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Pick It Down

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HOLA441

OK. I should be more patient with you, maths obviously isn't a strongpoint of yours.

Explain your "reasoning" in this phrase:

"You lose two-thirds of the energy pumping water uphill, then another two-thirds releasing it back downhill."

When pumped storage is at least 70% efficient.

Oh, and WTF has AGW got to do with it?

It is quite clear that the latter loss of two-thirds is of the one-third remaining after the initial loss, ie leaving one ninth left over.

I think we should have a Maths thread where AGWers can learn the basics.

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HOLA442

There is nothing stopping the generators from building

You mean bar all the regulations, taxes, and hippies threatening to burn down the stations and kill the builders should they even think about it?

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HOLA443

I see Mr two short planks has failed to spot the error / devious omission on that website.

It is true that the UK has 4GW of wind power however NETA only currently monitors 1588MW therefore it was 163 out of 1588 not 4000. If one extrapolates the figures generation by wind was more likely 410MW.

The load factor is more like 10%

Would be interesting to see all the wind farms. Wonder if they meter only the higher performing sites :D

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HOLA444

Peak demand is 5-6pm, which is when we really need wind.

Wind could do some 20% of the grid but it would come at a very high cost.

Yes cells you know your stuff, yearly peak demand is in winter when lighting-up time coincides with industry still flat out.

However our most expensive month in recent years was July 2006 due to high temperatures leading to high air con load - again at this time wind power would have been non-existant as the heat was due to a stagnant high pressure system.

Another failing of windmills. ;)

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HOLA445
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HOLA446

It monitors 1588MW of wind capacity in the Uk which averaged an output of 163MW yesterday

Today the figure is a lot better at around 1000MW (not far short of what Sizewell B produces)

the average for tomorrow on the ones metered is expected to be less than 50MW out of over 1500MW. or some 3% of capacity when we need the power for the cold weather.

luckily we don’t have a lot of wind

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HOLA447

Our hydro does a lot more normally, presumably it is low due to the snow and ice.

Either way, that site you linked shows you perfectly why wind above a certain point is very difficult.

It varied today from 950MW to 150MW.

If we had 20x the wind which is our target that would have meant it would have gone from 20GW to 3GW in about 15 hours. Worse yet we need peak power about 4.30 to 6.30 and sometimes wind is at its lowest then.

So not only is wind very expensive compared to gas/coal/nuclear it will also require even more expensive storage. Not to mention winds varying nature makes our backup fossil fuel plants work less efficiently. So indirectly wind emits terrorist CO2

edit:

Oh and tomorrow it is predicted wind will provide <0.1% of our grid requirements. A poor intermittent power source.

I wasn't criticising our Hydro resources - they are quite useful albeit small

As for your comment about wind - I presume you are playing the same trick Pick it Down was yesterday by implying the outturn on the NETA site reflects all wind power production. It doesnt - it only monitors 39-40%. Anything you read on there in respect of wind needs to be multiplied by 2.5 to give a more realistic figure. I don't deny though, tomorrow is not looking good for wind production

As for wind power making fossil plant less efficient - can you explain. From what I recall a turbines efficiency is not at its peak output and indeed the addition of Dinorwic to the national grid allowed many power stations to be run at more optimum outputs by taking up demand spikes.

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HOLA448

How much space is currently taken up by wind farms?

They produce about 2 watts per square meter.

The uk uses 300,000,000,000 watts.

You do the math, how much of the country would we need to cover?

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HOLA449
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HOLA4410

A glance at Wikipedia would seem to bear out your observations. The French have now overtaken the UK in terms of installed nameplate capacity, although they do not yet generate at much electricity from wind power as the UK (since France is not as windy as the UK). Germany's 6.6% electricity generated by wind power is pretty impressive for an industrial and not especially windy country; it certainly puts the UK's 1.5% in the shade.

Perhaps we should send Pick It Down and cells over to let them know the folly of their ways?

Im told the price of electricity in Germany is very high compared to the UK.

10p vs about 20 euro cents but that was from a German friend, anyone have more reliable domestic electric price for Germany?

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HOLA4411

How much will "improvement to the grid" cost, and do you expect it to be borne by wind-power producers or add yet more costs on to the average hard-working family/individual? One thing I've noticed about the addled wind fans is a complete lack of cost-benefit analysis. If the windmill+storage were profitable, why couldn't they be built without unnecessary subsidies (that then get thrown on to the bills of households and major industry, thus making them leave our shores)?

They are like children crying for ponies with no concept of cost.

To have a wind powered UK economy instead of a fossil fuelled economy would mean subsidising wind to the tune of £100B a year every year.

So that means we either use fossil fuels and continue as we are, or we switch to wind and scrap the NHS and divert all those taxes to germanise wind turbine producers.

Id rather have the NHS over wind thanks v much

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HOLA4412
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HOLA4413

Nearly everyone who posts on this site thinks they know the optimal price of a house, so it's hardly a new idea.

I don't think I know the price, only that it should be enough to make people consider it. Currently almost no-one does.

Energy needs to cost more because (in no particular order) :-

1. To force people to pay attention and conserve it. It's the only way, see the New TV thread.

2. To reflect the true overall cost including environmental damage and the drain on national resources from importing coal/gas/oil to burn. CO2 is not the only issue, I'm a MMGW sceptic btw.

3. To enable nations to have energy independence and thus reduce tensions/likelihood of wars. The less you use, the easier it is to be independent.

If the banks hadn't been allowed to steal all the money and the government had actually done its job in the last 12 years(or in fact longer as far as energy independence is concerned, the Tories were just as guilty) then your "hardworking families" mortgage costs would be a lot lower and their electricity bills quite a bit higher, and the UK would have no fears of energy shortages in the future if Russia has a huff about something or global oil/coal prices rise.

Hail comrade gleeful dictator of prices and values

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HOLA4414

Are you trying to suggest that our current infrastructure has not been built with susidy given that;

The last coal fired powerstation was commission in the 1970's

The national grid as it stands now was completed in the 1980's

The last Nuclear power station was commissioned in 1995

Since then its been gas and wind. Of course now our gas supplies are dwindling rapidly we are lwft somewhat over reliant on gas supplies from overseas. So much so that after one cold spell the NG are already issuing gas balancing warnings in early January.

I tried to use that when women one the vote, historically they wont allowed to so it would be unfair to give the vote to the ones now.

Great logic.

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HOLA4415

The potential problem is that we still have most of January and February to get through and cold spells in March are not unknown. Coal stockpiles are not unlimited either as the capacities to mine it (in our case Poland, Russian and South Africa), and the import facilities.

I suspect the supply situation (gas in storage) will at best be extremely tight by the end of this winter. This does not bode well for future years with all this extra gas plant coming on line to replace our knackered coal and nuclear plants.

Gas plants use little gas.

Replacing 5GW of coal/nuclear with gas will only consume another 8.5GW of gas. That is adding about 6-7% to current gas demand.

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HOLA4416

Would be interesting to see all the wind farms. Wonder if they meter only the higher performing sites :D

Offshore

Neta doesn't monitor Barrow (90MW) Burbo (90MW) Kentish Flats (90MW), Inner Dowsing (194MW), North Hoyle (60MW) , Scroby (60MW), Rhyl Flats (90MW) plus numerous others - and no doubt high performing given their locations

Onshore

from It isnt monitoring Swaffham (3MW), Deeping St Nicholas (12 MW) , Westmill (6MW)

In total over 2500MW of capacity is not monitored by NETA.

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HOLA4417

At least we agree on something. Along with coal, gas, nuclear, wind makes a useful contribution to the diversity in the fuel mix.

Wind power yesterday was saving the Uk from importing £30-£35,000 worth of gas an hour down the interconnector

And costing us double that in subsidies.

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HOLA4418

I wont argue that wind is responsive because it isn't although times of peak demand - cold windy conditions coincide with peak output from wind farms.

You keep saying cold = more wind but it is ******** because what is most important is what wind is producing between 4.30pm and 6pm. It can be near zero at that time as expected tomorrow at that time.

Wind will be a token, an expensive token (but far far better than solar atm cost wise).

20% of the grid max and that will come at a huge cost, inc an energy cost as the fossil fuels need to ramp greatly to make way for wind. That ramping means the coal/gas will run less efficiently.

Beyond fossil fuels (assuming you dont subscribe to abiotic theories?) and given that even fissile material is finite where do you see the long term energy supply for the human race coming from?

how about you answer this too if win isnt the total solution?

In my view we well have enough fossil fuels for at least 50 more years and trying to design for a potential problem in 50 years is stupid. Like those with B&W TVs back in the 1950s estimating and trying to “fix” potential problems they thought we might have in the 2000s

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HOLA4419

I tried to use that when women one the vote, historically they wont allowed to so it would be unfair to give the vote to the ones now.

Great logic.

The Conscious decision of many Governents and organisations around that world is that renewables are a desirable development however market barriers exist because the new tech doesn't have the economies of scale that fossil fuels have. The subsidy is not a permanent feature of the technology but a means to allow it to be scaled up.

This approach at least puts the World in a position to ride out the decline in FF availability. Your Ostrich approach is a one way ticket back to the stone age.

Renewables subsidies have been a few percent of what nuclear got yet by the end of the year we will have 6GW of wind online and the cost of wind power has fallen to where it has parity with peak rate electricity. Likewise solar costs are falling rapidly with even domestic installations coming in at less than £2 a watt of capacity.

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HOLA4420

Storage is around 10% efficient at hydro stations. You lose two-thirds of the energy pumping water uphill, then another two-thirds releasing it back downhill.

So you would need volatilities in price of a magnitude of ten. While current overnight prices are ~£25/MWh and evening peak aren't exceeding £100/Mwh, this would lead to the sotrage investment sat there unused.

80% afaik and most definitely not 10%.

although the capital cost makes it mostly unreasonable

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HOLA4421

Back in the 1980's there was a proposal to build a similar facility to Dinorwic on exmoor - on the basis of us going the same route as the French.

Another possibility for a mega project would be to dam a sea loch / fjord so to achieve a head of 100 metres or more and then use that as a pump storage facility

A 5km by 1km sea loch with 100 metre head could generate approx 7200MW for 6 hours

you forgot the customary

FOR TWO HA PENNY

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HOLA4422

True

I know the Norwegians have 3 sites where they could store in each a years supply of electricity (Norwegian). Post gas and oil which is not that far away for them they see themselves as the battery of europe storing surplus nuclear and renewable power and supplying back to Europe when needed.

Interconnectors with the Uk and Europe would provide massive flexibility to absorb renewables inputs. For example the wave power resource for the UK, Ireland, France, and Norway is in the region of 2000TWH

FOR TWO HA PENNY

interconnectors cost about the same as gas plants, think of what that means

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HOLA4423

You keep saying cold = more wind but it is ******** because what is most important is what wind is producing between 4.30pm and 6pm. It can be near zero at that time as expected tomorrow at that time.

Wind will be a token, an expensive token (but far far better than solar atm cost wise).

20% of the grid max and that will come at a huge cost, inc an energy cost as the fossil fuels need to ramp greatly to make way for wind. That ramping means the coal/gas will run less efficiently.

how about you answer this too if win isnt the total solution?

In my view we well have enough fossil fuels for at least 50 more years and trying to design for a potential problem in 50 years is stupid. Like those with B&W TVs back in the 1950s estimating and trying to “fix” potential problems they thought we might have in the 2000s

You really are a grade A cretin. I have said here 100 times that Wind is not a total solution

The Uk could however produce 20% of its electricity from wind without major grid adjustments.

The Uk could produce the equivalent of 50-60% if we adopt electric transport and increase storage - Pump storage / ammonia/ demand management

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HOLA4424
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HOLA4425

How do you work that out?

Wind power in the UK averages 28% capacity and is improving annually as we build bigger turbines (3-6MW), remove small turbines from the mix and go offshore where wind speeds are higher and more consistent.

Wave power in suitable locations, once the technology has matured will likely deliver a capacity of 30-35%

Tidal is pretty much fixed at 25% with a little variation for tidal cycles and weather conditions. However it is totally predictable

HDVC - which is the only viable transmission method for long distances losses 1% per 100km and this is improving.

Pump storage generators built in the 1980's achieve a cycle efficiency of 75%. With technological improvements since then I suspect this is now inexcess of 80%

An alternative stroage method is conversion into ammonia which can then be burnt in CCGT - although the efficiency is lower than Pump storage.

You don't need to store the vast majority of renewable power (so there are limited transmission losses). Most can be used directly with a relatively small margin accumulated in storage (ie pump storage facilities) for use in periods of high demand.

FOR TWO HA PENNY

Ammonia would likely be a lot less than 50% efficient, and the thing is you do need to store tremendous amounts of power with renewables. Sometimes weeks worth. Near impossible.

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