Best cheap energy provider of renewables?

Scot_39

Recent live snapshot from grid.iamkate.com c10:40pm

c28.5GW demand

UK renewables and hydro - 14.5%

 - include the Norway link - mainly hydro I guess - add another 3.9%.

Biomass = 7.6%  - green - really ? (at best long term - in short term still emits CO2 etc), another con / environmental disaster if (as per Panorama) from primary forest destruction.

Nearly 75% total fossil and nuclear. 

Coal, Gas 59.3%

Nuclear 14.5 %

Last year - fossil fuels 43 %, nuclear 16% renewables 35.4%

Thats the reality behind 100% renewable energy promises.

BUFF

For the whole market currently, yes - there isn't enough supply available to be 100% green for everybody.
However, it is possible for a company/companies to only buy green energy (up to the limit of what is actually available) for their customers.

barker77

Scot_39 said:

Recent live snapshot from grid.iamkate.com c10:40pm

c28.5GW demand

UK renewables and hydro - 14.5%

 - include the Norway link - mainly hydro I guess - add another 3.9%.

Biomass = 7.6%  - green - really ? (at best long term - in short term still emits CO2 etc), another con / environmental disaster if (as per Panorama) from primary forest destruction.

Nearly 75% total fossil and nuclear. 

Coal, Gas 59.3%

Nuclear 14.5 %

Last year - fossil fuels 43 %, nuclear 16% renewables 35.4%

Thats the reality behind 100% renewable energy promises.

These are silly comments though. Clearly we are in a transition but buying energy from companies who by buying directly from renewable sources and providers who then build more solar etc clearly leads to great amounts of renewable generation than not. 

Scot_39

Real engineering - it's not silly at all.

Take the week long Dec cold snap when wind was delivering around  3% of demand at one point on the Sunday - low around c1.3-1.4GW iirc. when demand peaked over 40GW.

Do you think right then that renewables were supplying all the people who were contracted on 100% renewables contracts ?

Sure they can and do buy more renewables certificates etc when the renewables are delivering to average it out, and so every kW power over time = energy / kWh you have paid for has been green, but doesn't mean you have been personally supplied with / used it.

So yes it contributes to total green demand.

Simple example -
You cannot use 5kW of available green power in a 3kW kettle one day to make up for say the 2kW of that 3kW demand being supplied  from gas week before.
But the energy suppliers can buy RECs for the energy equiv of the 5kW that day to balance 2kW from gas week before, and so for 2kW of power that your not actually using.

[Deleted User]

barker77 said:

Scot_39 said:

Recent live snapshot from grid.iamkate.com c10:40pm

c28.5GW demand

UK renewables and hydro - 14.5%

 - include the Norway link - mainly hydro I guess - add another 3.9%.

Biomass = 7.6%  - green - really ? (at best long term - in short term still emits CO2 etc), another con / environmental disaster if (as per Panorama) from primary forest destruction.

Nearly 75% total fossil and nuclear. 

Coal, Gas 59.3%

Nuclear 14.5 %

Last year - fossil fuels 43 %, nuclear 16% renewables 35.4%

Thats the reality behind 100% renewable energy promises.

These are silly comments though. Clearly we are in a transition but buying energy from companies who by buying directly from renewable sources and providers who then build more solar etc clearly leads to great amounts of renewable generation than not. 

Renewable energy is infinitely variable in terms of its production. For a country to be powered exclusively from renewables would require massive over capacity and/ or extensive energy storage facilities (eg; batteries or H2 converters). Our Grid infrastructure also needs to be improved to get Scottish wind energy to the Isle of Wight.

If all the above was that easy, why are Governments across Europe favouring nuclear power as a sustainable power source?

70sbudgie

Scot_39 said:

Recent live snapshot from grid.iamkate.com c10:40pm

c28.5GW demand

UK renewables and hydro - 14.5%

 - include the Norway link - mainly hydro I guess - add another 3.9%.

Biomass = 7.6%  - green - really ? (at best long term - in short term still emits CO2 etc), another con / environmental disaster if (as per Panorama) from primary forest destruction.

Nearly 75% total fossil and nuclear. 

Coal, Gas 59.3%

Nuclear 14.5 %

Last year - fossil fuels 43 %, nuclear 16% renewables 35.4%

Thats the reality behind 100% renewable energy promises.

We still have a long way to go, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't modify our behaviours to push that progress, either by choosing a supplier that encourages renewables generation* or by changing our consumption habits to use less electricity when fossil fuel generation dominates and topping up when there is plenty of renewable.

*there are two options to do this, a 100% renwables supplier who buys their electricity through PPAs or someone like Octopus that is transparent about how they purchase REGCs and doing other things to actively increase the proportion of renwables.

"Green" electricity can either be low carbon (which includes nuclear and excludes biomass) or renewable (which includes biomass but excludes nuclear). Of course some technologies are both.

Scot_39

What you call progress others have called near futile and many more economically damaging / expensive green idealism - that only the middle classes and rich can afford.

Even if we installed five times current and recently licensed renewables capacity so say c40GW by 2027 to say 200GW - at 3% output lows - on a like for like basis - that 200GW would deliver just 6GW - or about 15% of the UK current winter daily peak demand - when power is needed to keep homes warm and lights on.

Renewables without storage - are NOT a solution to the UK's energy security.

It's an energy model that has repeatedly failed us in past - and will repeatedly fail us again - arguably more so as we lose more and more stable base load generation from coal and nuclear in coming years.

Continuing blindly down the same path - despite that evidence - is actually the "silly" thing to do.

And even if we saved all of our c1% of global CO2 emissions, the growth from likes of India, China and Russia - will far outweigh it.

Whilst we impovorish the working classes and drive our heavy power use employers to the wall, they will enrich and grow theirs.