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  • Have we done renewables over 50% of grid supply yet?
  • mrmonkfinger
    Free Member

    Linky:

    Story on the beeb

    “on Wednesday lunchtime, power from wind, solar, hydro and wood pellet burning supplied 50.7% of UK energy.”

    Despite the brevity of the event, I R impressed.

    slowoldman
    Full Member

    Yes brief but a step in the right direction. The eco credentials of wood pellets seem to be a bit iffy though. Rather odd comment in that article “Critics of renewable energy sources will point to the disruption renewables cause to the established energy system”.

    craigxxl
    Free Member

    1% of demand was met by storage; this will have to increase hugely as the UK moves towards a low-carbon electricity system

    This is the big next step so we still have energy to use when the wind and solar supply isn’t high enough to meet demand.

    Big schemes like Cruachan Power Station would be more efficient than wind in my opinion and if they could be created in estuary’s to take advantage of tidal peaks to energise them and then realise during low tides to continue to create power.

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    blurty
    Full Member

    Rather odd comment in that article “Critics of renewable energy sources will point to the disruption renewables cause to the established energy system”.

    Renewables tend to cause voltage fluctuations in the grid; Gas/ Coal fired stations are needed at the moment to regulate this.

    http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032116303094

    Energy storage (Salt mines/ Power walls/ etc) will hopefully obviate this problem in time.

    ransos
    Free Member

    Big schemes like Cruachan Power Station would be more efficient than wind in my opinion

    Eh? Are you worried that wind turbines are going to slow down the rotation of the planet?

    deadkenny
    Free Member

    Thought we did it here on the last one a few weeks back, but maybe it was elsewhere. Anyway, typical cause is that some of the nukes have gone offline for maintenance and so the proportion generated by others is higher, briefly.

    scotroutes
    Full Member
    bigjim
    Full Member

    Some good news about offshore wind generation increasing and costs dropping recently.

    http://renews.biz/107357/wind-blows-price-down/
    http://renews.biz/107364/wind-top-in-uk/
    http://renews.biz/107339/cost-reduction-incredible/

    Eh? Are you worried that wind turbines are going to slow down the rotation of the planet?

    I think he means pump storage as a way of storing energy generated from wind and more tidal developments would be good. There’s limited scope for big hydro but it’s insane the government isn’t boosting tidal power more when as an island we’re surrounded by a massive tidal energy resource. Companies are looking to france and the far east now.

    tjagain
    Full Member

    On our recent wanderings around the highlands saw a few new small scale hydro schemes. I like them. Low impact to build ( no flooded valleys) and low visual impact in the installation.

    There simply isn’t the capacity to build significant amounts of pump storage in the UK / Scotland. I believe our capacity represents a few hours of consumption only. The solution to this is the north sea interconnect to Norway and join with their plans for significant new pump storage capacity

    Tidal flow is the future. the scottish government does not quite get the green thing and don’t have any significant money to invest. No way weatminster will invest. A real shame as we have some good designs ready to go and the infrastructure in place for distribution.

    blurty
    Full Member

    Some good news about offshore wind generation increasing and costs dropping recently.

    http://renews.biz/107357/wind-blows-price-down/
    http://renews.biz/107364/wind-top-in-uk/
    http://renews.biz/107339/cost-reduction-incredible/

    True enough, but the wind farm operators are also receiving subsidy of between £30 – £50 per MWH, on top of whatever they sell their energy into the grid at. This is not often mentioned in the press; without price support off-shore wind is not a viable investment.

    craigxxl
    Free Member

    Eh? Are you worried that wind turbines are going to slow down the rotation of the planet?

    No, I’m concerned that they do not work if there is no wind or have to be stopped if the wind is too high to protect them. When this happens they produce no energy.
    Tidal power is constant so long as we have a moon and the earth continues to rotate.
    I’ll take you comment as a blond moment as I’m sure you’re not really stupid.

    Northwind
    Full Member

    Apparently there’s a fair amount of potential to retool old hydro schemes as pump storage though, and increase the efficiency/output of those that exist. Still big jobs of course and ironically a lot of the existing infrastructure is listed but I think Sloy’s still slowly going ahead for conversion and there was a lot of talk about the Laggan-Treig connection a while back. But I suppose there’s also concern now about investing in old storage, if newer methods can overtake it.

    ransos – Member

    Eh? Are you worried that wind turbines are going to slow down the rotation of the planet?

    I’m more worried that if we build too many tidal generators it’ll pull the moon out of its orbit.

    bigjim
    Full Member

    True enough, but the wind farm operators are also receiving subsidy of between £30 – £50 per MWH, on top of whatever they sell their energy into the grid at. This is not often mentioned in the press; without price support off-shore wind is not a viable investment.

    are you getting confused about CfD?

    This year’s contracts should see wind prices below that of HInkley C – and for a shorter term.

    suburbanreuben
    Free Member

    Tidal flow is the future. the scottish government does not quite get the green thing and don’t have any significant money to invest. No way weatminster will invest. A real shame as we have some good designs ready to go and the infrastructure in place for distribution.

    Meygen, Europe’s largest tidal flow scheme, in the Pentland Firth is already up and running at a reduced initial capacity.
    http://www.meygen.com/

    ransos
    Free Member

    No, I’m concerned that they do not work if there is no wind or have to be stopped if the wind is too high to protect them. When this happens they produce no energy.

    I know what you were trying to say: that has nothing to do with efficiency.

    ransos
    Free Member

    I’m more worried that if we build too many tidal generators it’ll pull the moon out of its orbit.

    On the plus side, more solar panels could be a solution to global warming.

    ctk
    Free Member

    I’ve got a terrible memory but I remember some F1 bods were working on energy storage from the wheels movement (not from brakes) sounded like it could be transferrable to wind power.

    Get some F1 bods involved!

    TP
    Free Member

    Scotroutes is right, Scotland is way ahead. England should be ashamed on this one.

    blurty – As you’re an expert you best tell DONG

    irc
    Full Member

    There simply isn’t the capacity to build significant amounts of pump storage in the UK / Scotland. I believe our capacity represents a few hours of consumption only.

    Correct. The 4 major UK pump storage schemes store around 30GWH – less than 1 hour of UK peak demand. The max power they can produce at one time is 2.8GW – less than 10% of demand right now.

    https://www.withouthotair.com/c26/page_191.shtml

    bigjim
    Full Member

    Scotroutes is right, Scotland is way ahead. England should be ashamed on this one.

    Not really anything to be ashamed about, up here we have more space, wind, rain, hydro, etc, etc. The UK as a whole could do a lot more, including Scotland, although alex Salmond was really keen to develop the industry, the succeeding cabinet wasn’t and in the last few years a lot of developers and developments have gone under.

    the-muffin-man
    Full Member

    Scotroutes is right, Scotland is way ahead. England should be ashamed on this one.

    Yeah but Scottish weather is shite! Ideal for green power generation! 😀

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    True dat.

    tjagain
    Full Member

    Northwind – I had wondered about that. Tech must have moved on since the original installations and it would seem sense that modern generators would make more ‘leccy from the same amount of water

    craigxxl
    Free Member

    I think most have had their generators upgraded since they were first commissioned.
    My mention of tidal energy and pump hydro power stations was some kind of hybrid using the tidal flows to increase their efficiency rather than just the tidal turbines like Pentland Firth that suburbanreuben refers to.

    tjagain
    Full Member

    that would need lagoons – limited places possible and also visual / environmental impact and they silt up. Tidal flow is better

    jam-bo
    Full Member

    tidal flow is better

    If you think installing, maintaining and extracting power from offshore wind turbines is expensive, its not a patch on tidal turbines.

    Microgeneration is the way forward.

    tjagain
    Full Member

    its another way.

    I like the small modular tidal turbines – rather than the huge structures.

    Lots of little ones rather than a few big ones.

    bigjim
    Full Member

    If you think installing, maintaining and extracting power from offshore wind turbines is expensive, its not a patch on tidal turbines.

    Microgeneration is the way forward.

    Yeah but it’s very early days yet, tidal is basically still embryonic compared to even offshore wind if you view that as in it’s, er, adolescence?

    Microgeneration – certainly I’d like to see every house built with solar roof, ground source, etc, etc, but you aren’t just going to go around sticking little tidal turbines around the place. There’s been a spate (haha) of micro run of river hydro in the last few years but I’m not sure the tariff is what it was, but could be wrong.

    thecaptain
    Free Member

    A quick look at the numbers should convince any reasonably numerate person that (of the renewables) only solar can provide a substantial proportion of our energy demands. The other types just don’t have enough energy density, though they may be economically worth doing anyway.

    wrecker
    Free Member

    power from wind, solar, hydro

    Great!

    and wood pellet burning

    Oh.

    jam-bo
    Full Member

    Yeah but it’s very early days yet, tidal is basically still embryonic compared to even offshore wind if you view that as in it’s, er, adolescence?

    It’s embryonic for a reason. It’s bloody hard to actually do. Same with wave power, yes there is lots of resource but getting it and getting it efficiently has eluded anyone for the 20yrs I’ve been in this industry.

    scotroutes
    Full Member

    Up to 8TWh available from tidal energy in the Pentland Firth. That’s about half of Scotlands requirements from one source. And it’s not weather dependant.

    deadkenny
    Free Member

    wrecker – Member 
    and wood pellet burning

    Oh.

    Well, it’s kind of renewable. Just plant more trees. 😀

    In fact, why don’t we burn old people for fuel as they die? The stock is already replenished so long as people have sex.

    paton
    Free Member

    If Hydro Electric Pumped Storage, eg Cruachan, is this

    How does it work?

    A pumped-storage hydroelectric power plant is a net consumer of energy but allows energy to be stored when electricity is plentiful and released for generation in times of high grid demand. Water is pumped uphill to a high reservoir when the demand, and price, for electricity is low. During hours of peak demand, when the price of electricity is high, the stored water is released through turbines to produce electric power.

    Unlike most other types of power station hydroelectric power plants can be brought online almost immediately, making them eminently suitable for dealing instantly with quite large fluctuations in grid demand.

    Then how does a tidal pumped storage system work?

    Pumped Storage Hydro In Scotland

    Northwind
    Full Member

    deadkenny – Member

    Well, it’s kind of renewable. Just plant more trees.

    It’s 100% renewable, and the burning itself is carbon neutral (if you add a scrubber, a la clean coal, it’s carbon negative- actual terraforming). But the rest of the process is messy- obviously it consumes energy to harvest, transport and pellet the wood itself.

    The key thing, and the thing a lot of places are doing wrong, is that it has to be a a renewed source- in the states they’re logging virgin forest, old growth, and other areas which is terrible ecologically- wood pellet harvesting can use wood that other industries don’t want so it’s causing deforestation of parts that up til now were unprofitable. It’s almost like people want to take something potentially positive, and turn it on itself. Biofuel is all about the farming.

    The UK’s kabillion shitty sitka spruces in barely-profitable FC forests? Absolutely perfect for power use, by pure luck we’ve already got the process built. Cheap slash-and-burn from the ukraine? Not perfect.

    tjagain
    Full Member

    thecaptain – Member

    A quick look at the numbers should convince any reasonably numerate person that (of the renewables) only solar can provide a substantial proportion of our energy demands. The other types just don’t have enough energy density, though they may be economically worth doing anyway.

    Errmmm – actually wind is supplying a sizeable proportion of our electricity up in Scotland. Photovoltaics are pretty useless here barely returning their embodied energy

    Tidal has the potential to power scotland easily and a large part of the UK. If only tidal had had all the money wasted on nukes spent on it instead.

    eddie11
    Free Member

    Decentralised solar on roofs and storage batteries looks to be the future. There are hundreds of electric cars now and more in future. They can all be used as a storage for the grid when parked up. How the big energy companies fair in that world and what they do to stop it will be interesting

    Denis99
    Free Member

    I am on my way to becoming less dependant on the national grid for electricity supply, well, at least a reasonable reduction.

    Have had solar panels on the roof for about four years now, bought a Nissan Leaf EV car last December.
    The energy from the panels has been used to charge the battery, although the power drain at 7kw still draws some energy from the grid.

    Will be installing a Tesla Powerwall 2 storage battery this month to scoop up any energy from the solar panels during the day, for reducing our demand in the Evenings from the grid.

    Domestic solar panels and batteries are the way forward, probably take another decade for it to have a serious impact though.

    The government should be doing more to promote and encourage domestic solar and battery storage options.

    bigjim
    Full Member

    It’s embryonic for a reason. It’s bloody hard to actually do. Same with wave power, yes there is lots of resource but getting it and getting it efficiently has eluded anyone for the 20yrs I’ve been in this industry.

    I don’t view it as any harder than getting oil and gas out of rock hundreds of metres below the sea bed. MCT had a prototype tidal turbine in the sea nearly a quarter of a century ago and a fully operational device ten years ago or something. There’s been a fundamental lack of the support like was seen in the early oil and gas industry when that was all bloody hard too – government policy, or lack of, has failed the marine renewables industry and deterred investment, not the difficulty of getting a turbine stuck on the sea bed. It’s good to see the success of Meygen going from maps on my screen to actually there though, and the scotrenewables device too, I remember that was just a dream in someone’s mind when I was living in Orkney.

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