The Alternative Green Energy Thread

Exiled_Tyke

JKenH said:

Magnitio said:

JKenH said:

The Tony Blair Institute has issued a report with recommendations on our clean energy future.

Is that the same Tony Blair Institute that receives significant funding from the UAE?

Does it ultimately matter where the funding comes from? It may to you and some others. But let’s be real, at the end of the day all that matters is whether or not Tony Blair or the TBI has sufficient influence to impact policy. Most democratic governments have policies they wish to pursue because they believe it’s the right thing to do but ultimately the priority of any government is staying in power and if the leaders see the political sands shifting beneath their feet they will look for firmer ground. Energy costs are a hot potato and with TB having personally approved the report it may be difficult for the prime minister to reject it out of hand. 

Yes, of course it matters, as I'm sure you will know, it points towards potential conflicts of interest and bias in reporting.   

JKenH

Exiled_Tyke said:

JKenH said:

Magnitio said:

JKenH said:

The Tony Blair Institute has issued a report with recommendations on our clean energy future.

Is that the same Tony Blair Institute that receives significant funding from the UAE?

Does it ultimately matter where the funding comes from? It may to you and some others. But let’s be real, at the end of the day all that matters is whether or not Tony Blair or the TBI has sufficient influence to impact policy. Most democratic governments have policies they wish to pursue because they believe it’s the right thing to do but ultimately the priority of any government is staying in power and if the leaders see the political sands shifting beneath their feet they will look for firmer ground. Energy costs are a hot potato and with TB having personally approved the report it may be difficult for the prime minister to reject it out of hand. 

Yes, of course it matters, as I'm sure you will know, it points towards potential conflicts of interest and bias in reporting.   

I am sure the PM and his cabinet know sufficient about TB and his institute to recognise potential conflicts of interest and bias, and then, having weighed them, act accordingly. As I said, it’s ultimately about whether the government take this on board or ignore it.

thevilla

I've only read the summary so maybe missed something.  The significant suggested change seems to be to make gas cheaper by removing carbon costs.  This, the report suggests, will make electricity cheaper and encourage decarbonisation of industry.  How would reducing the price of gas encourage a gas consuming industry to electrify?  It does seem to suggest the hand of the oil industry was a significant input to the report.

Maybe I'll read the rest when I have time.

Edit: Having read some of the rest of the report it's clear the summary is just that and there's more of interest.  The gas price is less prominent.  Interesting stuff.

michaels

Say we could reduce emissions by twice as much by using cheaper  (less renewable) electricity here and putting the savings towards supporting renewables in India and other developing countries, would that make sense?

Suppose electricity prices at 3x gas rather than 4x made heat pumps  and EVs a much easier sell and so lead us to adopt much more quickly, reducing emissions overall, would that make sense?

Have to admit I am highly suspicious of the Tony Blair institute though.

JKenH

A technical article by Kathryn Porter of Watt-Logic explaining why we need synchronous generators.

Ghosts on the grid: why the phantom concept of vars risks our energy security

https://watt-logic.com/2025/10/24/ghosts-on-the-grid-vars/

ed110220

JKenH said:

A technical article by Kathryn Porter of Watt-Logic explaining why we need synchronous generators.

Ghosts on the grid: why the phantom concept of vars risks our energy security

https://watt-logic.com/2025/10/24/ghosts-on-the-grid-vars/

A little background on this "analyst" who is lecturing grid planners/controllers on what they should do. This is just railing against the way the world is going. I particularly chuckled at the call for a fleet of new coal power stations! https://www.desmog.com/2023/06/22/climate-sceptic-goes-unchallenged-on-bbcs-today-programme/

Meanwhile in the real world South Australia has recently reduced the minimum number of synchronous generators to one 40 MW gas turbine. South Australia is notable as it's the world's "large" (ie >1 GW) grid with the highest percentage of solar and wind generation (72% over the past 12 months).
https://reneweconomy.com.au/grid-security-needs-cut-to-single-gas-turbine-in-latest-step-towards-100-pct-net-renewables/

Data on South Australia: https://explore.openelectricity.org.au/energy/sa1/?range=1y&interval=1w&view=discrete-time&group=Detailed

JKenH

ed110220 said:

JKenH said:

A technical article by Kathryn Porter of Watt-Logic explaining why we need synchronous generators.

Ghosts on the grid: why the phantom concept of vars risks our energy security

https://watt-logic.com/2025/10/24/ghosts-on-the-grid-vars/

A little background on this "analyst" who is lecturing grid planners/controllers on what they should do. This is just railing against the way the world is going. I particularly chuckled at the call for a fleet of new coal power stations! https://www.desmog.com/2023/06/22/climate-sceptic-goes-unchallenged-on-bbcs-today-programme/

Meanwhile in the real world South Australia has recently reduced the minimum number of synchronous generators to one 40 MW gas turbine. South Australia is notable as it's the world's "large" (ie >1 GW) grid with the highest percentage of solar and wind generation (72% over the past 12 months).
https://reneweconomy.com.au/grid-security-needs-cut-to-single-gas-turbine-in-latest-step-towards-100-pct-net-renewables/

Data on South Australia: https://explore.openelectricity.org.au/energy/sa1/?range=1y&interval=1w&view=discrete-time&group=Detailed

As usual, rather than reading the article and discussing/challenging the content on technical grounds you have opted for an attack on the author as being anti-renewables. You then go on to quote an article from Renew Economy which is undeniably pro-renewables. If you are going to claim bias then don’t use a biased source to support your case. Let’s face it the majority of the articles that appear on the G&E threads are heavily biased towards renewables so perhaps bear that in mind before you claim anti-renewables bias.

 I have read the link you provided and also the link within that article to the AEMO report. If you have read that report you will realise that despite being  “notable as [it's] the world's "large" (ie >1 GW) grid with the highest percentage of solar and wind generation” the South Australian grid cannot manage without a synchronous generator (or more than one if the grid is “islanded”). You may consider South Australia are nearly there, just needing one or two synchronous generators, but you forget just how small the South Australian Grid is. The modelling assumes a low case of 600MW and a high case of 2600MW - that’s probably about one twentieth the size of the UK grid. Scale that up and when we have solar and wind providing 72% of our generation we might manage with 20 to 40 synchronous generators. South Australia is a bit like California - it can run a high proportion of renewables because it is connected to a wider grid that isn’t so heavily reliable on renewables. 

Getting to the 95% zero carbon bit is the easy part - getting rid of all synchronous generation is harder for the reasons Ms Porter explained. It’s a bit like having a battery storage system at your house and claiming that 95% of the time you can run off grid but you need that grid connection for the last 5% if you are going to keep the lights on. 

Edit: while we are in the subject of South Australia, I thought I would throw this in.

https://www.ecoflow.com/au/blog/average-electricity-prices-in-australia-per-kwh

JKenH

The sands are already shifting.

Keir Starmer prepares to miss key green target in effort to keep energy bills down

Exclusive: Promise to remove almost all fossil fuels from UK’s electricity supply by 2030 may be quietly abandoned over cost

One government insider said: “There is a choice about what price you’re willing to pay for the next [renewables] auction round, which is key to hitting 2030. If it comes to a choice between hitting the target and overpaying, or missing it and keeping costs down, we will miss it.”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/oct/22/keir-starmer-green-pledge-2030-energy-bills

QrizB

JKenH said:

ed110220 said:

JKenH said:

A technical article by Kathryn Porter of Watt-Logic explaining why we need synchronous generators.

Ghosts on the grid: why the phantom concept of vars risks our energy security

https://watt-logic.com/2025/10/24/ghosts-on-the-grid-vars/

A little background on this "analyst" who is lecturing grid planners/controllers on what they should do. This is just railing against the way the world is going. I particularly chuckled at the call for a fleet of new coal power stations! https://www.desmog.com/2023/06/22/climate-sceptic-goes-unchallenged-on-bbcs-today-programme/

Meanwhile in the real world South Australia has recently reduced the minimum number of synchronous generators to one 40 MW gas turbine. South Australia is notable as it's the world's "large" (ie >1 GW) grid with the highest percentage of solar and wind generation (72% over the past 12 months).
https://reneweconomy.com.au/grid-security-needs-cut-to-single-gas-turbine-in-latest-step-towards-100-pct-net-renewables/

Data on South Australia: https://explore.openelectricity.org.au/energy/sa1/?range=1y&interval=1w&view=discrete-time&group=Detailed

As usual, rather than reading the article and discussing/challenging the content on technical grounds you have opted for an attack on the author as being anti-renewables.

Agreed.

Sadly on technical grounds the article also falls flat.

The third paragraph from the end, for example:

Imagine a sunny afternoon, low demand, high renewable output. A transmission fault causes a brief voltage dip. Every inverter in the region responds within milliseconds, releasing electric-field energy and cutting active power. Frequency falls, so other controls react, but they’re already at their current limits. Protection relays trip, and the disturbance cascades. The system fails because its components all did exactly what the “var” abstraction told them to do.

Contast this to this presentation from the US NREL in 2024:

https://docs.nrel.gov/docs/fy24osti/90256.pdf

Slides 10 and 11 show the grid response to a large generator dropping off-line, with grid-following vs. grid-forming inverters. That's modelling the WECC, a western US grid with 75GW of demand, when 2.8GW of generation fails.

The first sentences of the final para:

Synchronous generators manage it naturally, and for free, but inverters can only imitate it within narrow limits, and at a cost (haircutting active power output ie selling less electricity to consumers).

Synchronous generators don't manage it "for free"; it's part of the cost of operating them. Synchronous condensers exist to provide reactive power control without generating anything:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_condenser

Here's one being built in England now (might even be operational):

https://conradenergy.co.uk/energy-for-the-grid/grid-stability/walpole-grid-stability-facility/

nd a recent build in Scotland:
https://www.quinbrook.com/news-insights/quinbrooks-first-synchronous-condenser-in-scotland-now-built-and-operating/

And a "haircut to active power output" is inevitable if you've got X GW of demand but, due to a generator going offline, there's only (X-n) GW of generation.You can see the lasting frequency sag in the slides.

VARS aren't some overlooked mystery, they're something that specialists in the field are fully aware of and have been developing systems to manage with inveter-based generation over the past decade plus.

Here's NESO's Head of Networks talking about it five years ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClEnr95kkik

And Tom Scott, almost a decade ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uz6xOFWi4A

JKenH

QrizB said:

JKenH said:

ed110220 said:

JKenH said:

A technical article by Kathryn Porter of Watt-Logic explaining why we need synchronous generators.

Ghosts on the grid: why the phantom concept of vars risks our energy security

https://watt-logic.com/2025/10/24/ghosts-on-the-grid-vars/

A little background on this "analyst" who is lecturing grid planners/controllers on what they should do. This is just railing against the way the world is going. I particularly chuckled at the call for a fleet of new coal power stations! https://www.desmog.com/2023/06/22/climate-sceptic-goes-unchallenged-on-bbcs-today-programme/

Meanwhile in the real world South Australia has recently reduced the minimum number of synchronous generators to one 40 MW gas turbine. South Australia is notable as it's the world's "large" (ie >1 GW) grid with the highest percentage of solar and wind generation (72% over the past 12 months).
https://reneweconomy.com.au/grid-security-needs-cut-to-single-gas-turbine-in-latest-step-towards-100-pct-net-renewables/

Data on South Australia: https://explore.openelectricity.org.au/energy/sa1/?range=1y&interval=1w&view=discrete-time&group=Detailed

As usual, rather than reading the article and discussing/challenging the content on technical grounds you have opted for an attack on the author as being anti-renewables.

Agreed.

Sadly on technical grounds the article also falls flat.

The third paragraph from the end, for example:

Imagine a sunny afternoon, low demand, high renewable output. A transmission fault causes a brief voltage dip. Every inverter in the region responds within milliseconds, releasing electric-field energy and cutting active power. Frequency falls, so other controls react, but they’re already at their current limits. Protection relays trip, and the disturbance cascades. The system fails because its components all did exactly what the “var” abstraction told them to do.

Contast this to this presentation from the US NREL in 2024:

https://docs.nrel.gov/docs/fy24osti/90256.pdf

Slides 10 and 11 show the grid response to a large generator dropping off-line, with grid-following vs. grid-forming inverters. That's modelling the WECC, a western US grid with 75GW of demand, when 2.8GW of generation fails.

The first sentences of the final para:

Synchronous generators manage it naturally, and for free, but inverters can only imitate it within narrow limits, and at a cost (haircutting active power output ie selling less electricity to consumers).

Synchronous generators don't manage it "for free"; it's part of the cost of operating them. Synchronous condensers exist to provide reactive power control without generating anything:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_condenser

Here's one being built in England now (might even be operational):

https://conradenergy.co.uk/energy-for-the-grid/grid-stability/walpole-grid-stability-facility/

nd a recent build in Scotland:
https://www.quinbrook.com/news-insights/quinbrooks-first-synchronous-condenser-in-scotland-now-built-and-operating/

And a "haircut to active power output" is inevitable if you've got X GW of demand but, due to a generator going offline, there's only (X-n) GW of generation.You can see the lasting frequency sag in the slides.

VARS aren't some overlooked mystery, they're something that specialists in the field are fully aware of and have been developing systems to manage with inveter-based generation over the past decade plus.

Here's NESO's Head of Networks talking about it five years ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClEnr95kkik

And Tom Scott, almost a decade ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uz6xOFWi4A

Thanks. My knowledge of electrical engineering is about as good as my understanding of quantum mechanics (I.e. virtually nonexistent) so I am not in a position to evaluate either the article I posted or the links you have provided. (I need to find a moment when I can watch the video - perhaps when doing the washing up tonight). Prior to reading Ms Porter’s explanation of VARS I knew nothing about reactive power and I assumed most of us on here (with some exceptions) would be in a similar position and it helped me understand why she feels we need synchronous generators and/or synchronous condensers and why she feels we cannot rely on inverter based solutions. I acknowledge she has strong (anti) views on a fully renewables based grid but then again there are other interested parties (in the wind and solar sectors) who are pushing just as hard for renewables without advertising their limitations.

Inevitability there will be some overlap between ideology, technological, and pragmatic arguments with those on one side pushing synchronous generators and the other inverter based solutions. It is useful to hear both sides to gain a better understanding.

On a slightly related note, have you any idea why the proposed (very short) trial of running of the UK grid without gas generators hasn’t gone ahead as anticipated this year - or might it still happen? Perhaps on a windy autumnal weekend like this one?