[HN Gopher] GB National Grid Status
___________________________________________________________________
GB National Grid Status
Author : CTOSian
Score : 82 points
Date : 2022-12-09 14:34 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk)
| noobface wrote:
| Texas and GB seem to have similar levels of demand, but Texas
| seems to have quite a bit more wind/solar. ERCOT #s:
| https://p.datadoghq.com/sb/5c2fc00be-393be929c9c55c3b80b557d...
| Oxidation wrote:
| An enormously expansive area nearly 3 times the area, mostly
| full of cheap land a full 20 degrees of latitude further south
| isn't very surprising to have more solar and the continental-
| ocean boundary generates powerful midday wind, exactly when you
| want it.
|
| For all the coal rolling, capital knows when there's a good
| deal going.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| Ok, I must have missed this but ... Wind produces 16% of UK
| electricity, and nuclear produces 13% ....
|
| Ok wow.
|
| I assumed solar would be the thing that takes over, and In Spain
| that's probably true. But here it seems wind is going to be a
| win.
|
| Anyway I still need to work out how to spend my declining years -
| how to write software for renewable energy farms ... wind or
| solar.
| OJFord wrote:
| Well bare in mind that capacity's different from the current
| (as in now, not amperes.. but that too) generation on this
| Winter day.
|
| (Not saying it _does_ go the other way in capacity though, I
| don 't know.)
| pjc50 wrote:
| Wind is huge, while the last nuclear plant completed in the UK
| was in 1995. https://www.imeche.org/policy-and-press/from-our-
| perspective...
|
| > how to write software for renewable energy farms ... wind or
| solar.
|
| Basically this means working for Siemens. I don't think they
| have a huge number of software engineers, it's mostly MechE.
| DrScientist wrote:
| The UK is one of the best positioned countries in the world in
| terms of natural wind resource.
|
| This is because large parts of the north sea are shallow/have
| banks that very large offshore wind farms can be built on.
|
| No terrain to get in the way, no people to object about it
| being close to their house.
|
| Scotland is also windy and not that populated and so has quite
| a few onshore farms.
|
| Eg see.
|
| https://orsted.com/en/media/newsroom/news/2022/08/2022083155...
| .
| pydry wrote:
| >No people to object about it
|
| I'm not sure whether this MP was in the pocket of gas, coal
| or nuclear interests or whatever but he successfully rounded
| up residents to NIMBY what _would_ have been the biggest wind
| farm to date even though it would have barely have been
| visible.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navitus_Bay_wind_farm
|
| I was bitter before. Doubly so now electricity prices are
| through the roof.
| rr888 wrote:
| Scotland has one of the biggest gas fields in Europe, why
| should it rely on ugly and unreliable Wind turbines? Esp
| Global Warming probably makes Scotland's climate more
| comfortable, and its proximity to Greenland means sea
| levels might even fall.
| Oxidation wrote:
| How are wind turbines uglier than gas platforms?
| nicoburns wrote:
| Our economies are linked, so even from a selfish
| perspective, the effects of global warming will felt even
| in places where the weather doesn't directly cause
| problems. If the effects of climate change get bad, we
| are likely to see widespread war.
| WhackyIdeas wrote:
| I am Scottish and I would be proud if all our energy
| needs were met by non-polluting and abundant resources
| such as wind and tide.
|
| Even if you didn't believe in man-made global warming,
| surely the idea of cleaner Scottish air would be a bonus.
| grey-area wrote:
| They already are. Scotland has hit 100% renewable energy
| already on a few days.
| recursion wrote:
| This is false.
|
| https://fullfact.org/environment/scotland-renewable-
| energy/
| thomond wrote:
| > Doubly so now electricity prices are through the roof.
|
| Electricity prices would still be through the roof. The
| prices are all set on the international markets.
| leg100 wrote:
| > Electricity prices would still be through the roof. The
| prices are all set on the international markets.
|
| Only to the extent that electricity can be imported and
| exported via international connectors, which are of
| course limited in their capacity.
|
| Prices are not set internationally, but domestically.
| Energy is not a tangible, stored commodity like coal
| which _is_ internationally priced.
|
| If what you said was true then America's electricity
| would be priced the same as Europe's, whereas it is way
| cheaper.
|
| Therefore building out additional electricity production
| in the UK could well lower prices, depending on matching
| of demand and supply, agreed prices in contracts, length
| of contracts, etc, and of course whether additional
| connectors are deployed.
| 7952 wrote:
| Gas prices are a big component of electricity prices at
| the moment and they are mostly imported.
| makomk wrote:
| There's actually a similar but much more widespread
| talking point about gas, claiming the price of that is
| set on the international market and therefore the UK
| producing more gas locally would not help reduce prices.
| That should come with the exact same caveats (only to the
| extent that it can be imported and exported, American
| prices are much cheaper for Europe's because of this, and
| that's likely a big reason why electricity prices are
| much lower there) but the mainstream media unfortunately
| ignores them.
| substation13 wrote:
| It depends who owns the energy production. If the
| government keeps a stake then they can use the additional
| profits to shield consumers from prices.
| DrScientist wrote:
| Didn't know about that one.
|
| I note that the successful argument was based on the
| imagined impact to the tourism industry, rather than the
| visual effect per se.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| Oh - Doggerland
|
| About end of the Stone Age ~15,000BC you could still walk
| from UK to Europe - there is I believe evidence of
| civilisation and villages down there still.
| snickmy wrote:
| In UK wind is actually broadcasted to take over. After the new
| line connecting with Norway (for hydro storage) the majority of
| investments are going into wind. On Nuclear, I think right now
| there is 1 big nuclear plan offline for maintenance so there
| might be some of that too.
|
| In the Mediterranean area, while there is more prevalence of
| solar, it's not a clear winner either. For instance in Italy
| there is quite an aggressive law on usage of agricultural space
| for big solar farms. Solar will win in the decentralized,
| domestic space, an area that I'm highly interested in. At
| scale, Wind seems to offer a better ROI, especially on country
| on the coast line (or other favourable morphological
| characteristic)
|
| I'm heavily looking to switch to work on the space (from more
| traditional consumer products), but it's a more full stack
| space: software is written as a byproduct of the hardware.
| unfortunately I haven't found any Electrical engineering
| interesting in doing something in the space. Shameless plug if
| there is someone out there interested.
| ricktdotorg wrote:
| there is a twitter account @UK_WindEnergy[1] that posts the
| percentage of total power on the UK National Grid that is
| being generated by wind about once an hour, and then once a
| day a daily wind % totals. it doesn't happen very often, but
| i have seen upwards of 60%! very heartening.
|
| [1]https://twitter.com/UK_WindEnergy
| stuaxo wrote:
| The Tories said no to onshore wind, now solar is getting
| really cheap they are banning the building of solar on most
| farms (by reclassifying low quality land as higher quality
| land that must be used for food).
|
| At the same time they are thinking about allowing wind on
| land again (probably because it will no longer be the cheaper
| option).
|
| Given their links to fossil fuel interests it comes across as
| delaying tactics.
| makomk wrote:
| It's obvious why the Tories are thinking about allowing
| onshore wind again: a huge chunk of the mainstream media,
| including the BBC, have been pushing the idea that it's the
| superior option which the Tories are just ignoring because
| they're conspiring with fossil fuel companies to screw us.
| At this point it's probably not politically viable not to
| allow it even though it makes little sense. The BBC's been
| doing things like describing them as the "cheap, reliable"
| option every time they talk about the Torie sblocking
| onshore wind and omitting the fact that they're basically
| worse on both counts than the offshore wind the UK is
| building these days, repeating any claims the leader of the
| opposition makes on the topic verbatim and unchallenged,
| and even outright describing one of its big fundamental
| disadvantages as nonsense.
| nicoburns wrote:
| > The Tories said no to onshore wind
|
| That's actually changed as of this week
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63880999
| cjrp wrote:
| I read/heard somewhere that if the Republic of Ireland built
| all of their potential offshore wind-farms, it could power
| the country and generate a surplus for export. Obviously need
| to solve the storage issue or rely on interconnects for when
| the wind isn't blowing/blows too hard.
| mrspuratic wrote:
| The east coast around Dublin (fortuitously, as the major
| population center) has good banks in relatively shallow
| waters ~10-20km offshore (Oriel, Kish, Bray, Codling,
| Arklow banks). There are only 7 offshore turbines in
| operation today (Arklow, 2003 25MW, planned expansion
| deferred), but hundreds more planned within the next 5
| years. Less wind than the west or north coasts, which is
| seemingly less amenable, but there is at least one bank
| planned for Galway. https://gis.seai.ie/wind/
| jl6 wrote:
| The UK is too northerly and has too little spare land for solar
| to dominate (it will of course still play a large role). Wind
| is where it's at. The UK has a vast and windy offshore domain.
| DrScientist wrote:
| Agreed. But note that a lot of the local solar capacity
| doesn't actually show up on the grid production numbers.
|
| ie if you have a solar panel on your roof and mostly use it
| to reduce the power you take from the grid, all you will see
| in the national numbers is lower demand, not increased
| production.
| cjrp wrote:
| Don't most domestic panels actually feed into the grid (so
| presumably would show up on the stats as solar generation)?
| Unless you've got a battery system at home.
| bombcar wrote:
| Depends on how it is setup and it varies in different
| areas, almost all are grid connected but many only "suck
| the excess power needed" from the grid when the panels
| can't produce enough, and only some of those "feed back"
| power when they produce too much.
| jvvw wrote:
| Export tariffs are so low (around 4p per kWh) compared
| with import tariffs (more like 35p per kWh last time I
| looked) that if you got solar panels recently, after the
| feed in tariff was stopped, then getting a battery too
| made sense. I imagine most new installations include
| batteries. We only really export in the summer or if we
| are away - we use virtually all the electricity we
| generate most of the year.
| jackbarclay wrote:
| Domestic panels are what we call embedded generation -
| they are connected to the distribution networks, not the
| main transmission network. The System Operator (NGESO)
| doesn't have real-time insight into the distribution
| networks themselves - they are just visible as a net
| demand on the system. Embedded generation serves to
| reduce this demand by feeding power locally to the
| distribution network.
|
| We can forecast the embedded generation in real-time, but
| it's only post event once the meter data has been
| accounted for that we know what actually happened.
| cjrp wrote:
| Interesting, thanks! Does that also mean power fed-in by
| domestic panels will only be used locally?
| DrScientist wrote:
| They do - but as the rate you are paid for electricity is
| now a fraction of the price you are charged, most people
| without a battery try and align their energy use with
| production.
|
| ( The suns out! Put on the washing machine/dish washer
| etc ).
| phas0ruk wrote:
| Not if you locked in a feed in tariff from years ago.
| They lasted 15 years I think.
| DrScientist wrote:
| Sure - don't know what proportion of solar panel
| installations that is though - it was an early adopter
| incentive.
|
| Bottom line - not all the local solar production is
| measured at the grid level - much of it results in demand
| reduction which can't be directly attributed.
|
| I think this will only increase - either due to local
| batteries, or more electricity driven heating systems (
| heat pumps for example ).
|
| And this isn't just homes - if you have a farm and have a
| big water reservoir which you fill by pumping water - and
| you had some solar panels - you'd just run the pumps when
| it was sunny - there is no particular need to run them at
| particular times ( same if you had a wind driven pump ).
| tialaramex wrote:
| _Loads_ of on-shore wind is likewise not metered. If you
| own a hill top farm, especially if you have industrial
| electricity loads (e.g. milking cows, lighting barns full
| of hens) it makes loads of sense to buy a modest turbine
| and install it on a suitable rise, it won 't pay for itself
| over night but it's very competitive with other farm
| investments and not correlated. If electricity prices go up
| the turbine is better value, regardless of whether people
| are paying higher farm gate prices or your yields
| increased.
|
| I think the estimate is that maybe as much as 5GW of UK
| wind nameplate capacity is unmetered, so it's a minority of
| wind power, but it's a big minority.
| Panzer04 wrote:
| That seems very large - I can't imagine plain farm owners
| could reach that kind of wind capacity, are you sure
| that's accurate?
| rpep wrote:
| Predictive maintenance software for renewables assets is a
| fairly large area of growth.
| michaelt wrote:
| _> I assumed solar would be the thing that takes over_
|
| Solar in the UK is highly seasonal. A ~4kW installation that
| generated 500kWh in June might only produce 50kWh in December
| [1] - whereas a ~4kW install in Spain might generate 700kWh in
| June and 200kWh in December [2]
|
| So if you want power output in December, Solar in the UK isn't
| the best choice :)
|
| [1]
| https://pvoutput.org/aggregate.jsp?id=43099&sid=39381&v=0&t=...
| [2]
| https://pvoutput.org/aggregate.jsp?id=91812&sid=81184&v=0&t=...
| pydry wrote:
| Ideally you'd have a mix since they anticorrelate. If it's
| generally sunny when there's little wind and windy when cloudy
| why wouldnt you?
|
| (this is one reason why the amount of storage required for an
| all solar/wind grid is usually vastly overestimated).
| DrScientist wrote:
| Isn't it the sun's energy that ultimately creates the wind -
| through differential heating?
|
| So whether it's anti-correlated might a local feature
| depending on the local factors driving the weather?
|
| Perhaps stronger correlation would be that air movement (
| wind ) is the thing that drives the weather changing. ie no
| wind, means slow change ( though the opposite isn't
| necessarily true - if you are in the centre of a cyclic
| weather system which isn't moving you could have wind and not
| much change ).
| snickmy wrote:
| I'm not sure the anticorrleation has ever been proved. While
| it seems logical, the cloudy / stormy weather that sometime
| we experience in UK is too harsh for wind farms
| magnetic-recoil wrote:
| Named storms often generate records for wind power
| generation. Even if a few turbines in the middle of the
| storm have to turn off, the rest of the country still gets
| lots more wind.
|
| If you look at graphs of the wind and solar production in
| winter vs summer, the correlation is obvious. On a day-to-
| day basis, much less so, but on average low wind does tend
| to come along with higher sun.
| DrScientist wrote:
| It's complicated by the fact that the relationship
| between wind speed and power isn't linear - it's cubic -
| double wind speed - 8 times the power!
|
| This only happens in the designed operating window ( too
| light you get nothing, too strong you need to shut down
| ).
|
| So one question is what window have your tuned your farm
| for?
|
| Air density matters as well - the denser the more power -
| ie the colder the more power.....
| cm2187 wrote:
| There isn't much wind at the moment, you can see the history,
| we are in the lower range right now
|
| https://gridwatch.co.uk/wind
| cameronh90 wrote:
| That's actually below recent historical averages. Over the last
| year (https://grid.iamkate.com/) wind has been 28.5% of total
| energy generation.
| IMSAI8080 wrote:
| Yeah wind is going well these days. The annual average is
| around 30%. I've seen it at 60% on a good day.
| IMSAI8080 wrote:
| There's quite a few of these. Here's another one that I prefer
| the UI of and I think is a bit clearer:
|
| https://grid.iamkate.com/
| Reason077 wrote:
| My favourite for showing UK grid data on a nice, clean, fast
| chart over custom timescales:
|
| https://www.electricinsights.co.uk/#/dashboard
|
| My favourite for showing many country's grids around the world,
| and the power flowing between them through interconnectors:
|
| https://app.electricitymaps.com/map
| boringg wrote:
| I love the data visualizations but I am always surprised to see
| so many different ones given how little use-cases they serve.
| They can broadly let people know where the power is coming for
| and help policy makers to a certain degree. They are just
| naturally interesting for a little bit while you explore but
| then drop off. It's almost like its most useful for exploratory
| data analysis and not a ton else
|
| I'm curious if other people have interesting use cases here and
| how accurate is the data? Is this all people putting different
| layers on top of one source of truth for data - or patching
| together various sources?
| oliwary wrote:
| I really enjoy this one:
| https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/GB
|
| It shows energy sources for all of the countries in Europe on a
| map, import/export, prices and CO2 intensity.
| bearbin wrote:
| The visualisation on that site is good, but it's sadly
| plauged with data errors. The UK data doesn't seem to
| correspond to any other source I can find. I think it might
| be delayed by 24 hours, but even that doesn't seem quite
| right...
| corradio wrote:
| A GitHub issue was filed regarding this:
| https://github.com/electricitymaps/electricitymaps-
| contrib/i...
| bearbin wrote:
| Well, that issue explains a lot. The data source went
| missing, so the website just made up some data and used
| that instead!
|
| That whole website is a nonsense, what's the point in
| visualising imaginary data and pretending it's real...
| taxicabjesus wrote:
| On Friday, December 9th at ~4:00pm GMT (Greenwich mean time):
| Nuclear: 5.25 GW Wind: 3.84 GW Combined Cycle Gas
| Turbines: 23.31 GW Solar (Estimated): 0.35GW
| Installed Wind Capacity (onshore + offshore): 25 GW [0]
| Installed Solar Capacity: 13.4 GW [1] Total installed
| Wind/Solar: 38.4 GW. Total produced: 4.11 GW
|
| Wind is currently producing 15% of its installed capacity. Solar
| is producing 2.6% of its installed capacity. Combined, the
| renewables are at almost 11% of their installed capacity. Gas
| turbines are making up the difference.
|
| Lots of you are cheerleaders for "renewables". They seem like a
| transitional technology to me. If hydrocarbons are ever going to
| be retired from use, nuclear sure does seem like the only option.
|
| It seems to me like humanity's only hope is a breakthrough in our
| understanding of the laws of nature.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_United_Kingd...
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_the_United_King...
|
| edit: formatting & added combined 11% total for wind/solar
| jonatron wrote:
| There's a few things that help with periods of low wind:
| More long distance transmission / interconnects
| Vehicle-to-grid Grid scale battery storage
| Domestic and commercial battery storage (Powerwall etc)
| Seasonal thermal storage - large insulated tanks or ground
| source heat pumps
|
| These all exist, and there will be more new technology coming.
| It doesn't seem like an unsolvable problem.
| pydry wrote:
| Also being 5x cheaper than nuclear power.
| rjsw wrote:
| There is a reason [1] why Solar is only generating a small
| fraction of installed capacity.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night
| taxicabjesus wrote:
| I noted that it was 4pm. Just checked: sunset is at 3:51pm
| tomorrow. So that makes sense.
|
| Even so, the available solar energy in the UK in December is
| ~1/5 what it is in June:
| https://www.viridiansolar.co.uk/resources-1-2-seasonal-
| varia...
| magnetic-recoil wrote:
| You can also view the effects of a frontpage post on HN here:
| http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/admin/
| ls65536 wrote:
| In case anyone else is wondering why the effects of being on
| the HN front page look small at first glance, notice the
| logarithmic scale being used for the y-axis.
|
| At first I thought the increase in traffic, while noticeable,
| didn't look particularly impressive on those graphs, but then I
| noticed that those diurnal traffic patterns looked a bit
| strange, which is when I noticed the log scale!
| [deleted]
| dottedmag wrote:
| Fascinating!
|
| The data shows pretty clearly that combined-cycle gas turbines
| are still THE type of power stations that are used to balance the
| supply and demand, but solar is already helping a lot during the
| day.
|
| French data shows gas power stations produce up to 9GW (~13%),
| and without solar they would be used to produce 12.5GW (~19%).
| gjvc wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37M7ffjro3I I have posted this
| before, but this is an interesting explanation from 2020
| detailing what fuels UK electricity generation.
| guerrilla wrote:
| I'm guessing NordPool has something like that somewhere on their
| site (probably not as cool looking though), but what I found
| interesting is this:
|
| https://umm.nordpoolgroup.com/#/messages?publicationDate=all...
|
| It's the notifications for all production and transmission in
| Europe coming online and going offline with power and dates.
| cm2187 wrote:
| I find https://gridwatch.co.uk/ a bit more readable. At the
| bottom of the page you can click on each energy source to see
| those metrics for that source only (worth doing to understand the
| volatility of wind in particular if you haven't seen those charts
| already)
| dang wrote:
| Related:
|
| _U.K. National Grid status_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8092321 - July 2014 (55
| comments)
| ramzez wrote:
| pretty cool, graphs seems tiny to me, but I usually like this one
| https://grid.iamkate.com
| youngtaff wrote:
| Yeh, Kate presents the data way more clearly
| RyanShook wrote:
| Is wind an efficient way to produce electricity? Would we be
| producing wind turbines if there were 0 subsidies?
| fredley wrote:
| Most windpower in the UK is offshore, and yes it's a great way
| to produce electricity, particularly here!
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_United_Kingd...
| magnetic-recoil wrote:
| Offshore wind in the UK currently uses the "Contracts for
| Difference" payment mechanism. Operators bid to build turbines,
| and the best value operators get assigned areas of the sea.
| Then, they receive a fixed price from consumers for any
| electricity they generate (effectively, but there's market
| mechanisms in there that complicate the accounting).
|
| Initially, this was much more expensive than fossil
| electricity, but the price of turbines has dropped and the
| price of fossil electricity has grown, so now existing wind
| turbines are lowering the price consumers pay for electricity.
|
| New wind farms have achieved CfD rates of less than PS0.04 per
| kWh, which is not a subsidy for the wind farm operators, but
| rather a subsidy for electricity consumers as this electricity
| is far cheaper than market rates.
| DrScientist wrote:
| Adding to that, they are now looking at local hydrogen
| production from wind excess.
|
| While not nearly efficient as using the electricity directly,
| it's more efficient than throwing it away.
|
| Also the offshore farms sit in a pool of the raw material (
| water ).
| snickmy wrote:
| for record, best electrolysis for hydrogen is a 50%
| efficiency end-to-end conversion.
| DrScientist wrote:
| Yep efficiency isn't great - but as I said, better then
| the efficiency of throwing excess away ( zero ).
|
| There is also value in the ability to store the energy -
| not as efficient as something like using water to store
| potential energy ( ~75% ), but there is value there.
|
| I'm not somebody who thinks it will be hydrogen
| everywhere - frankly electricity is easier to distribute
| and we already have a good infrastructure - but that's
| not to say it doesn't have a role.
| RobinL wrote:
| I've always wondered under the mechanism who has benefited
| from higher energy prices in the UK? With consumers currently
| paying high prices, who's getting the difference between the
| CfD price and the market price for energy generated by wind.
| Is it the government do you know?
| magnetic-recoil wrote:
| Wind farm operators sell their power onto the market (they
| can sell however they like, but the reference price is
| calculated according to the day-ahead spot price).
|
| Any imbalance between the agreed price and the reference
| price is sent to the LCCC (Low Carbon Contracts Company,
| part of the government).
|
| The LCCC then re-charges any CfD payments or surplus funds
| to the electricity suppliers. This should eventually work
| its way into an increase or reduction in household energy
| bills. So the end consumer should get the difference
| between the wholesale and CfD price, in theory. This is
| also taken into account when the OFGEM price cap is
| calculated.
|
| To answer your question about who benefits from high
| electricity prices - mostly fossil fuel producers, but also
| fossil power stations, legacy renewable generators with
| direct subsidies rather than CfDs, and electricity market
| traders exploiting the volatility.
| RobinL wrote:
| thanks - very interesting!
|
| I think that also clarifies something I'd found
| confusing: that the spot price is currently effectively
| determined by the price of gas, and yet the UK consumer
| is benefitting from the presence of wind generation
| (which generates much cheaper power than gas)
|
| If I've understood your post correctly, this is because
| the electricity companies don't directly pass the spot
| price onto consumers. Instead when the price to consumers
| is calculated, the part attributable to wind is taken
| account of at the lower price.
|
| So effectively the marginal price to consumers is
| actually affected by the average cost of generation
| (which is turn, from an economic point of view is
| arguably undesirable, because it means consumers don't
| have sharp enough incentives to save electricity at the
| margin)
| magnetic-recoil wrote:
| Yes, that's right. The spot price is determined by the
| marginal source of electricity. That's normally gas, but
| is sometimes coal, imports, or pumped hydro storage. The
| consumer actually benefits twice - once when the wind is
| sold into the market, which necessarily lowers the spot
| price for _all_ electricity (more wind supply is the same
| as reducing total demand, which will reduce the market
| price). Then, the difference between the spot price and
| the CfD price is refunded, but this time only on the
| electricity actually generated by wind.
|
| In general, electricity suppliers don't literally pass
| the spot price on to consumers. It used to be that a
| supplier could price electricity however they liked,
| including passing the spot price on. However, for the
| past few years, suppliers are required to buy futures,
| and price their supplied electricity on that basis,
| because of the domestic price cap. If they didn't they
| would run the risk of going bankrupt like Bulb. Futures
| bring stability, and in an efficient market with perfect
| information buying futures would be the same as buying
| spot. But the market is not efficient and with perfect
| information, so that assumption doesn't apply.
| Notwithstanding that, you were correct, the part of
| electricity generation attributable to wind should be
| taken account of at the lower price.
|
| For most consumers, their marginal cost of electricity is
| identical to their average cost (ignoring the standing
| charge) as they are on a fixed rate tariff. It would
| undoubtedly be more efficient to charge consumers the
| actual marginal cost at the time of consumption, and then
| refund the CfD payments in a monthly payment later, but
| that's not how it's done sadly.
| pjc50 wrote:
| It is now, while natural gas prices are high and the technology
| is mature. It did require a subsidy to get off the ground. Of
| course, you have to decide whether the consumption of a
| globally finite resource of "safe temperature" counts as a
| subsidy or not.
| pydry wrote:
| It's _very_ cost effective. A wind generated MWh costs about
| PS25 while a nuclear MWh is more in the region of PS120.
|
| If you use wind to generate electricity and use that to
| synthesize natural gas which you store and use to generate
| electricity the whole thing costs about PS80-90.
| 7952 wrote:
| Wind turbines are capital intensive and the entire cost is
| upfront. Once the turbine is built it makes sense to sell it at
| whatever the current market rate is. That could be really low
| or really high. The main purpose of government support is to
| give some certainty about being able to pay off the debt. But
| that support has become less neccesary as costs go down and
| wholesale prices go up. Arguably the main benefit of setting
| prices upfront in the long term is avoiding price spikes and
| encouraging cost reduction. But there are also risks in terms
| of the cost of servicing debt as interest rates rise.
| 7952 wrote:
| The National Grid Pressure maps are also interesting.
|
| https://gasdata.nationalgrid.com/
|
| The network is used for short term storage to even out supply and
| demand.
| alexpotato wrote:
| I think it's cool that there are bitmaps for the dials and then
| separate bitmaps for each needle position.
|
| You can see a lot of them here:
| http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/bitmaps
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