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A CFD at average wholesale prices isn't subsidy free because wind will in theory be outputting not at average prices but at what prices are when the wind blows strong which will be below average prices.
Subsidy free would be no CFD at all
Likewise UK prices are inflated by the UK carbon tax
Plus the Interconnectors coming online over the next 4 years (8.2GW worth) will lower UK wholesale prices
Having said this wind power can and likely will get cheaper especially if the higher CF next gen turbines actually get their quoted 63% CFs
Interesting. I wonder how it compares with the more conventional use of solar to desalinate water which would be to generate electricity from solar PV and then to use it in another process to produce reverse osmosis water (basically water is forced under pressure through a selectively permeable membrane which allows water molecules to pass, but not dissolved salts etc). I've long thought it obvious that the world needs to produce more fresh water in arid sunny countries with energy from the sun. Eg Egypt is running out of water from the Nile, it's gone from the food exporter it was since the time of the Pharaohs to a net importer, living standards are stagnating leading to discontent and mass emigration. If they could produce more water like this it could be a significant part of the solution. Obviously there are plenty of other problems to fix but it should be a big part of the puzzle.
Yes a world super grid is one solution to the intermittent problem however it's quite unlike as we wouldn't want to be dependent on one country. With oil and now with gas it's tradeable so of for whatever reason say Iran is !!!!ed with us we just buy from Saudi and whoever Saudi was Gona sell to buys from Iran. Not possible with a fixed line into a fixed country or two
But the EU is lucky because offshore wind power produces more in the winter than the summer
40% CF overall but 30% summer 50% winter
What this means is if the EU had say 100GW of wind power we would get 30GW average summer 50GW average winter so more output when more is needed
Also Norway while not a total solution can be a partial solution to the UK perhaps as much as 10GW of seasonal storage
Most realistic of all is that we don't phase out Natural gas for a long time say 20+ years which gives us a lot of time to come up with ideas. Perhaps someone will figure out a cheap effective way to insulate homes and other buildings so the seasonal heating demand peak isn't so great
Nail, head & whack come to mind, but I think that's what you were conveying anyway! .... :cool:
Storage (and more importantly, strategic storage) really does need to be addressed if emissions reductions are to be taken seriously and that's the case even if long term schedulable renewable energy sources such as tidal or tidal flow solutions are introduced into the mix.
Not addressing this basic issue simply results in continued use of carbon based generation capacity to balance supply to demand even when a short-term shortfall occurs ... but then again, wouldn't maintaining the status quo suit the business model of a large slice of the UK's energy provision sector?! ...
HTH
Z
Presumably the Sahara sun is more reliable than the North Sea wind?
CF short hand for capacity factor
The Sahara sun produces more in our summer and less in our winter as it is the northern hemisphere, not what we want for seasonal heating
Also any HVDC lines will only operate at 25-30% of capacity (0 during the night 100% during noon average 25-30%). Maybe this can be increased to 50% with batteries but that gets expensive
Offshore wind is more realistic
Current technology means a 1GW offshore wind farm produces at 50% CF during the cold months
Spread them widely around the UK and you might have 75% correlation which means you will have the ability to meet about 67% of your heating needs allow a little curtailment and you get up towards 70-75% with the remainder being natural gas
Also we are looking at a figure of at least 50GW of electricity to meet seasonal and that's assuming heat pumps. So it's not 1 HVDC line to the Sahara it's more like 50 lines probably looking at a cost of £50-100 billion and the majority spent in another country. And some 200GW of solar PV to feed the line and some 1,000GWh of batteries to store that solar you are getting towards £400 billion for that mega project most of it spent in another country with added security risk..... We would achieve roughly the same amount of energy building 100GW of offshore wind power at closer to half that price and without the risk of relying on another country
Its more likely you'd accept a cold home/office/shop than to pay for the cost of 100% clean seasonal storage
You can have a mix of clean and dirty at a high but acceptable price though
Something like 70% offshore wind 30% dirty biomass for seasonal heating
Probably biomass far away in a power stations than in your home so as to save the neighborhood from the oh so dangerous wood burning fumes......
Sunshine hours in January: Sahara 290, London 60.
You guys will probably tell me otherwise, but wouldn't that be cheap enough to displace the single most carbon intensive element of UK's emissions: natural gas for home heating?
I don't think it's at all likely in the UK but it is a great idea for rapidly growing countries like China/India
In China they build 50 million new homes each year so could add district heating powered by low cost heat only Reactors. They can transition to heating via biomass or wind power at some point in the future so the district heating can still be used if a better solution of found
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/12/chinas-super-low-cost-heat-only-nuclear-plants.html
These reactors are much smaller and much less complex (obviously since your not generating electricity just low temp heat)