month, SSE, the operators of the new Viking energy wind farm in Shetland, was paid £2 million in order not to generate any electricity from it. Is there not something badly wrong with an energy market that pays big corporates not to produce electricity while the people living among the turbines endure some of the highest levels of fuel poverty in the country? Will the Prime Minister and the Government now look seriously at the idea of an islands tariff, so that islands communities such as those represented by me and his hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) may see some genuine benefit for the community from hosting such renewable energy developments? (900262)

View the Hansard contribution by Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD) on Wednesday 4 September 2024
https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2024-09-04/debates/496C803E-4E87-4EA0-824A-A3EBE33A0279/Engagements#contribution-F5CF0A20-4135-4590-877D-F1ACF944D494

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for raising this issue, which is obviously a considerable concern to him and his constituents. National Grid, as he knows, does balance the grid by occasionally requesting some generators to stop when there is not enough capacity on the network. That is not good enough. That is not acceptable, for the reasons set out in his question. It is a problem that was not fixed over the last 14 years, but a problem we are determined to fix as we go forward. I will make sure that a relevant Minister speaks to him about the particular issue in his constituency.

View the Hansard contribution by The Prime Minister on Wednesday 4 September 2024
https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2024-09-04/debates/496C803E-4E87-4EA0-824A-A3EBE33A0279/Engagements#contribution-2DBEEF25-C36E-4E73-89C2-9FF71018866D

michaels

JKenH said:

Starmer vows to crack down on profiteering wind farms

Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to crack down on profiteering wind farms after one of Britain’s biggest energy companies was accused of acting like a “pirate” at a new site on Shetland.

The Prime Minister said it was “not acceptable” that Scotland-based SSE had received over £2m in compensation for being forced to switch off its Viking wind farm, and promised to address the practice.

Speaking to MPs at Prime Minister’s Questions, Sir Keir said: “It is a problem that was not fixed over the past 14 years, but a problem we are determined to fix.”

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/pirate-wind-farm-operator-accused-134732089.html

For those interested here is the question and answer recorded in Hansard

Q8.  Last month, SSE, the operators of the new Viking energy wind farm in Shetland, was paid £2 million in order not to generate any electricity from it. Is there not something badly wrong with an energy market that pays big corporates not to produce electricity while the people living among the turbines endure some of the highest levels of fuel poverty in the country? Will the Prime Minister and the Government now look seriously at the idea of an islands tariff, so that islands communities such as those represented by me and his hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) may see some genuine benefit for the community from hosting such renewable energy developments? (900262)

View the Hansard contribution by Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD) on Wednesday 4 September 2024
https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2024-09-04/debates/496C803E-4E87-4EA0-824A-A3EBE33A0279/Engagements#contribution-F5CF0A20-4135-4590-877D-F1ACF944D494

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for raising this issue, which is obviously a considerable concern to him and his constituents. National Grid, as he knows, does balance the grid by occasionally requesting some generators to stop when there is not enough capacity on the network. That is not good enough. That is not acceptable, for the reasons set out in his question. It is a problem that was not fixed over the last 14 years, but a problem we are determined to fix as we go forward. I will make sure that a relevant Minister speaks to him about the particular issue in his constituency.

View the Hansard contribution by The Prime Minister on Wednesday 4 September 2024
https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2024-09-04/debates/496C803E-4E87-4EA0-824A-A3EBE33A0279/Engagements#contribution-2DBEEF25-C36E-4E73-89C2-9FF71018866D

So basically lets ignore the economics and only look at the optics?!  So glad we have this new lot making policy decisions

JKenH

Anger at UK’s ‘bonkers’ plan to reach net zero by importing fuel from North Korea

A plan by the British government to burn biomass imported from countries including North Korea and Afghanistan has been described as “bonkers”, with critics saying it undermines the credibility of the UK’s climate strategy.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/oct/09/anger-uk-plan-net-zero-import-biomass-fuel-north-korea

70sbudgie

michaels said:

JKenH said:

Starmer vows to crack down on profiteering wind farms

Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to crack down on profiteering wind farms after one of Britain’s biggest energy companies was accused of acting like a “pirate” at a new site on Shetland.

The Prime Minister said it was “not acceptable” that Scotland-based SSE had received over £2m in compensation for being forced to switch off its Viking wind farm, and promised to address the practice.

Speaking to MPs at Prime Minister’s Questions, Sir Keir said: “It is a problem that was not fixed over the past 14 years, but a problem we are determined to fix.”

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/pirate-wind-farm-operator-accused-134732089.html

For those interested here is the question and answer recorded in Hansard

Q8.  Last month, SSE, the operators of the new Viking energy wind farm in Shetland, was paid £2 million in order not to generate any electricity from it. Is there not something badly wrong with an energy market that pays big corporates not to produce electricity while the people living among the turbines endure some of the highest levels of fuel poverty in the country? Will the Prime Minister and the Government now look seriously at the idea of an islands tariff, so that islands communities such as those represented by me and his hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) may see some genuine benefit for the community from hosting such renewable energy developments? (900262)

View the Hansard contribution by Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD) on Wednesday 4 September 2024
https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2024-09-04/debates/496C803E-4E87-4EA0-824A-A3EBE33A0279/Engagements#contribution-F5CF0A20-4135-4590-877D-F1ACF944D494

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for raising this issue, which is obviously a considerable concern to him and his constituents. National Grid, as he knows, does balance the grid by occasionally requesting some generators to stop when there is not enough capacity on the network. That is not good enough. That is not acceptable, for the reasons set out in his question. It is a problem that was not fixed over the last 14 years, but a problem we are determined to fix as we go forward. I will make sure that a relevant Minister speaks to him about the particular issue in his constituency.

View the Hansard contribution by The Prime Minister on Wednesday 4 September 2024
https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2024-09-04/debates/496C803E-4E87-4EA0-824A-A3EBE33A0279/Engagements#contribution-2DBEEF25-C36E-4E73-89C2-9FF71018866D

So basically lets ignore the economics and only look at the optics?!  So glad we have this new lot making policy decisions

I've read a couple of articles about the profiteering of the Viking wind farm. There are a lot more elements to the story that have not been mentioned. 

Firstly, the Viking wind farm was completed about 18months ahead of schedule. There was not a lot of infrastructure connecting the island to the mainland, so a new submarine cable had to been installed to enable the windfarm to export to the mainland. (It is essentially an onshore, offshore windfarm). This was not completed 18months ahead of schedule. To enable the windfarm to energise early and not sit completely idle for 18months, it was allowed to energise at a reduced capacity. This means that for the first 18months of operation, some of the turbines have to be shut down and not generate. The windfarm operator would be financially penalised for exceeded its agreed (temporary) export capacity. 

I understand that the Viking windfarm has a CFD which kicks in on the date the windfarm was meant to be finished (October 2025?).

In the meantime, the operators appear to be making the most of every opportunity to cash in on the current balancing market. Which includes bidding for turndown services (remember Octopus free electricity and the winter savings sessions? It is the same mechanism). I imagine that their bids are pretty cheap (relative to other bidders) as it is all just extra income for them. 

I don't deny that the current market isn't right, but the Viking cash in is a temporary situation borne out of the ability to build quicker than expected. Which we need a lot more of if we have any chance of not cooking this planet. 

To me, all the Viking windfarm bashing stories highlight to me that we can build more quickly than everyone keeps saying and that we all need to learn to be flexible.

There is also a fantastic opportunity for some positive PR for the WF in the form of fitting out all the locals with batteries and the control systems to heat their hot water. This is unlikely to make much of a dent on their balancing mechanism payments, but enable the locals to benefit from lots of free electricity on the occasions that the windfarm has a successful turn down bid. 

JKenH

Currently we are using 27GW of gas and wind/solar are contributing less than 2GW (under 5% of demand). Gas is bad and we are going to do away with most of it by 2030, 2040, 2050? Maybe just keep the odd 27GW on standby for days like these ? Let’s double the wind and solar for the future and see if that helps - >10% any good? Nope. Let’s quadruple our existing wind - does that help? Nope , still less than 20%. Oh dear, how much do we need  - err, let me think - would 10x our existing wind and solar help. Nope. Ah, I had forgotten, we have pumped hydro to fill the gap. Darn, I forgot we need something to pump the hydro up the hill. Well of course we can use wind and solar. But that has taken half of what wind and solar has generated so far today and is contributing a measly 2%. This current crisis shows just how dependent we are on gas and will be for decades to come. Wait until we are all driving electric cars and charging them overnight. 

https://electricinsights.co.uk/#/dashboard?start=2024-12-12&&_k=j3higp

Edit: sorry I had to break off. If there end up being 30 million EVs averaging 22 miles a day then at around 3 mpkWh at this time of year will add 220 GWh of demand. If just half charge overnight (say midnight to 7am) that adds over 15GW to demand. Just where is all the extra generation going to come from to charge up all the grid scale batteries we need to smooth out daytime demand? These days of low wind are thankfully few and far between but they will always be there and we need to plan for them. 

It is all very well celebrating that in 2024 renewable generation exceeded that from fossil fuels but it isn’t about averages and totals, it’s about intermittency and current policy (irrespective of political party) is doing little to address that. When the grid is most stressed we are increasingly reliant on fossil fuels. I don’t have comprehensive statistics to hand but I don’t recall seeing gas consumption at over 27GW before. 

Edit: on 11 January 2024, fossil fuel generation peaked at 27.4 GW of which gas was 26.11GW.
on 24 January 2019 gas generation peaked at 27.07GW and coal generation that day reached 6.89 GW 

In 2023 Wikipedia noted we had 35GW of gas capacity. 

michaels

If you read the government paper on net zero by 2030 in electricity generation you will see that it still involves 5% (annual total) of generation via gas with that being more than offset by exports of wind and solar energy - hence the word net.  There seems to be a major lack of understanding on this point amongst those who go on about 'what will we do when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing'?