The Alternative Green Energy Thread

JKenH

Can Norway be the battery of Europe?

Interesting article on Norway’s hydro generation and a comment which suggests our National Grid is perhaps more ideological than pragmatic when it comes to championing sustainability in the grid

Norway will basically act as Europe’s battery. When we’ve got high renewables, we’ll send it to Norway and they’ll use that power, or they’ll use it to pump water and store the energy in the hydro power stations. And then when we need power in the UK, the power will flow back from Norway to the UK,”
– Duncan Burt, Chief Sustainability Officer, National Grid

.

Unfortunately, this is to fundamentally mis-understand Norway’s generation resources – although the system is dominated by hydropower, there is very little pumped storage, and what there is was generally not designed for daily peaking-style use. In fact, only 1,400 MW of the 33 GW of Norwegian hydro is pumped storage, across 10 power plants.

Also it seems interconnector disputes are beginning to break out in Scandinavia and Europe.

The new interconnectors between Norway and Germany and the UK have been causing problems in Sweden, which led Swedish system operator, Svenska Kraftnat, to reduce its cross-border capacity to Norway in early December, with Norway retaliating by reducing exports to the country. The reason for Svenska Kraftnat’s action was that during periods of exports from Norway to the UK and Germany, Norway increased its imports from Sweden leading the Swedish TSO to reduced export capacity by as much as half this year to keep its operations secure.

Finland and Denmark both also rely on imports, with these capacity reductions also affecting their markets, raising electricity prices significantly. Both countries want the European Union to end the exemption to regulations that allow TSOs to make such import/export capacity reductions. 

If you have the time the whole article is worth a read.

https://watt-logic.com/2022/02/01/can-norway-be-the-battery-of-europe/

JKenH

Just how much electricity will we need in the future?

In the article quoted above I came across this

Norwegian electricity demand is expected to rise in coming years, with Statnett predicting an increase from 133 TWh per year now to 220 TWh by 2050. 

Our demand in 2019 was 285TWh and our population is more than 10x that of Norway. Just to match current Norwegian per capita demand we would need around 1400 TWh. 

https://watt-logic.com/2022/02/01/can-norway-be-the-battery-of-europe/

JKenH

thevilla said:

"We will still need almost the same standby FF capacity as we have already and still need to generate almost as much as we do currently (perhaps 1GW less) on those cold still winter days."

So what? Surely the expensive bit is burning gas? Paying for plant to remain idle isn't ideal but don't assume the running costs are not the most significant expense.

Just returning to this post I thought the comments from Watt-Logic on capacity auctions are helpful in understanding the options available when supply is tight.

The capacity market was introduced to solve the so-called “missing-money” problem: the growing deployment of near-zero marginal cost renewable generation reduces the utilisation rates of conventional generation to a point that it becomes uneconomic to remain open. However, intermittent generation cannot meet year-round demand, so to ensure security of supply a new source of economics for dispatchable plant was introduced.

Of the flexible assets that are stepping in, batteries cannot address tightness that arises from periods of cold, still winter weather which last far longer than the 1-2 hours batteries typically last. Turn-down DSR is similarly limited – industrial and commercial process are also time constrained, and as noted above, interconnectors may be unable to deliver when the connected markets are experiencing similar weather-driven demand. Indeed they may increase system tightness is faster demand growth in other markets drives exports. 

This means that gas and diesel engines will be filling the gap. These types of small peaking plant have been the big success story of the capacity market, yet their environmental footprint is significantly worse than the CCGTs and nuclear plant they are displacing. Indeed, the replacement of nuclear by gas (and as gas cannot currently be abated by CCS) is inconsistent with net zero targets.

https://watt-logic.com/2021/08/16/capacity-auctions/

QrizB

JKenH said:

Indeed, the replacement of nuclear by gas (and as gas cannot currently be abated by CCS) is inconsistent with net zero targets.

I don't imagine many will argue with this sentence.

michaels

JKenH said:

thevilla said:

"We will still need almost the same standby FF capacity as we have already and still need to generate almost as much as we do currently (perhaps 1GW less) on those cold still winter days."

So what? Surely the expensive bit is burning gas? Paying for plant to remain idle isn't ideal but don't assume the running costs are not the most significant expense.

Just returning to this post I thought the comments from Watt-Logic on capacity auctions are helpful in understanding the options available when supply is tight.

The capacity market was introduced to solve the so-called “missing-money” problem: the growing deployment of near-zero marginal cost renewable generation reduces the utilisation rates of conventional generation to a point that it becomes uneconomic to remain open. However, intermittent generation cannot meet year-round demand, so to ensure security of supply a new source of economics for dispatchable plant was introduced.

Of the flexible assets that are stepping in, batteries cannot address tightness that arises from periods of cold, still winter weather which last far longer than the 1-2 hours batteries typically last. Turn-down DSR is similarly limited – industrial and commercial process are also time constrained, and as noted above, interconnectors may be unable to deliver when the connected markets are experiencing similar weather-driven demand. Indeed they may increase system tightness is faster demand growth in other markets drives exports. 

This means that gas and diesel engines will be filling the gap. These types of small peaking plant have been the big success story of the capacity market, yet their environmental footprint is significantly worse than the CCGTs and nuclear plant they are displacing. Indeed, the replacement of nuclear by gas (and as gas cannot currently be abated by CCS) is inconsistent with net zero targets.

https://watt-logic.com/2021/08/16/capacity-auctions/

But if they only need to run for a small proportion of the time then despite being dirty when they do run, overall emissions may well be lower.

Question: does wind or nuclear produce more CO2 over the lifetime of the generation equipment once build/manufacture, fuel extraction plus processing (for nuclear) and decommissioning are all counted

Answer: claims are that they are similar at about 10g although this meta-analysis suggests otherwise:
False solution: Nuclear power is not 'low carbon' (theecologist.org)

QrizB

michaels said:

Question: does wind or nuclear produce more CO2 over the lifetime of the generation equipment once build/manufacture, fuel extraction plus processing (for nuclear) and decommissioning are all counted

This report from 2017 has them level pegging:

https://www.carbonbrief.org/solar-wind-nuclear-amazingly-low-carbon-footprints

The study finds each kilowatt hour of electricity generated over the lifetime of a nuclear plant has an emissions footprint of 4 grammes of CO2 equivalent (gCO2e/kWh). The footprint of solar comes in at 6gCO2e/kWh and wind is also 4gCO2e/kWh. In contrast, coal CCS (109g), gas CCS (78g), hydro (97g) and bioenergy (98g) have relatively high emissions, compared to a global average target for a 2C world of 15gCO2e/kWh in 2050.

michaels

QrizB said:

michaels said:

Question: does wind or nuclear produce more CO2 over the lifetime of the generation equipment once build/manufacture, fuel extraction plus processing (for nuclear) and decommissioning are all counted

This report from 2017 has them level pegging:

https://www.carbonbrief.org/solar-wind-nuclear-amazingly-low-carbon-footprints

The study finds each kilowatt hour of electricity generated over the lifetime of a nuclear plant has an emissions footprint of 4 grammes of CO2 equivalent (gCO2e/kWh). The footprint of solar comes in at 6gCO2e/kWh and wind is also 4gCO2e/kWh. In contrast, coal CCS (109g), gas CCS (78g), hydro (97g) and bioenergy (98g) have relatively high emissions, compared to a global average target for a 2C world of 15gCO2e/kWh in 2050.

And yet other google results say nuclear 9, wind 11, hydro 10, solar 44 etc,,,,

shinytop

There is a lot of smoke and mirrors in all these calculations and it's not worth quibbling about a few grams here and there is it? They are all less than fossil fuels and that's what really matters.

Why is hydro so high anyway? (QrizB's post above)

QrizB

shinytop said:

There is a lot of smoke and mirrors in all these calculations and it's not worth quibbling about a few grams here and there is it? They are all less than fossil fuels and that's what really matters.

Why is hydro so high anyway? (QrizB's post above)

I haven't read the Nature paper they've referenced but I'd guess they've considered a concrete dam. Concrete-making releases a lot of CO2.

JKenH

QrizB said:

michaels said:

Question: does wind or nuclear produce more CO2 over the lifetime of the generation equipment once build/manufacture, fuel extraction plus processing (for nuclear) and decommissioning are all counted

This report from 2017 has them level pegging:

https://www.carbonbrief.org/solar-wind-nuclear-amazingly-low-carbon-footprints

The study finds each kilowatt hour of electricity generated over the lifetime of a nuclear plant has an emissions footprint of 4 grammes of CO2 equivalent (gCO2e/kWh). The footprint of solar comes in at 6gCO2e/kWh and wind is also 4gCO2e/kWh. In contrast, coal CCS (109g), gas CCS (78g), hydro (97g) and bioenergy (98g) have relatively high emissions, compared to a global average target for a 2C world of 15gCO2e/kWh in 2050.

Looking at some of the figures mentioned on here and in the reports it is quite clear that no one really knows the carbon footprint of any particular generation source. As @shinytop says they are all cleaner than fossil fuels.

As I pointed out earlier, my comments about the roll out of further wind were aimed at economics of investing in them not the environmental repercussions and I apologise for the quote in my post about capacity markets making reference to emissions.  The linked article was intended to explain that it isn’t as simple as just turning down the CCGT plants to run as standby. They aren’t economic for that role compared to the peaker plants replacing them but it is inevitable when talking about peaker plants that emissions will come into it (as it should but that’s someone else’s argument not mine).