The UK grid is already solved we do not need more mass PV/Tidal/Nuclear/Wind

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  • GreatApe
    GreatApe Posts: 4,452 Forumite
    Martyn1981 wrote: »
    Plus of course most interconnectors are two way. Year before last the UK was burning coal like crazy to help keep France powered up due to the number of nuclear reactors that were down due to problems.

    Going forward France is planning to reduce the percentage of leccy from nuclear down to 50% (if nuclear is an economic choice, which it no longer is), so we can expect a drop in exports from them. Plus French exports are mainly due to the fact that nuclear can't demand follow, so they need to dump excess (at very low prices). France could easily drop to net zero over the year, in the future.

    Interconnectors are two way but we know for high probability both Norway and France will be net exporters over the year. That is what their governments and the builders think and say. Who are you to say otherwise?

    And in the near term at least, the next 10 years, France will definitely export MORE electricity
    If there comes a point when net imports from France drop we can then build more wind farms if necessary but there is no point doing it before they are needed.
  • ed110220
    ed110220 Posts: 1,474
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    Further to my first post, this pie chart should show how much further we have to go to decarbonise UK energy:-

    energy_consumption.png

    Often we forget that electricity is only one form of energy, but the majority of primary energy consumption is not used for electricity. Other big uses are oil (mainly for transport fuels, virtually none for electricity generation in this country) and gas (used for heating and industrial uses as well as electricity).

    Ultimately we need to replace all that oil and gas with renewables... unless there is some radical and unexpected development nuclear is dead for new projects so it's got to be wind, solar, perhaps tidal if that can be made economic. Still think we have enough renewable generation yet?! The idea is absurd.
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  • GreatApe
    GreatApe Posts: 4,452 Forumite
    ed110220 wrote: »
    Further to my first post, this pie chart should show how much further we have to go to decarbonise UK energy:-

    energy_consumption.png

    Often we forget that electricity is only one form of energy, but the majority of primary energy consumption is not used for electricity. Other big uses are oil (mainly for transport fuels, virtually none for electricity generation in this country) and gas (used for heating and industrial uses as well as electricity).

    Ultimately we need to replace all that oil and gas with renewables... unless there is some radical and unexpected development nuclear is dead for new projects so it's got to be wind, solar, perhaps tidal if that can be made economic. Still think we have enough renewable generation yet?! The idea is absurd.


    Yes but at this stage installing more wind farms isn't going to decarb oil or gas (gas outside the electricity generation sector)

    This thread is about the fact that over the next few years the UK grid is going to go very green very rapidly. Mostly thanks to the 5.4GW new links to France and the 2.8GW links to Norway and also the ~2GW/yr of offshore wind that will be deployed in the next decade

    About 85% of electricity will be non fossil non biomass by as soon as 2027 which is just 7.5 years away. And that figure could be achieved even sooner if the reactors that are going offline 2023 and 2024 are given a 5 year life extension

    Adding more wind farms or solar panels at this stage won't make the UK grid more green because those sources of power can not be directed to fill the 15% that will be biomass or natural gas. They will end up mostly curtailing domestic or foreign non fossil fuels.

    In the same way that building a solar farm in France is silly because it's a waste it just curtails clean nuclear better to spend the money in insulating french homes or whatever

    What is needed in the uk is to switch policy to building interconnections especially to Norway and France but also Germany and other EU nations
    Interconnectors can fill in gaps and are controllable.

    So the 'green cheerleaders' should stop fighting for more wind or solar (beyond the 30GW offshore by 2030 commitment) and should fight for 2 more links to Norway and at least 2 more links to France (beyond the 5.4GW already under construction or about to start. Two links to France starting construction next year and two under construction start up in the next 6-12 months). Those 4 additional links with say 6GW capacity can do a lot to fill in the gaps especially the links to Norway


    Regarding your other points yes it's true there is a LOT of work to be done for oil and gas but there is a pathway to this

    Oil (transport) will be solved by self drive software
    Half sized robo EVs will reduce transport energy needs by almost 90%
    That is mostly a cost free efficiency gain and it will be rapid
    So the Americans and Chinese will solve transport let them do it

    60 miles per KWh electric scooters
    10 miles per kWH shared EVs
    1 mile per KWh HGVs and Hugh speed coach (120mph) to replace domestic flights


    Natural gas used for heating will have to be electrified
    This won't be anytime soon
    But when a gas boiler ban comes in (for existing homes as new homes are a small number) then additional offshore wind will have to be built to power them. This won't be anytime soon most likely some time in the 2030s and will take 10-15 years to convert 40+ million gas boilers

    It's also far more difficult than transport.
    Transport might add 20% to grid demand and evenly throughout the year
    Heating will add at least 100% to grid demand but mostly concentrated in the colder 4 months a huge huge huge challenge but one that we won't face until the 2030s by which time hopefully offshore wind power will be sub £30/MWh
  • ed110220
    ed110220 Posts: 1,474
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    GreatApe wrote: »
    Yes but at this stage installing more wind farms isn't going to decarb oil or gas (gas outside the electricity generation sector)

    This thread is about the fact that over the next few years the UK grid is going to go very green very rapidly. Mostly thanks to the 5.4GW new links to France and the 2.8GW links to Norway and also the ~2GW/yr of offshore wind that will be deployed in the next decade

    About 85% of electricity will be non fossil non biomass by as soon as 2027 which is just 7.5 years away. And that figure could be achieved even sooner if the reactors that are going offline 2023 and 2024 are given a 5 year life extension

    Adding more wind farms or solar panels at this stage won't make the UK grid more green because those sources of power can not be directed to fill the 15% that will be biomass or natural gas. They will end up mostly curtailing domestic or foreign non fossil fuels.

    In the same way that building a solar farm in France is silly because it's a waste it just curtails clean nuclear better to spend the money in insulating french homes or whatever

    What is needed in the uk is to switch policy to building interconnections especially to Norway and France but also Germany and other EU nations
    Interconnectors can fill in gaps and are controllable.

    So the 'green cheerleaders' should stop fighting for more wind or solar (beyond the 30GW offshore by 2030 commitment) and should fight for 2 more links to Norway and at least 2 more links to France (beyond the 5.4GW already under construction or about to start. Two links to France starting construction next year and two under construction start up in the next 6-12 months). Those 4 additional links with say 6GW capacity can do a lot to fill in the gaps especially the links to Norway


    Regarding your other points yes it's true there is a LOT of work to be done for oil and gas but there is a pathway to this

    Oil (transport) will be solved by self drive software
    Half sized robo EVs will reduce transport energy needs by almost 90%
    That is mostly a cost free efficiency gain and it will be rapid
    So the Americans and Chinese will solve transport let them do it

    60 miles per KWh electric scooters
    10 miles per kWH shared EVs
    1 mile per KWh HGVs and Hugh speed coach (120mph) to replace domestic flights


    Natural gas used for heating will have to be electrified
    This won't be anytime soon
    But when a gas boiler ban comes in (for existing homes as new homes are a small number) then additional offshore wind will have to be built to power them. This won't be anytime soon most likely some time in the 2030s and will take 10-15 years to convert 40+ million gas boilers

    It's also far more difficult than transport.
    Transport might add 20% to grid demand and evenly throughout the year
    Heating will add at least 100% to grid demand but mostly concentrated in the colder 4 months a huge huge huge challenge but one that we won't face until the 2030s by which time hopefully offshore wind power will be sub £30/MWh

    Why do you think increasing low carbon electricity generation here will displace low carbon generation in neighbouring countries? Given how implausible this sounds, I think you need to produce good evidence for this.

    For example if we increase our low carbon electricity generation and rely less on France's nuclear surplus, the latter can displace fossil fuels in France's neighbours. Eg by causing Germany to burn less brown coal. If we import less from the Netherlands, we'll reduce fossil fuel burning in the Netherlands and Germany which has a large net export to the Netherlands. If we increase our generation and export to Ireland we'll displace Irish coal and gas burning. I'm not saying we don't need more interconnectors, but for their full economic and environmental benefits they need to be used for electricity exchange around Europe to enable a bigger total renewable share, not just for import as a substitute for generating electricity here.
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  • Solarchaser
    Solarchaser Posts: 1,649
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    Clean nuclear....... clean, nuclear.

    Does not compute!!

    We should definitely not be counting nuclear as a clean power.
    As well as the nuclear waste that comes with it, there is always the possibility of another reactor going boom.

    I'd personally be happier running gas turbine power than nuclear until tidal wind and solar can pick up the slack.
    And if these interconnects are gonna be so great, then we should be able to import and export to other countries due to our peak usage being an hour plus different to most of Europe.
    So eastern European countries will get their solar an hour plus before we do, so should be at work and also producing good solar when we are just starting our morning peak etc etc etc
    West central Scotland
    4kw sse since 2014 and 6.6kw wsw / ene split since 2019
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  • GreatApe
    GreatApe Posts: 4,452 Forumite
    ed110220 wrote: »
    Why do you think increasing low carbon electricity generation here will displace low carbon generation in neighbouring countries? Given how implausible this sounds, I think you need to produce good evidence for this.

    This already happens although admittedly very infrequently
    For instance some Sunday windy nights we get down towards 4GW natural gas fired power
    The grid doesn't want to go below that or rather it isn't possible at the moment to go below that so when the wind blows hard and demand is low what we do is turn down the French interconntors thus displacing french low carbon nuclear

    This isn't really a big problem because it's so infrequently done
    But given that we will have 8.2GW more interconntors come online over the next 4-5 years and will have 8-10GW more offshore wind in the same 4-5 years. The result will mean that on more occasions especially summer windy nights we will have too much non fossil generation so some of it will have to be curtailed. As mentioned this already happens very infrequently but it will get more frequent

    This is one of the reasons why interconntors especially to Norway are so important
    Instead of turning off wind farms we will export upto 2.8GW to Norway on the two links under construction/planned and ideally we should build another two links worth of 2.8GW

    BTW generation is also regional so we have situation where in Scotland wind is curtailed for times. This will grow in problem as more wind is installed. The counter is grid upgrades and Interconnectors which are being built

    For example if we increase our low carbon electricity generation and rely less on France's nuclear surplus, the latter can displace fossil fuels in France's neighbours.

    It's not that simple

    For instance there are about a dozen reactors in Northern France pretty close to Southern England
    If France has an excess of nuclear power in the summer (which it does) it isn't necessarily possible to transfer say 5 GW of the excess from the North coast reactors to say Spain. Likewise it isn't easy to transfer the power from the central or Southern parts of the country north to the UK

    As such it's easier faster cheaper to transfer the north cost excess to the UK wholesale Ch is what is going to happen (2 X 1GW links coming online in the next 12 months. 1 X 1.4GW & 1 X 2GW links starting construction next year and will come online 2-3 years after that)

    Also France already has significant links to it's neighbours but Germany subs lignite coal so much that often french nuclear EDF can't sell for below subsidy lignite German coal. At least for the near future (next 10 years) France has excess electricity for anyone who wants it Inc significantly more for the UK

    Beyond 10 years if necessary we can build more then
    Eg by causing Germany to burn less brown coal. If we import less from the Netherlands, we'll reduce fossil fuel burning in the Netherlands and Germany which has a large net export to the Netherlands. If we increase our generation and export to Ireland we'll displace Irish coal and gas burning.

    Yes I agree this could happen if the Germans closed their coal plants rapidly
    In fact this would be better overall
    Germany could take offline all its lignite over the next three years and the result in France would probably be some 50TWh more exported nuclear to make up for it. But subsidies lignite isn't being turned off in Germany.... instead they are turning their own nukes off and keeping the coal

    Plus as mentioned previously geographical location is also important
    Some of France's reactors are only a few dozen miles from the uk
    Their biggest nuclear plant is just 30 miles from England while to get to Germany without crossing other nations would be about 10 X that distance. Their north west nuclear plants for example flamanville is about 100 miles from England but multiple times that from Spain Germany Italy so the UK is much more realistic to take their excess
    15 Reactors of 17.4GW are on the French north coast close to England far awAy from Germany

    The UK-France links which will total 7.4GW will mostly import from those nukes
    I'm not saying we don't need more interconnectors, but for their full economic and environmental benefits they need to be used for electricity exchange around Europe to enable a bigger total renewable share, not just for import as a substitute for generating electricity here.

    That would require massive more amounts of often unpopular internal transmission lines.
    The 17.4GW of nuclear capacity 'a stones throw away' from England (say 100km away) isn't going to transmit excess power to Spain or Italy 1,000km away or to Germany 700km away especially considering to us it's under the sea but to Germany Italy Spain it will likely have to be overground

    Also France is building a new link to Italy and likely will another to Spain but the power for them will come from reactors and hydro much closer to those countries not the reactors in Northern France

    So it more complicated than you think
    But the good news is we (England) are close to 17.4GW of French reactors and have a 2GW link. 2GW under construction and 3.4GW starting construction next year. With a modest carbon tax we could import 15% of out electricity needs from France and another 5% from Norway. This is good news it's cheap clean power
  • GreatApe
    GreatApe Posts: 4,452 Forumite
    Clean nuclear....... clean, nuclear.

    Does not compute!!

    We should definitely not be counting nuclear as a clean power.
    As well as the nuclear waste that comes with it, there is always the possibility of another reactor going boom.

    I'd personally be happier running gas turbine power than nuclear until tidal wind and solar can pick up the slack.
    And if these interconnects are gonna be so great, then we should be able to import and export to other countries due to our peak usage being an hour plus different to most of Europe.
    So eastern European countries will get their solar an hour plus before we do, so should be at work and also producing good solar when we are just starting our morning peak etc etc etc


    There is no real additional risk
    The French just don't turn down their nukes as often
    Either way interconntors are needed
    It's better to import French nuclear than to use CCGTs

    If the French decide to go away from nuclear they will first have to build lots of wind power before they turn their nukes off. What this means is France will have to export even more power (mix of nuclear wind hydro) in the short to medium term and finally after a long period they can start to turn their nukes off

    So we are in a win win position
    If anything the 7.4GW of links to France should be increased to 10GW and the 2.8GW to Norway doubled again to 5GW

    BTW you will get your wish
    UK is closing couple reactors in 2023, couple in 2024, couple in 2028 and then four in 2030 so that we will be left with just 3 reactors in 2030 assuming the dual reactors under construction are finished. One might also come offline 2035 leaving just two... Or none if HPC is abandoned
    Although I think that would be silly we should keep the current nukes until the 2030s and keep the PWRs until the 2040s min
  • GreatApe
    GreatApe Posts: 4,452 Forumite
    ed110220 wrote: »
    For example if we increase our low carbon electricity generation and rely less on France's nuclear surplus, the latter can displace fossil fuels in France's neighbours. Eg by causing Germany to burn less coal


    Shorter answer

    17.4GW of French nuclear is on the north coast close to energy hungry south England and far away from other big energy users like Germany Italy Spain so transmitting that a few dozen miles north is what is planned rather than transmitting that 1000km south to Spain or 1000km south east to Southern Germany or Italy

    UK will have 7.4GW link to France or more accurately Northern France
    Transmission system isn't infinite there isn't necessarily the capacity to move so much power from northern France to Southern Germany or Italy or Spain. In the same way the Germans are having to build expensive slow transmission lines to take power from North Germany to South Germany

    Plus these lines will be two way. It will be something like 80% import 10% export 10% neither so about 70% net imports.
  • Martyn1981
    Martyn1981 Posts: 14,713
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    ed110220 wrote: »
    Further to my first post, this pie chart should show how much further we have to go to decarbonise UK energy:-

    energy_consumption.png

    Often we forget that electricity is only one form of energy, but the majority of primary energy consumption is not used for electricity. Other big uses are oil (mainly for transport fuels, virtually none for electricity generation in this country) and gas (used for heating and industrial uses as well as electricity).

    Ultimately we need to replace all that oil and gas with renewables... unless there is some radical and unexpected development nuclear is dead for new projects so it's got to be wind, solar, perhaps tidal if that can be made economic. Still think we have enough renewable generation yet?! The idea is absurd.

    I'm pretty much just guessing here, but I think a future leccy figure could be around 220% of today's, assuming a large majority of transport and space heating going leccy, and crucially the space heating has to be heat pumps, or the increase will be far, far higher.

    That's based on doubling, plus 10% losses (direct or through storage).

    Even if we assume that bio-gas will displace some FF gas for space heating, there will still be an enormous amount of leccy consumed, either for transport/mechanisation in anaerobic digestion farms, or for H2 production and or H2 plus CO2 capture for bio-methane.

    So using an approx figure of 42% today (35% RE plus 7% HPC nuclear), we need an ickle bit more to reach 220%, but at least we have a virtually unlimited potential from off-shore wind as the back-bone to UK RE, given its potential to provide 10 to 11 times our future needs (and costs are closing in on subsidy free).

    The UK is the Saudi Arabia of wind energy
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  • markin
    markin Posts: 3,808
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    edited 10 July 2019 at 12:39PM
    How many gas boilers are sold in the UK?
    The UK recorded sales of 1.6 million units in 2017, remaining in third position in the list of world markets. With over 26 million boilers installed,
    So around 16 years to swap over, So adding power for 1.6m electric boilers or Heat pumps to the grid every year could be a challenge if we don't get a head start on it, And that number could snowball if its just as cheap and less maintenance for landlords and home users.



    China is now by far the world’s largest gas boiler market, with 4.6 million units sold in 2017. The Chinese market is dominated by wall mounted non-condensing gas boilers, accounting for 90% of sales.
    https://www.phamnews.co.uk/global-gas-boiler-sales-revealed/
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