Energy news in general

michaels

The_Green_Hornet said:

Nationalise gas power plants to boost energy security, thinktank urges UK ministers

Common Wealth says private gas-fired stations can charge exorbitant fees when renewable energy is in short supply

“Privately owned gas-fired power plants exploit a unique market power position in the ‘balancing mechanism’, holding the grid to ransom and demanding eye-watering sums of money to supply energy at short notice,” it said..

Nationalise gas power plants to boost energy security, thinktank urges UK ministers | Energy industry | The Guardian

Surely the answer is to fix the market not nationalise - the market position means these plants may be very valuable when begin used as currently but would therefore have a much lower value once nationalised and no longer used to exploit market power - so a poor investment.  Instead if there was a specific contract for balancing services, open to battery and pumped hydro as well then the gas plants would no longer be able to collect these economic rents.

Scot_39

The_Green_Hornet said:

Nationalise gas power plants to boost energy security, thinktank urges UK ministers

Common Wealth says private gas-fired stations can charge exorbitant fees when renewable energy is in short supply

“Privately owned gas-fired power plants exploit a unique market power position in the ‘balancing mechanism’, holding the grid to ransom and demanding eye-watering sums of money to supply energy at short notice,” it said..

Nationalise gas power plants to boost energy security, thinktank urges UK ministers | Energy industry | The Guardian

If you built a plant that cost £bns and costs likely £ millions to staff and maintain   - which the govt - despite Milibands green net zero bravado - and Ofgem know we need - but only for a few hours or a few days on occasions  - how much would you charge for its product ?

Their are certainly issues about being able to game the system by declaring it as standby with just 24 hrs notice iirc to attract the highest rates.  A simple rule change could reduce the risk the owners can game system for profit.

We don't have money to buy back gas plant.

But it's never going to go away.

You cannot maintain two generation systems largely in parallel - one - renewables wind and solar as unreliable as we allow it to be - highly inconsistent in its output from hour to hour and day to day and week to week - for net zero targets - and fossil / nuclear etc for core reliable generation we can rely more on - and 10-20 GW of it often in standby when is windy and sunny - for the same costs as one.

When wind hits lows of 10% in January those plants were expected to be needed to fill the gap. 

Other gas plants were not on the short term standby list and were generating over 50% - ave week of 13/1/25 - ave 18.8GW of ave 36GW demand.

If you want to stop it - from a purely energy cost perspective - stop the madness that is continuing mass expansion of wind and solar renewables generation without any storage requirement on grid level generation.

And stop building almost 50% of capacity in Scotland for 8% of the population.  We could have saved WGL costs, current as authorised £6bn plus for egl1 and egl2 - and no doubt more for egl3 and egl4 if / when get approved by Ofgem to follow. 


Renewables energy is not cost free.

CfD again adding to our costs cf even current gas rates  - if tge drop in summer even more so.  Last summer CfDs were adding 1.25p/kWh to wholesale electricity costs in 25p retail at svt dd cap.
And the historic drops in prices violently reversed with last auctions iirc 60% plus increase from previous sales for FOS wind.
Curtailment cost us collectively £1 bn last year (ave £30 per connection)  - paying wind generators not to generate or generate less.
£bns on grid connections to hook them up and deliver power to market.

And right now in recent past and near future  those extras are driving our electricity bills in one direction only.  And that's higher than they would be otherwise.

Other changes could reduce our bills far faster than net zero renewables.

The to be simplistic "highest bidder wins" electricity auction - so thry get to cover their costs, others get to profit (hence even non CFD early renewables - pre 2015 licenses -  ended up with a 45% windfall tax above a price threshold) and consumers lose.

Others in Europe who don't use the system saw lower cost increases and / or lower taxpayer and debt funded subsidies then UKs EPG / EBSS at c£35bn plus.

michaels

Scot_39 said:

The_Green_Hornet said:

Nationalise gas power plants to boost energy security, thinktank urges UK ministers

Common Wealth says private gas-fired stations can charge exorbitant fees when renewable energy is in short supply

“Privately owned gas-fired power plants exploit a unique market power position in the ‘balancing mechanism’, holding the grid to ransom and demanding eye-watering sums of money to supply energy at short notice,” it said..

Nationalise gas power plants to boost energy security, thinktank urges UK ministers | Energy industry | The Guardian

If you built a plant that cost £bns and costs likely £ millions to staff and maintain   - which the govt - despite Milibands green net zero bravado - and Ofgem know we need - but only for a few hours or a few days on occasions  - how much would you charge for its product ?

Their are certainly issues about being able to game the system by declaring it as standby with just 24 hrs notice iirc to attract the highest rates.  A simple rule change could reduce the risk the owners can game system for profit.

We don't have money to buy back gas plant.

But it's never going to go away.

You cannot maintain two generation systems largely in parallel - one - renewables wind and solar as unreliable as we allow it to be - highly inconsistent in its output from hour to hour and day to day and week to week - for net zero targets - and fossil / nuclear etc for core reliable generation we can rely more on - and 10-20 GW of it often in standby when is windy and sunny - for the same costs as one.

When wind hits lows of 10% in January those plants were expected to be needed to fill the gap. 

Other gas plants were not on the short term standby list and were generating over 50% - ave week of 13/1/25 - ave 18.8GW of ave 36GW demand.

If you want to stop it - from a purely energy cost perspective - stop the madness that is continuing mass expansion of wind and solar renewables generation without any storage requirement on grid level generation.

And stop building almost 50% of capacity in Scotland for 8% of the population.  We could have saved WGL costs, current as authorised £6bn plus for egl1 and egl2 - and no doubt more for egl3 and egl4 if / when get approved by Ofgem to follow. 


Renewables energy is not cost free.

CfD again adding to our costs cf even current gas rates  - if tge drop in summer even more so.  Last summer CfDs were adding 1.25p/kWh to wholesale electricity costs in 25p retail at svt dd cap.
And the historic drops in prices violently reversed with last auctions iirc 60% plus increase from previous sales for FOS wind.
Curtailment cost us collectively £1 bn last year (ave £30 per connection)  - paying wind generators not to generate or generate less.
£bns on grid connections to hook them up and deliver power to market.

And right now in recent past and near future  those extras are driving our electricity bills in one direction only.  And that's higher than they would be otherwise.

Posts like this sadly no longer surprise me.  Intelligent people who have not bothered to read or understand the NESO NET zero plan.  NET being the key bit.  It is fully understood that gas will need to plug the gaps when renewables are not available (modelled as about 5% of total production) but that we will export more than that of renewable energy hence being at 'net' zero.

Scot_39

Assuming much.

Just because NESO produce something doesn't make it real.

Or the only solution.

It's whole remit is to drive net zero.  And all of its output and it's assumptions to drive it  should therefore be treated with that in mind.

And even if we were to reach their vision of net zero nirvana - that doesn't eliminate the transition costs.

mmmmikey

Scot_39 said:

The_Green_Hornet said:

Nationalise gas power plants to boost energy security, thinktank urges UK ministers

Common Wealth says private gas-fired stations can charge exorbitant fees when renewable energy is in short supply

“Privately owned gas-fired power plants exploit a unique market power position in the ‘balancing mechanism’, holding the grid to ransom and demanding eye-watering sums of money to supply energy at short notice,” it said..

Nationalise gas power plants to boost energy security, thinktank urges UK ministers | Energy industry | The Guardian

If you built a plant that cost £bns and costs likely £ millions to staff and maintain   - which the govt - despite Milibands green net zero bravado - and Ofgem know we need - but only for a few hours or a few days on occasions  - how much would you charge for its product ?

Their are certainly issues about being able to game the system by declaring it as standby with just 24 hrs notice iirc to attract the highest rates.  A simple rule change could reduce the risk the owners can game system for profit.

We don't have money to buy back gas plant.

But it's never going to go away.

You cannot maintain two generation systems largely in parallel - one - renewables wind and solar as unreliable as we allow it to be - highly inconsistent in its output from hour to hour and day to day and week to week - for net zero targets - and fossil / nuclear etc for core reliable generation we can rely more on - and 10-20 GW of it often in standby when is windy and sunny - for the same costs as one.

When wind hits lows of 10% in January those plants were expected to be needed to fill the gap. 

Other gas plants were not on the short term standby list and were generating over 50% - ave week of 13/1/25 - ave 18.8GW of ave 36GW demand.

If you want to stop it - from a purely energy cost perspective - stop the madness that is continuing mass expansion of wind and solar renewables generation without any storage requirement on grid level generation.

And stop building almost 50% of capacity in Scotland for 8% of the population.  We could have saved WGL costs, current as authorised £6bn plus for egl1 and egl2 - and no doubt more for egl3 and egl4 if / when get approved by Ofgem to follow. 


Renewables energy is not cost free.

CfD again adding to our costs cf even current gas rates  - if tge drop in summer even more so.  Last summer CfDs were adding 1.25p/kWh to wholesale electricity costs in 25p retail at svt dd cap.
And the historic drops in prices violently reversed with last auctions iirc 60% plus increase from previous sales for FOS wind.
Curtailment cost us collectively £1 bn last year (ave £30 per connection)  - paying wind generators not to generate or generate less.
£bns on grid connections to hook them up and deliver power to market.

And right now in recent past and near future  those extras are driving our electricity bills in one direction only.  And that's higher than they would be otherwise.

Other changes could reduce our bills far faster than net zero renewables.

The to be simplistic "highest bidder wins" electricity auction - so thry get to cover their costs, others get to profit (hence even non CFD early renewables - pre 2015 licenses -  ended up with a 45% windfall tax above a price threshold) and consumers lose.

Others in Europe who don't use the system saw lower cost increases and / or lower taxpayer and debt funded subsidies then UKs EPG / EBSS at c£35bn plus.

@Scot_39 if you open your mind, pause and think about it you will realise that your assertion that "You cannot maintain two generation systems largely in parallel" is patently and very obviously complete and utter nonsense. 

We have been maintaining multiple generation systems in parallel for the entire 60 years of my life and for many years before that. We are still doing that successfully today. Over the years the generation systems have comprised a combination of coal, gas, diesel, nuclear, hydro and more recently solar and wind on a large scale. All these different generation systems having their pros and cons. Huge numbers of households successfully combine solar and grid power. Huge numbers of businesses use grid power but have backup generators in case of grid failure. Large parts of your reasoning are based on a completely and utterly false premise.

Scot_39

mmmmikey said:
...

@Scot_39 if you open your mind, pause and think about it you will realise that your assertion that "You cannot maintain two generation systems largely in parallel" is patently and very obviously complete and utter nonsense. 

Could you be any more insulting ?

Open your mind and put yourself in say the place of a gas plant operator in the UK today - one being asked to invest in their upkeep or even replacement.

Of course we have had multiple generation sources and even overcapicity - unpredictable demand, summer vs winter one obvious reason - but even conventional plant has outages.

But gas plants are now ramping in and out daily and by 10 GW plus even in low demand days as solar and renewables take over when can.

It's a fundamental difference in generation behaviour - and the utilisation level for many conventional plant - which of course impacts their costs.

Others will put into standby rather than generate a share of low demand and then you get the spike to spin up the media made a large fuss about in Jan  when wind again failed to produce typical output - only c10% of theoretical capacity.


Take yesterday evening for instance.

Gas ramped up to 18GW output by c8pm from sub 6 GW at 3pm to offset loss of solar - near 10GW at 3pm.

And wind output c2.2 GW from 30GW theoretical  - an even lower 1.41GW at 8am this morning - sub 5% of theoretical installed 30GW hit last Aug..

Yet at other times wind can just about produce that 18GW on its own like say in Dec 24 when weekly ave over 19GW - and suspect some of that throttled  by grid capacity - even if winter weekly  ave more like 12GW  and summer more like 7GW

Look at say last Dec / Jan - but at a lower level even in summer and you will see the issue.

https://grid.iamkate.com/

Scroll down and look at generation over last 24 hours

Select last year instead and then look at generation by source  wind green gas orange solar yellow click or hover over / on graph for figures  - and youll see them switch in and out vying for same demand.

That's two systems physically present and available to act but only when can despite the demand in terms of renewables and when needed to meet the same overall typical demand.
 
They aren't ramping in out according to ability to derate and match demand as of old - yesterday evening gas reached its peak despite demand having reduced by 3GW - gas is now having to regularly give way to solar and wind on windier days at typical demand.

Gas plant is therefore used on ave to lower share of capacity which of course has a direct impact on operating costs.  And so pricing to us.  If not per kWh wholesale in other balancing / standby event costs.

We aren't actually using significantly less peak non renewables generation.

We're just using less on average.

But need to maintain the plants for the peaks to replace the renewable troughs.

So two generation systems - one weather dependent - the other not - supplying a share of the same total demand.

One when it can, conventional stepping in when renewables cannot. 

Sounds pretty much like two in parallel to me. For a large chunk of uk demand - obviously when excluding core like currently non load following nuclear from total daily demand.

debitcardmayhem

If you are interested about the generation mix and its problems for generating inertia read this doc from 2020 https://www.neso.energy/document/164586/download , there is I think another doc about this from much later, but can’t find it yet , will keep searching.

This doc may shed light on the recent problems on the Iberian peninsular, and France ? https://www.neso.energy/document/277891/download

This is also a high level view https://www.neso.energy/energy-101/electricity-explained/how-do-we-balance-grid/what-are-constraints-payments

Just a little light reading 😎

michaels

debitcardmayhem said:

If you are interested about the generation mix and its problems for generating inertia read this doc from 2020 https://www.neso.energy/document/164586/download , there is I think another doc about this from much later, but can’t find it yet , will keep searching.

This doc may shed light on the recent problems on the Iberian peninsular, and France ? https://www.neso.energy/document/277891/download

This is also a high level view https://www.neso.energy/energy-101/electricity-explained/how-do-we-balance-grid/what-are-constraints-payments

Just a little light reading 😎

WE often complain about the UK policy of having several Gw of gas generation on line at all times even where this means curtailing renewables because 'the grid' needs it as this drives our '98% of the time gas is the marginal production setting the price' but I gues sit dos bring network benefits.

You would assume that the NESO report which includes a small overall share but large peak output of gas generation has included sensible assumptions about the cost of gas generation supplied on this basis (i.e. high fixed cost per unit generated).  It does mean the gas will likely not be the more efficient but capital expensive CCGT style a this only gets the increased efficiency over 'long burns'.

mmmmikey

Scot_39 said:

Could you be any more insulting ?

Open your mind and put yourself in say the place of a gas plant operator in the UK today - one being asked to invest in their upkeep or even replacement.

Of course we have had multiple generation sources and even overcapicity - unpredictable demand, summer vs winter one obvious reason - but even conventional plant has outages.

But gas plants are now ramping in and out daily and by 10 GW plus even in low demand days as solar and renewables take over when can.

It's a fundamental difference in generation behaviour - and the utilisation level for many conventional plant - which of course impacts their costs.

Others will put into standby rather than generate a share of low demand and then you get the spike to spin up the media made a large fuss about in Jan  when wind again failed to produce typical output - only c10% of theoretical capacity.


Take yesterday evening for instance.

Gas ramped up to 18GW output by c8pm from sub 6 GW at 3pm to offset loss of solar - near 10GW at 3pm.

And wind output c2.2 GW from 30GW theoretical  - an even lower 1.41GW at 8am this morning - sub 5% of theoretical installed 30GW hit last Aug..

Yet at other times wind can just about produce that 18GW on its own like say in Dec 24 when weekly ave over 19GW - and suspect some of that throttled  by grid capacity - even if winter weekly  ave more like 12GW  and summer more like 7GW

Look at say last Dec / Jan - but at a lower level even in summer and you will see the issue.

https://grid.iamkate.com/

Scroll down and look at generation over last 24 hours

Select last year instead and then look at generation by source  wind green gas orange solar yellow click or hover over / on graph for figures  - and youll see them switch in and out vying for same demand.

That's two systems physically present and available to act but only when can despite the demand in terms of renewables and when needed to meet the same overall typical demand.
 
They aren't ramping in out according to ability to derate and match demand as of old - yesterday evening gas reached its peak despite demand having reduced by 3GW - gas is now having to regularly give way to solar and wind on windier days at typical demand.

Gas plant is therefore used on ave to lower share of capacity which of course has a direct impact on operating costs.  And so pricing to us.  If not per kWh wholesale in other balancing / standby event costs.

We aren't actually using significantly less peak non renewables generation.

We're just using less on average.

But need to maintain the plants for the peaks to replace the renewable troughs.

So two generation systems - one weather dependent - the other not - supplying a share of the same total demand.

One when it can, conventional stepping in when renewables cannot. 

Sounds pretty much like two in parallel to me. For a large chunk of uk demand - obviously when excluding core like currently non load following nuclear from total daily demand.

None of this changes the fact your bold assertion that you cannot run two systems in parallel is patently not true. Even if you make the distinction between weather and non weather dependent energy sources that doesn't change the fact that already, today, now, this minute we're actually doing what you say cannot be done. So I maintain my view that what you say is patently and obviously not true.

Not meant as an insult - simply me boldly asserting that I think your bold assertion is nonsense. It doesn't matter how many statistics you point to or how much you write about this. It's ridiculous in my view to say that something that is already being done can't be done.

p.s. I guess your opening question was rhetorical but in case not the answer is a resounding yes. I see no need to demonstrate that though because it wasn't my intention to insult you : smile

michaels

Scot_39 said:

mmmmikey said:
...

@Scot_39 if you open your mind, pause and think about it you will realise that your assertion that "You cannot maintain two generation systems largely in parallel" is patently and very obviously complete and utter nonsense. 

Could you be any more insulting ?

Open your mind and put yourself in say the place of a gas plant operator in the UK today - one being asked to invest in their upkeep or even replacement.

Of course we have had multiple generation sources and even overcapicity - unpredictable demand, summer vs winter one obvious reason - but even conventional plant has outages.

But gas plants are now ramping in and out daily and by 10 GW plus even in low demand days as solar and renewables take over when can.

It's a fundamental difference in generation behaviour - and the utilisation level for many conventional plant - which of course impacts their costs.

Others will put into standby rather than generate a share of low demand and then you get the spike to spin up the media made a large fuss about in Jan  when wind again failed to produce typical output - only c10% of theoretical capacity.


Take yesterday evening for instance.

Gas ramped up to 18GW output by c8pm from sub 6 GW at 3pm to offset loss of solar - near 10GW at 3pm.

And wind output c2.2 GW from 30GW theoretical  - an even lower 1.41GW at 8am this morning - sub 5% of theoretical installed 30GW hit last Aug..

Yet at other times wind can just about produce that 18GW on its own like say in Dec 24 when weekly ave over 19GW - and suspect some of that throttled  by grid capacity - even if winter weekly  ave more like 12GW  and summer more like 7GW

Look at say last Dec / Jan - but at a lower level even in summer and you will see the issue.

https://grid.iamkate.com/

Scroll down and look at generation over last 24 hours

Select last year instead and then look at generation by source  wind green gas orange solar yellow click or hover over / on graph for figures  - and youll see them switch in and out vying for same demand.

That's two systems physically present and available to act but only when can despite the demand in terms of renewables and when needed to meet the same overall typical demand.
 
They aren't ramping in out according to ability to derate and match demand as of old - yesterday evening gas reached its peak despite demand having reduced by 3GW - gas is now having to regularly give way to solar and wind on windier days at typical demand.

Gas plant is therefore used on ave to lower share of capacity which of course has a direct impact on operating costs.  And so pricing to us.  If not per kWh wholesale in other balancing / standby event costs.

We aren't actually using significantly less peak non renewables generation.

We're just using less on average.

But need to maintain the plants for the peaks to replace the renewable troughs.

So two generation systems - one weather dependent - the other not - supplying a share of the same total demand.

One when it can, conventional stepping in when renewables cannot. 

Sounds pretty much like two in parallel to me. For a large chunk of uk demand - obviously when excluding core like currently non load following nuclear from total daily demand.

As above, well spotted but the NESO calcs factor in the utilisation factor for the required gas 'peakers' - are you challenging their assumptions or calculations?