First blackout of the wind power heavy system

12357…15

Comments

  • gefnew
    gefnew Posts: 876 Forumite
    Name Dropper First Post First Anniversary
    not the uk industry
  • pile-o-stone
    pile-o-stone Posts: 396 Forumite
    edgex wrote: »
    Have you actually read the entire article?
    Did you understand it?

    I had a look, it said

    "The first generator to disconnect was a gas fired plant at Little Barford at 4.58pm. Two minutes later Hornsea Offshore wind farm seems to have disconnected.

    "This might be linked to disturbance caused by first generator failing; might not.

    "We will need to wait for National Grid's full technical investigation to get to bottom of that."

    Interesting bit at the end. The so-called ‘experts’ at the national grid should pick up the phone and call Great Ape as he has already diagnosed the problem. Why are they wasting time and resources on an investigation when they could simply subscribe to this thread?
    5.18 kWp PV systems (3.68 E/W & 1.5 E).
    Solar iBoost+ to two immersion heaters on 300L thermal store.
    Vegan household with 100% composted food waste
    Mini orchard planted and vegetable allotment created.
  • Martyn1981
    Martyn1981 Posts: 14,762 Forumite
    Name Dropper Photogenic First Anniversary First Post
    pile-o-stone wrote: »
    I had a look, it said

    "The first generator to disconnect was a gas fired plant at Little Barford at 4.58pm. Two minutes later Hornsea Offshore wind farm seems to have disconnected.

    "This might be linked to disturbance caused by first generator failing; might not.

    "We will need to wait for National Grid's full technical investigation to get to bottom of that."

    Interesting bit at the end. The so-called ‘experts’ at the national grid should pick up the phone and call Great Ape as he has already diagnosed the problem. Why are they wasting time and resources on an investigation when they could simply subscribe to this thread?

    The same happened in Aus a year or so back. Whilst wind generation was not at fault at all, it still comes up frequently on RE news articles comments as a way to bash RE.

    Expect the same to happen here, this will not be the last thread started to spread FUD. :(
    Mart. Cardiff. 5.58 kWp PV systems (3.58 ESE & 2.0 WNW)

    For general PV advice please see the PV FAQ thread on the Green & Ethical Board.
  • mmmmikey
    mmmmikey Posts: 1,634 Forumite
    First Post Name Dropper First Anniversary Combo Breaker
    Much as it pains me to admit it, having read this a few times, I think there is some merit in the original post.


    I think the point being made is that although wind generators are no more or less likely to fail than, say, gas generators, the impact of a wind generator failing is more significant.


    If you have ten gas generators delivering power and one of them fails, operators at the other nine put an extra 50p in the gas meter and they generate a bit more to make up the shortfall whilst the issue is resolved.


    However, if you have ten wind generators delivering power and one fails, you've lost 10% of your power and you're stuffed because you can't make the wind blow more on the other nine. Hence the greater need for batteries or some other form of backup.


    Having said that, since a wind farm is a collection of individual wind turbines it should be possible to design a solution that removes most of the single points of failure and makes them inherently more reliable, reducing the need for backup. And the backup only needs to last long enough to bring another form of generation online or ramp up power generation somewhere else.


    So I certainly don't think that wind as a power source is dead. To put a positive spin on this, this incident does show just how successful the growth of the wind industry has been.
  • EricMears
    EricMears Posts: 3,232 Forumite
    First Anniversary Name Dropper First Post
    gefnew wrote: »
    not the uk industry
    What on Earth does this post mean ?

    It may be a reply to a previous post - but it's not clear which one.
    NE Derbyshire.4kWp S Facing 17.5deg slope (dormer roof).24kWh of Pylontech batteries with Lux controller BEV : Hyundai Ioniq5
  • GreatApe
    GreatApe Posts: 4,452 Forumite
    mmmmikey wrote: »
    Much as it pains me to admit it, having read this a few times, I think there is some merit in the original post.


    I think the point being made is that although wind generators are no more or less likely to fail than, say, gas generators, the impact of a wind generator failing is more significant.


    If you have ten gas generators delivering power and one of them fails, operators at the other nine put an extra 50p in the gas meter and they generate a bit more to make up the shortfall whilst the issue is resolved.


    However, if you have ten wind generators delivering power and one fails, you've lost 10% of your power and you're stuffed because you can't make the wind blow more on the other nine. Hence the greater need for batteries or some other form of backup.


    Having said that, since a wind farm is a collection of individual wind turbines it should be possible to design a solution that removes most of the single points of failure and makes them inherently more reliable, reducing the need for backup. And the backup only needs to last long enough to bring another form of generation online or ramp up power generation somewhere else.


    So I certainly don't think that wind as a power source is dead. To put a positive spin on this, this incident does show just how successful the growth of the wind industry has been.



    I've already said this doesn't mean wind power is dead or can't work it just means wind power developers should be forced to also build some level of batteries either at the farm or somewhere else on the grid to allow for a stable grid. Else a few of these types of blackouts will mean the political end of intermittent supply if not the technical end. No one will accept blackouts irrespective of global claim-it-change

    This will of course add a significant cost to wind farms and their bids will have to be higher to reflect a more true cost of intermittent supply. So far they have been freeloading on many ways this will have to end as their hidden costs will become more and more obvious as intermittent supply increases on the grid

    However my bet is this hidden cost is socialised as the nationalnal grid will be forced to make the grid resilient and so all generators will be forced to pay for this when it should be purely born by the wind farms
  • pile-o-stone
    pile-o-stone Posts: 396 Forumite
    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-power-cut-cause-national-grid-wind-gas-energy-latest-a9051016.html

    "UK power cut: Wind generation not to blame for outage that hit one million, National Grid boss says"
    5.18 kWp PV systems (3.68 E/W & 1.5 E).
    Solar iBoost+ to two immersion heaters on 300L thermal store.
    Vegan household with 100% composted food waste
    Mini orchard planted and vegetable allotment created.
  • JKenH
    JKenH Posts: 4,792 Forumite
    First Anniversary Name Dropper First Post
    pile-o-stone wrote: »
    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-power-cut-cause-national-grid-wind-gas-energy-latest-a9051016.html

    "UK power cut: Wind generation not to blame for outage that hit one million, National Grid boss says"


    I couldn’t get that link to open but looking on google I found references to the power cut in several papers 2 days ago. What he actually appears to have said is the power loss event did “not appear to be due to wind generation reducing owing to reduced wind speed”. I don’t know whether there is any significance in that qualification. Perhaps the Inedpendent report which I can’t access clarifies this.

    I read elsewhere (Shropshire Star)

    “Professor Tim Green, Co-director of the Energy Futures Laboratory, Imperial College London, said he believed it was a gas fired plant and wind farm that had disconnected from the grid.

    He said: “[The] first generator to disconnect was a gas fired plant at Little Barford at 16:58.

    “Two minutes later Hornsea Offshore wind farm seems to have disconnected.

    “This would seem to be a technical failure [or] error. [It] might be linked to disturbance caused by first generator failing – might not.

    “Will need to wait for National Grid’s full technical investigation to get to bottom of that.

    “There was a lot of wind power today [Friday] and consequently less gas used. A system with little gas plant running does need careful management because when generators fail the frequency responds more quickly.”
    Northern Lincolnshire. 7.8 kWp system, (4.2 kw west facing panels , 3.6 kw east facing), Solis inverters, Solar IBoost water heater, Mitsubishi SRK35ZS-S and SRK20ZS-S Wall Mounted Inverter Heat Pumps, ex Nissan Leaf owner)
  • Martyn1981
    Martyn1981 Posts: 14,762 Forumite
    Name Dropper Photogenic First Anniversary First Post
    edited 12 August 2019 at 2:44PM
    mmmmikey wrote: »

    However, if you have ten wind generators delivering power and one fails, you've lost 10% of your power and you're stuffed because you can't make the wind blow more on the other nine. Hence the greater need for batteries or some other form of backup.

    I think that's a misunderstanding of the situation. In reality the opposite is true.

    On this occasion the power from a whole wind farm was lost. That can't happen from a wind turbine point of view. You may lose one, and I'm not sure this is true, but perhaps another couple who are linked via it(?), but the power reduction is small, since a wind farm is modular, and may have 100's of WT's.

    So the fact that all the power was lost means that there was a failure in the transmission system.

    Now by all means point to it being a system connected to a wind farm, but that's almost an irrelevance if you think about it, as a transmission failure could bring down a gas power station too, but the loss of one or all steam turbines at the gas powerstation will be a singular bigger loss, than that of a wind turbine, or a string of PV panels.

    mmmmikey wrote: »
    Having said that, since a wind farm is a collection of individual wind turbines it should be possible to design a solution that removes most of the single points of failure and makes them inherently more reliable, reducing the need for backup. And the backup only needs to last long enough to bring another form of generation online or ramp up power generation somewhere else.

    TBH no need to design a solution, they are already built this way, that's why we get official commissioning dates for wind farms sometimes years after they actually start delivering leccy to the grid.
    Mart. Cardiff. 5.58 kWp PV systems (3.58 ESE & 2.0 WNW)

    For general PV advice please see the PV FAQ thread on the Green & Ethical Board.
  • JKenH
    JKenH Posts: 4,792 Forumite
    First Anniversary Name Dropper First Post
    Interesting article about the black out, particularly the data about the fall in output and the pumped storage hydropower response.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-09/london-blackout-occurred-amid-drop-in-wind-and-natural-gas-power
    Northern Lincolnshire. 7.8 kWp system, (4.2 kw west facing panels , 3.6 kw east facing), Solis inverters, Solar IBoost water heater, Mitsubishi SRK35ZS-S and SRK20ZS-S Wall Mounted Inverter Heat Pumps, ex Nissan Leaf owner)
This discussion has been closed.
★ ★ ★ Meet your Ambassadors

Categories

  • All Categories
  • 343.2K Banking & Borrowing
  • 250.1K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
  • 449.7K Spending & Discounts
  • 235.3K Work, Benefits & Business
  • 608K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
  • 173.1K Life & Family
  • 247.9K Travel & Transport
  • 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
  • 15.9K Discuss & Feedback
  • 15.1K Coronavirus Support Boards