UK Eyes 30 GW in Wind Capacity

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

UK targets 30GW by 2030 with sector deal

Can they pull it off?

[NickW + 2,714]

4 hours ago, Marina Schwarz said:

UK targets 30GW by 2030 with sector deal

Can they pull it off?

That's 2460 9MW Turbines (Vestas / Siemens offshore turbines are now in this range)

Over the next 11 years that's 0.6 turbines installed and commissioned per day. That's doable. The question mark comes over what's going to happen to the surplus power as 30GW will potentially exceed the UK's baseload requirements. Load shedding is an option although this effectively loses the energy.

Interconnectors with Europe - as the additional 22GW will mostly be in the North Sea it could be interconnected to Norway, Denmark, Germany, The Netherlands

Basload demand drops to about 26GW in winter so there is the potential of needing to soak up about 12 GW of surplus wind assuming all land and offshore going at full output (highly unlikely)

Pump Storage in the UK - only limited potential to build more PS facilities. The Welsh valleys are full of holes due to mining. There is a big site on Exmoor that was originally proposed but flooding part of Exmoor will get he nimbi's jumping up and down.

Reuse of redundant Hybrid & EV batteries (also solves a major disposal issue)

Utility scale dedicated battery storage

Electric Vehicle charging ( pref rates for charging at peak wind output times)

More speculative......

Compressed air - may some salt caverns in Cheshire could be used.

Underwater compressed air - Loch Ness &  Morar very deep and could theoretically be used.

Salt water pump storage - utilise reservoirs or dammed valleys on coastlines with high cliff lines

Failing that........

Load shed for a few hours now and again.

 

 

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

Or they can just turn some of them off when demand is lower, I guess. Turbines can be turned off, right? Although it's a waste of energy, I suppose, so storage sounds a lot better.

[NickW + 2,714]

5 hours ago, Marina Schwarz said:

Or they can just turn some of them off when demand is lower, I guess. Turbines can be turned off, right? Although it's a waste of energy, I suppose, so storage sounds a lot better.

Wind turbines can be turned down by moving them to an angle to wind stream - like luffing a sail or completely off within a couple of minutes. 

When the interconnector failed in Scotland National Grid paid wind farms to stop operating as it was a lot cheaper than turning off Scotlands two Nuclear power stations which would have taken 2-3 weeks to restart. In contrast once the IC fixed in a day the Wind turbines were put back into operation.

The Daily Shyte (Mail) have been making an issue of this ever since🙄

[NickW + 2,714]

5 hours ago, Marina Schwarz said:

Or they can just turn some of them off when demand is lower, I guess. Turbines can be turned off, right? Although it's a waste of energy, I suppose, so storage sounds a lot better.

Lets say the UK reaches a point by say 2040 where 30% of vehicles are electric. The typical car battery is 60KWH but is replaced once its reach 30kwh then there will be around 500,000 redundant batteries being generated per year. 

So thats about 15 GWH of additional storage capacity (minus degradation rates)  each year. Assuming each of those batteries can be charged at a conservative 6 KW then from empty they can soak up 3 GW 

So with one years supply of redundant batteries you can build a short term operating reserve comparable in size to the UK's current stock of pump storage (approx 2.6GW - 8 hours). 

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

I didn't know EV batteries can be repurposed this way. This is genuinely cool!

[NickW + 2,714]

1 minute ago, Marina Schwarz said:

I didn't know EV batteries can be repurposed this way. This is genuinely cool!

One of the anti EV myths is about the battery mountain. 

Currently there are no dedicated recycling facilites because there isn't a sufficient supply of redundant batteries. Anyway when they are replaced in cars there still have decades of life left in them. 

Another benefit is that reuse in this way means that you can build up storage capacity at numerous sites around the country not where geography (and politcs) dictates. This reduces transmission costs, you can locate near major points of demand, and distribution means less risk of one large site going off line 

[NickW + 2,714]

7 minutes ago, Marina Schwarz said:

I didn't know EV batteries can be repurposed this way. This is genuinely cool!

I think in the long term the supply of second hand batteries will completely resolve the intermittency issues with solar and wind. Also by that point the supply of completely dud batteries will give an economy of scale to build dedicated recycling facilities. 

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

12 minutes ago, NickW said:

Anyway when they are replaced in cars there still have decades of life left in them. 

So why do they get replaced so early? There must be a reason.

[NickW + 2,714]

58 minutes ago, Marina Schwarz said:

So why do they get replaced so early? There must be a reason.

Batteries, all types degrade over time especially where they are deep cycled. 

Nissan researched this on the Leaf and found an average decline rate of 3.1% on their 24kwh models. The rate on the 30kwh was 9.9% indicating a potential QC issue or perhaps people opting for the 30kwh model with more range are more likely to deep cycle discharge and rapid recharge - all of which accelerate degradation.

https://insideevs.com/nissan-issues-statement-on-leaf-30-kwh-battery-degradation/

A friend of mine has a 24kwh Leaf which he uses as a runaround and short commute. He slow charges every night and unless he needs the range doesn't charge the battery over 80% capacity and avoids discharges below 20%. He never uses fast chargers. Taking this approach the decline of his battery has been less than 10% over 5 years. 

His wife has a Prius they use for longer journeys. 

[Rasmus Jorgensen + 1,169]

On 3/7/2019 at 10:21 AM, Marina Schwarz said:

UK targets 30GW by 2030 with sector deal

Can they pull it off?

Theorectically yes. Potentially cable and associated transformation station supply will be a bottleneck. 

As with all things in Europe these days Brexit is a big X-factor. If supplychain capacity for all aspects has to be built in the UK then they won't reach their goals. 

[NickW + 2,714]

20 minutes ago, Rasmus Jorgensen said:

Theorectically yes. Potentially cable and associated transformation station supply will be a bottleneck. 

As with all things in Europe these days Brexit is a big X-factor. If supplychain capacity for all aspects has to be built in the UK then they won't reach their goals. 

What ever ones views on Brexit, post Brexit the British Govt needs to grow some balls and start backing some home industries instead of selling the UK down the river. 

Meanwhile it looks like the contract to build two MOD defense ships will go to Spain (FFS). A country that is increasingly using its own warships to bait the Royal Navy in Gibraltian waters. 

[Rasmus Jorgensen + 1,169]

2 minutes ago, NickW said:

What ever ones views on Brexit, post Brexit the British Govt needs to grow some balls and start backing some home industries instead of selling the UK down the river. 

Meanwhile it looks like the contract to build two MOD defense ships will go to Spain (FFS). A country that is increasingly using its own warships to bait the Royal Navy in Gibraltian waters. 

Don't have an opinion on that. Seriously. Just stating that a UK content is already topic in windfarms being built. That is likely to increase post Brexit. If heavy manufacturing supply chain have to be built up in the UK then the 30 GW is unrealistic. 

BTW - there are lots of brits and British SMEs making a living in offshore wind in Europe. 

[Meredith Poor + 883]

'Surplus' wind energy can be shunted into chemical production, particularly ammonia.

Pumped storage would make less sense than desalinating and/or recycling waste water for use in municipal water systems. Better to design a system that runs periodically on surplus power than tear up a bunch of real estate with something like pumped storage.

The UK's population is currently about 62 million people. Dividing by 2.5 household size suggests 24 million households. 30 Gw/24 Million suggests about 1.25Kw of capacity per household, at least in terms of nameplate. 40% of that would be 500 watts of real output.

1.25Kw x 24 hours = 30Kwh, which is a typical day of power consumption in the US. I don't know what average power use per day in the UK is.

Texas has 22Gw installed, which has been done over the last 20 years, mostly with 1.5 to 2.5Mw turbines. Given 9Mw to 12Mw turbines, how hard can this be?

I suspect that the UK's wind power capacity will be a lot more than 30Gw by 2030. This is another example of deployment underestimation.

Several states enacted RPS requirements, notably Texas and Colorado. The original Colorado RPS was met the same year it was enacted. Texas was a bit slower, it took three years. Not that either of them are saying much - their targets were trivial by current standards.

[NickW + 2,714]

43 minutes ago, Meredith Poor said:

'Surplus' wind energy can be shunted into chemical production, particularly ammonia.

Pumped storage would make less sense than desalinating and/or recycling waste water for use in municipal water systems. Better to design a system that runs periodically on surplus power than tear up a bunch of real estate with something like pumped storage.

The UK's population is currently about 62 million people. Dividing by 2.5 household size suggests 24 million households. 30 Gw/24 Million suggests about 1.25Kw of capacity per household, at least in terms of nameplate. 40% of that would be 500 watts of real output.

1.25Kw x 24 hours = 30Kwh, which is a typical day of power consumption in the US. I don't know what average power use per day in the UK is.

Texas has 22Gw installed, which has been done over the last 20 years, mostly with 1.5 to 2.5Mw turbines. Given 9Mw to 12Mw turbines, how hard can this be?

I suspect that the UK's wind power capacity will be a lot more than 30Gw by 2030. This is another example of deployment underestimation.

Several states enacted RPS requirements, notably Texas and Colorado. The original Colorado RPS was met the same year it was enacted. Texas was a bit slower, it took three years. Not that either of them are saying much - their targets were trivial by current standards.

Desalination doesn't have much use or need in the UK. Ammonia would be useful but I assume the plants would need to be rebuilt as they currently run on natural gas / oil.

[NickW + 2,714]

Theoretically there is about 675 GW of capacity for wind turbines in UK waters using current designs. 

That would supply about 2500 twh. That is more than the UK's entire primary energy requirements. 

I reckon there is also scope to design and fit a cheap wave energy harvester to the towers using a wells turbine. 

Edited March 8, 2019 by NickW

[ronwagn + 6,290]

On 3/8/2019 at 5:49 AM, NickW said:

Theoretically there is about 675 GW of capacity for wind turbines in UK waters using current designs. 

That would supply about 2500 twh. That is more than the UK's entire primary energy requirements. 

I reckon there is also scope to design and fit a cheap wave energy harvester to the towers using a wells turbine. 

The problem is at what price. If Britain used its natural gas they would have clean base power and far less expensive electricity. 

A nice graph here https://www.statista.com/statistics/263492/electricity-prices-in-selected-countries/

[NickW + 2,714]

14 hours ago, ronwagn said:

The problem is at what price. If Britain used its natural gas they would have clean base power and far less expensive electricity. 

A nice graph here https://www.statista.com/statistics/263492/electricity-prices-in-selected-countries/

But it has to import most of that gas and the UK's Balance of payments ain't looking too healthy. 

2nd consideration is energy security - Gas is not that easy to store compared to oil / coal, uranium. 

[NickW + 2,714]

14 hours ago, ronwagn said:

The problem is at what price. If Britain used its natural gas they would have clean base power and far less expensive electricity. 

A nice graph here https://www.statista.com/statistics/263492/electricity-prices-in-selected-countries/

Those figures include end user taxes like VAT which vary from country to country

You need to make a fair comparison by looking at the levillized cost. 

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/566567/BEIS_Electricity_Generation_Cost_Report.pdf

See page 24. Look at the cost of OCGT - its clear to see why batteries are rapidly replacing gas fired open cycle units for short term operating reserve. 

Edited March 10, 2019 by NickW

[ronwagn + 6,290]

31 minutes ago, NickW said:

Those figures include end user taxes like VAT which vary from country to country

You need to make a fair comparison by looking at the levillized cost. 

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/566567/BEIS_Electricity_Generation_Cost_Report.pdf

See page 24. Look at the cost of OCGT - its clear to see why batteries are rapidly replacing gas fired open cycle units for short term operating reserve. 

That does not include the base energy value of natural gas turbines compared to renewables. Renewables require base energy and that is presently not feasible with batteries. 

[NickW + 2,714]

1 minute ago, ronwagn said:

That does not include the base energy value of natural gas turbines compared to renewables. Renewables require base energy and that is presently not feasible with batteries. 

By base energy value do you mean baseload? 

If you do running OCGT to provide baseload will bankrupt you. 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

44 minutes ago, NickW said:

But it has to import most of that gas and the UK's Balance of payments ain't looking too healthy. 

2nd consideration is energy security - Gas is not that easy to store compared to oil / coal, uranium. 

Great Britain has plenty of natural gas, it just needs to tap it. That would provide low priced energy. The Greenies are stifling growth for no good reason. 

[NickW + 2,714]

Just now, ronwagn said:

Great Britain has plenty of natural gas, it just needs to tap it. That would provide low priced energy. The Greenies are stifling growth for no good reason. 

The problem is most of that gas if you mean shale gas sits underneath areas with high population density. 

Of course this won't effect Jim Ratcliffe, Shale gas's main proponent because he is pissing off to Monaco as a tax exile. I'm fairly sure they don't have shale gas production in Monaco😉

[ronwagn + 6,290]

3 minutes ago, NickW said:

By base energy value do you mean baseload? 

If you do running OCGT to provide baseload will bankrupt you. 

You have to pick the best type of natural gas turbine for the need. 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

1 minute ago, NickW said:

The problem is most of that gas if you mean shale gas sits underneath areas with high population density. 

Of course this won't effect Jim Ratcliffe, Shale gas's main proponent because he is pissing off to Monaco as a tax exile. I'm fairly sure they don't have shale gas production in Monaco😉

He is smart. Britain is kicking itself in the arse.