Have we seen this intriguing German pumped storage “battery”, any of UK’s old mining infrastructure up to this? Or were they closed too long ago?

It’d be interesting to see how clean the water is and how they contain it. Then again it may well be fine as the spoil heaps are already there, and what’s still underground should be no different.

That and with all the hoo-harr around fracking I can’t imagine villages already worried about existing mine subsidence would be wild about the idea of effectively turning those shafts into rivers!

Wind farms will continue to go up. There’s loads in the planning system, offshore and onshore. Many existing ones will likely be repowered at the end of their operational lives, with bigger turbines.

Interconnectors to other countries will help smooth issues regarding supply and demand.

Tidal stream will get there eventually I hope.

Barrages are unlikely to happen as the environmental consequences in suitable areas are too severe. These are almost always areas with habitats very important to birds, so are rightly heavily protected.

The French didn’t overcome environmental issues with theirs, they just built the Rance station before anyone properly understood what it would do.

Lagoons are a possibility. Don’t know loads about them to be honest.

tinas – the Norwegians are keen. there simply isn’t the room in Scotland – there is in Norway

Jambo – perhaps it has and you have not noticed? From Strangford lough to the pentland firth to Unst to the Beuly Denny interconnect it seems to me a lot has changed in 20 years – including a lot of refined designs in tidal flow generators actually being in the water

tinas – the Norwegians are keen. there simply isn’t the room in Scotland

An absolutely jam packed Scottish valley earlier.

tinas – there is not much in the way of suitable places to put pump storage. that glen would not do – no damming point and for pump storage you need two dams – one higher than the other. Wheras the norwegians see this as an oportunity to take a leading role

Where is the electricity coming from to pump the water up the hill?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDlvjkfpX_o
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDlvjkfpX_o[/video]

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7046-hydroelectric-powers-dirty-secret-revealed/

Is burning trees a good idea?
https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/burning-trees-southern-forests-FS.pdf

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ellen-moyer-phd/burning-trees-to-make-ele_b_1601275.html

tinas – there is not much in the way of suitable places to put pump storage. that glen would not do – no damming point and for pump storage you need two dams – one higher than the other. Wheras the norwegians see this as an oportunity to take a leading role

You’ve plenty of hanging valleys, the ‘english’ name for cirque even comes from Gaelic (Coire), Corrie!

Just seems daft adding more connections under the North Sea to pay a premium for Norwegian pumped storage when we could do it in the UK.

paton – Member
Where is the electricity coming from to pump the water up the hill?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDlvjkfpX_o

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7046-hydroelectric-powers-dirty-secret-revealed/

Is burning trees a good idea?

Are you going to offer an opinion or do a JHJ and just post links to youtube?

Pumped storage takes surplus energy from inflexible sources (nuclear and to a lesser extent coal) and unforecastable or uncontrollable renewables (solar, wind) and releases it when demand requires it.

The alternative is moving towards more of a smart grid where things like home heating, car charging, water heating, freezer cooling, are done based on when the grid has a surplus of energy, now when the consumer demands it. I.e. you’d plug your Tesla in when you get home and at some point in the night it would charge up, and your house would heat up, but you wouldn’t get specific control over exactly when.

Just seems daft adding more connections under the North Sea to pay a premium for Norwegian pumped storage when we could do it in the UK.

The idea of interconnectors is to sell electricity to each other to meet fluctuations in supply and demand. In winter in Norway their hydro capacity is reduced by freezing reservoirs, and we have an excess of wind. In summer, they have an excess of hydro and we have reduced supply from wind.

There are also more one-way interconnectors proposed, such as the IceLink interconnector, which would export electricity generated from the massive geothermal resource in Iceland. Existing interconnectors like BritNed have been very successful and I think the national grid are very keen on this supergrid kind of development.

There are plenty options for pumped. Sloy Dam Power station for example. Not currently pumped storage. Make the dam bigger and convert the power station to pumped storage. Only affects an existing Glen so not a biggie environmentally. Read that filling emptying a bigger dam would change the level of Loch Lomond by 80cm. less than current natural variation.

On the 50% headline. in perspective it was 37% on a very windy and sunny day.

50% RE in the UK – the Ugly Facts

Tinas- that’ll be the A82 in your photo. If you can come up with a suitable alternative route then Transport Scotland would like to have a word with you 🙂

Funny that this pops up today:

floating-tidal-turbine-off-orkney-islands-breaks-generation-records

Seems like an interesting solution, being moveable, scaleable, and does not require enormous on site infrastructure. In fact i suspect getting the ‘lecy cables to it will be the biggest cost!

(as an aside, work out how much torque 2MW is at 16rpm!! oof! 😯 )

Interconnectorection to Norway is a massive benefit to U.K. and I’m surprised the UK govt hasn’t pushed this through faster

The current Norwegian wholesale price is 50% that of the UK
There is a massive energy surplus in the Nordics
Norwegian hydro is flexible and can be used to balance the UK system

I don’t see a massive appetite in Norway to build more large scale hydro (in fact I think has been opposed) but they could easily add new penstocks and turbines to existing reservoirs (including when they are repowering old facilities) if there was a need. However there is probably enough spare capacity for at least 2 cables to the UK (24twh and about the same as Hinkley PC) and I know which one I’d go for.

Interconnectorection to Norway is a massive benefit to U.K. and I’m surprised the UK govt hasn’t pushed this through faster

If there’s one thing you should have realised by now it’s that the government doesn’t necessarily do what’s best. I think there were some issues on the other side too, but at least one of the proposed Norwegian ones is progressing.

. http://euanmearns.com/50-re-in-the-uk-the-ugly-facts/#more-18511

In case you hadn’t realised, this guy wears the same rose tinted specs as Trump and is just a stuck record anti-renwables campaigner dressing up the same weary message with some graphs and numbers.

I’m surprised the UK govt hasn’t pushed this through faster

In case you hadn’t realised, this guy wears the same rose tinted specs as Trump and is just a stuck record anti-renwables campaigner dressing up the same weary message with some graphs and numbers.

So which of his numbers are wrong then?