[HN Gopher] New UK record for wind power set today - 21.81 GW be...
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New UK record for wind power set today - 21.81 GW between 0900-0930
GMT
Author : scrlk
Score : 130 points
Date : 2023-12-21 09:58 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (grid.iamkate.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (grid.iamkate.com)
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Storm Pia is passing over the UK today, and it is a very windy
| day [1]
|
| [1] https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/warnings-and-
| advice/uk-...
| ttrrooppeerr wrote:
| No great loss without some gain!
| meindnoch wrote:
| Imagine how much windier would it be, if they didn't extract
| that energy with wind farms.
| CorrectHorseBat wrote:
| Probably not measurable
| hunglee2 wrote:
| UK could obviously be a wind / wave energy super power. Despite
| multi-decade mismanagement by government, we can be bullish about
| UK prospects, especially now Scottish Independence is receding
| from the conversation
| secfirstmd wrote:
| Why would Scottish independence matter? Are they gonna take
| their wind with them?
| throwaway0665 wrote:
| There are a considerable number of existing wind farms in
| Scottland
| s0l1dsnak3123 wrote:
| Well, yes, Scotland has many of the best sites for wind
| turbine generation in the UK. In all likelihood my country
| would be able to sell energy and water to the rest of the UK
| when Scotland finally leaves (I am still certain it will
| happen in my lifetime).
| martinald wrote:
| Not really, most offshore is off the coast of England now,
| not Scotland.
| anovikov wrote:
| And this is probably exactly because of Scottish
| independence concerns in the past...
| martinald wrote:
| I don't think there is a huge difference in output of
| English vs Scottish territorial water wind output.
|
| There is a massive shortage of Scottish -> England
| transmission though. So it's a lot better to build them
| closer to where the power is needed.
|
| However, there is nearly 10GW of HVDC in the pipeline to
| transmit power from Scotland to England (look up national
| grid eastern link 1, 2, 3 and 4).
| louthy wrote:
| Just to back that up:
|
| https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-locations-of-
| constru...
| martinald wrote:
| That's from 2010. This is a more up to date one, but
| still probably outdated:
| https://www.windenergynetwork.co.uk/wp-
| content/uploads/2021/...
| scythe wrote:
| One of the major limitations of wind power in England is
| that new onshore wind farms are very difficult to construct
| if not totally illegal in England. This is probably part of
| the reason for the situation another commenter noticed:
| most UK offshore is currently in England's territorial
| waters. But another reason is due to shortfalls in the
| physical interconnection between the Scottish and English
| power grids. UK must construct additional pylons.
|
| There's also major potential for wind farms in Wales,
| although it's been controversial since some of the sites
| are on top of peat bogs or scenic hills.
|
| >Scotland finally leaves (I am still certain it will happen
| in my lifetime).
|
| Scotland could aim for a Channel Islands-type arrangement
| where they still enjoy an economic union without an
| administrative one. That would be similar to the situation
| that existed before the Acts of Union. Of course, they're
| quite a bit bigger than Jersey, so it could be tricky.
| tremon wrote:
| But are you then implying that once the UK left the EU, all
| power transmission wires were cut as well? Because I don't
| see a reason why England wouldn't still enjoy low prices
| for wind energy even if Scotland were independent -- if
| Scotland has overcapacity, they'll have to sell at any
| price anyway to avoid disrupting their power grid.
|
| Besides, the European electricity grid is much larger than
| the EU, it spans all the way from Ireland to Turkey, and
| from Finland to Morocco.
| secfirstmd wrote:
| This
| Anon826 wrote:
| UK government pays for energy projects in Scotland to help
| Scottish economy. Scotland makes up 7% of UK economy.
| Scotland claims 100% ownership after independence. Genius
| SNP.
| jl6 wrote:
| The big wind projects aren't "owned" by the UK/Scottish
| governments, they are private* assets built under a
| government license. Most likely an independent Scotland
| would continue to license these wind farms and the energy
| trade with the rest of the UK would continue under very
| similar terms.
|
| * Actually, many of them are owned by non-UK governments.
| yread wrote:
| Isn't it the other way around? British gov sells licenses
| for windparks for billions. It then guarantees electricity
| price to a certain degree. This would be presumably paid by
| the Scottish gov.
| krallja wrote:
| They would take the Scottish coast with them.
| thebruce87m wrote:
| Scottish independence is directly linked to energy. If
| Scottish independence is in the news then the amount of oil
| in the North Sea vanishes overnight. Luckily it all comes
| back when independence talk dies down.
| walthamstow wrote:
| I thought I read that wave/tidal was basically not worth the
| investment and ecological impact for the power it generates.
| MrsPeaches wrote:
| Seawater ain't no joke.
|
| I remember reading a few papers about essentially underwater
| turbines in tidal estuaries. Where you have natural flow of
| water that you can just tap. If I recall correctly impact on
| local wildlife (seals iirc) was lower than expected.
|
| Main argument I could see was that water had 1000x the
| density of air so 1000x the amount of power for a rotor with
| the same swept area. Of course fluid speeds are lower so it's
| not quite that easy. But much more predictable. They did some
| fancy optimisations in the blades and came up with decent
| efficiencies. It's a great little series of papers by Batten
| and Bahaj et. al from 2006.
|
| I assume the art has progressed since then.
|
| But yeah, anything with moving parts in seawater is a
| nightmare as far as I can tell.
| riv991 wrote:
| Tidal energy is not renewable! We'd be tidally locked to
| the moon in 1000 years if we used Tidal for 1% of our
| energy consumption.
|
| https://cs.stanford.edu/people/zjl/pdf/tide.pdf
| anovikov wrote:
| That article is based on ridiculous assumptions of future
| energy consumption growth, and was probably created as a
| joke. Which backfired since it got seriously quoted in so
| many places.
| midasuni wrote:
| They have a 2% increase in energy use each year for 1000
| years, currently 10^12W
|
| That would mean we'd be well into the type 1 civilisation
| about 10^19W a year and we'll be on the way to a type 2
| civilisation.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Sunlight hitting Earth is around 10^17 W, so that
| civilization would be rather toasty.
| midasuni wrote:
| In theory if you used the power and radiated it to space
| (via laser, RF, etc) you'd be ok. You could even use also
| use that energy to put into rotational energy to increase
| the earths rotational speed
| pfdietz wrote:
| Lasers can't radiate heat, as a laser beam has no
| entropy. Ditto for coherent radio waves.
| jdietrich wrote:
| _> I assume the art has progressed since then._
|
| Not really, no. Even if you completely solved the issue of
| corrosion (which we absolutely haven't), you'd still have
| to deal with biofouling - anything you leave underwater
| will rapidly become covered in algae, seaweed and
| invertebrates. We have antifouling coatings, but a) they're
| quite toxic, for obvious reasons and b) they need to be
| regularly renewed.
|
| That would be enough of a problem, but you've also got the
| cost and difficulty of maintaining underwater
| infrastructure. It's inherently dangerous, very slow and
| often made impossible by tidal or weather conditions.
|
| Offshore wind turbines are already much more expensive to
| build and maintain than onshore, but tidal generators are
| on another level entirely.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| The Rance tidal power station [1] in France has been
| operating since 1966 so I don't think that there are
| technical issues, at least with this type of tidal power
| generation (ie. a dam across a tidal estuary and good old
| turbines to produce electricity). That specific power
| station doubles as a much needed road bridge, as well.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rance_Tidal_Power_Station
| creer wrote:
| It has been operating - but it was a research project and
| it's not like tidal has proliferated since then. Not
| quite a dead end yet - people are still working on
| submerged tidal kinds of things. But close.
| jdietrich wrote:
| It wouldn't be legal to build Rance in the EU today,
| because of the enormously disruptive effects on the local
| ecosystem. It's not something that bothers me personally,
| but it's a total dealbreaker in a country like the UK
| where wildlife activists hold considerably more political
| sway that climate activists.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Yes, that's what I was thinking.
|
| There was a project to build a tidal lagoon in Cardiff
| [1] that was eventually abandoned, and I don't know about
| the environmental impact. But it had the merit of being
| ambitious.
|
| [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-41213528
| loufe wrote:
| I understand the use of wave in this context like hydrogen
| fuel cells in NA. It's amazing to hear that our governments
| are still giving money to what is clearly a bad idea
| (hydrogen). I think, like in the case of tidal power, you
| could chalk it up to doing something to sate special
| interests.
| pydry wrote:
| Hydrogen will probably fill a niche for seasonal grid
| energy storage. In general pumped storage > batteries >
| hydrogen for cost/efficiency, but hydrogen has the
| advantage that it's cheap to store for weeks or months at a
| time while pumped storage/batteries are suited only to
| smoothing out daily or weekly variations in solar and wind
| output.
|
| It's more useful for getting from 90%/95% to 100% green
| energy than from 0% - 90% though, and it's more expensive
| than natural gas performing the same function so we likely
| won't see it used in anger for a while.
| thworp wrote:
| > but hydrogen has the advantage that it's cheap to store
| for weeks or months at a time
|
| Where did you get that idea? Hydrogen is extremely hard
| to work with and really really wants to escape from any
| containment vessel you put it in. See https://www.science
| direct.com/science/article/pii/S136403212...
| pydry wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_hydrogen_storag
| e
|
| Your article talks about it positively.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I had a friend that lived in the Outer Hebrides (Northwest
| coast of Scotland).
|
| He said it wasn't unusual to have gales in the winter, with
| >100Km/hr winds.
|
| Seems to be a rich local resource.
| neilkk wrote:
| Wind turbines have a max windspeed beyond which they stop
| generating, as it's too risky to let the blades spin that
| fast.
| julosflb wrote:
| Cut off wind speed is typically around 25m/s steady, so
| almost 100km/h. Beyond that indeed they stop producing.
| mavhc wrote:
| Only downside is it's taken loads of public transport offline
| deadbunny wrote:
| If only someone had planned ahead and added some redundancy to
| the lines running out or Euston to Manchester.
|
| Oh wait.
| tupac_speedrap wrote:
| I'm not surprised, there are wheelie bins all over the place,
| it's like a warzone out there.
| dnel wrote:
| the storms only ever pass on bin day, I'm seeing the pattern
| Baldbvrhunter wrote:
| every day is bin day somewhere in your region
| scrlk wrote:
| It's a wheelie bad situation (sorry, couldn't help myself) -
| got woken up at 0600 when the recycling bins lined up on my
| street started to topple over, scattering cans and bottles
| everywhere.
| buggeryorkshire wrote:
| Not surprised as it knocked my outdoor Christmas tree down...
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| VikingLink turns up Dec 29, which will bring 800MW of clean wind
| energy to the UK from Denmark until transmission work in Denmark
| allows for the full 1.4GW link capacity to be utilized.
|
| https://www.offshore-energy.biz/viking-link-worlds-largest-i...
|
| https://www.viking-link.com/
| frereubu wrote:
| And it's going to get better:
|
| "Orsted is to press ahead with developing the world's largest
| offshore wind farm in the North Sea after the UK increased
| financial support for the sector in a big boost for the Danish
| group after a string of setbacks."
|
| https://www.ft.com/content/4d3cc6d4-f479-4607-9574-63e320af8...
| https://archive.is/Rm9Hi
| CaptainOfCoit wrote:
| It's great to see how the usage of the North Sea have shifted
| over time, and it still remains as useful as before. We've
| always fished there, and I remember my grandpa being involved
| with some oil/gas engineering there, he used to have some
| maps of the North Sea with planned stations or something, and
| now the wind farms getting expanded to provide cleaner
| energy.
| ksec wrote:
| Has there been any study that if we populate the say 20-30%
| of North Sea with Wind Turbine, how much electricity could
| that provide?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Offshore:
|
| https://windeurope.org/policy/topics/offshore-wind-energy/
|
| https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/north-sea-
| countries-...
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S23524847
| 2...
|
| https://www.uib.no/sites/w3.uib.no/files/attachments/presen
| t...
|
| Onshore, Europe has enough wind potential to power the
| world.
| cjrp wrote:
| There's a David McWilliams podcast episode about how
| Ireland has enough wind potential to meet their entire
| energy demand and be a net exporter. Interesting listen
| https://shows.acast.com/the-david-mcwilliams-
| podcast/episode...
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Thanks for sharing this. Northern Ireland just retired
| their last coal fired generator at the end of September
| 2023 and the Republic of Ireland has a 2025 phaseout
| target for the remaining generators.
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20231004055500/https://www.bb
| c.c...
|
| https://beyondfossilfuels.org/europes-coal-exit/
| abainbridge wrote:
| Not a direct answer to your questions, but there's some
| nice data here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_offsh
| ore_wind_farms_in...
|
| Currently we have 14.7 GW of operational off-shore wind
| gen. Another 13 GW is in the planning stage and 46 GW more
| in the "early planning" stage.
|
| There's currently 14 GW of on-shore wind gen.
| Arbortheus wrote:
| A super cheap wholesale price on a windy day like this.
|
| Past year average: PS97.90/MWh Right now: PS5.99/MWh.
|
| Better transmission and storage tech or better ways to scale
| demand at different times will be a game changer here.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| It was once said that nuclear fission would be too cheap to
| meter. Turns out, that promise will be met with fusion at a
| distance.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37502924 (citations)
|
| (edit @ oezi: wind power is solar power)
| oezi wrote:
| Solar alone won't cut it in the winter. We need wind as well.
| ben_w wrote:
| While I prefer a mix of sources to avoid correlated black
| swan failures, _technically_ you could power the world just
| fine with distributed PV and a sufficiently fat[0] wire
| connecting everything.
|
| [0] 1m^2 cross section if it's aluminium
| throwup238 wrote:
| Hopefully they'll use plasma conduits instead and all the
| years of binge watching Star Trek and Stargate will pay
| off.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Or with hydrogen storage.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Ammonia.
| pfdietz wrote:
| You can store hydrogen underground. I don't think that
| would work as well with ammonia.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://patents.google.com/patent/US2901403A/en
|
| https://www.oxfordenergy.org/wpcms/wp-
| content/uploads/2020/1...
|
| https://www.nj.gov/dep/njgs/enviroed/infocirc/StorCavsIC.
| pdf (Control-F "Repauno Works")
|
| TLDR It is a superior long duration liquid energy storage
| system vs hydrogen.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Conceded! Except for round trip efficiency.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| No worries, we are all learning together.
|
| https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acssuschemeng.7b02219
| throwaway2990 wrote:
| Wind and solar are terrible solutions. Another 10-20 years
| and people will be complaining about cost of power as all
| the wind and solar need to be replaced and repaired. And
| the discussions on irreversible damage it's done.
| throwbadubadu wrote:
| Lucky us we are past that already with nuclear, those
| plants never need replacement, neither heavy subsidies
| upfront, or also afterwards to dismantle and clean up..
| why humans so stupid? Did I forgot that they also never
| need maintenance, as all the other tech? Except gas and
| coal plants, which are also maintenance free, and we can
| even make profit on the resources they consume!
| jermaustin1 wrote:
| I got it! A huge fan that blows a lot of wind when demand
| peaks!
| function_seven wrote:
| Literally importing the wind from one place to another. What
| a time to be alive!
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| At that price resistive heating would be cheaper than nat gas.
| creer wrote:
| And the appliances are inexpensive too.
| jonatron wrote:
| I got paid to use electricity this morning:
| https://agileprices.co.uk/
| shaoonb wrote:
| Didn't know this site existed. Way better than the Octopus app.
| jonatron wrote:
| There's also a handy twitter account for predicting slightly
| further ahead: https://twitter.com/agilepredict
| adamm255 wrote:
| "Octo-Aid" is great if your on iOS.
| forinti wrote:
| Nice time to turn on a bitcoin miner.
|
| Is there an API to monitor prices?
| jonatron wrote:
| Octopus do have an API:
| https://developer.octopus.energy/docs/api/
| itsoktocry wrote:
| How have your energy costs looked, overall, over the past 2-3
| years? Getting cheaper or more expensive?
|
| I ask because I frequently see posts like this one, but then
| also that Europeans are paying more than ever etc. Hard to
| figure if we are putting a dent in anything.
| Peanuts99 wrote:
| I've been on Agile for about 6 months and my average energy
| price is around 0.22p/kWh which is significantly less than
| the standard tariff most people get which is around
| 0.36p/kWh. There's been a few weeks where prices have been
| higher but it balances out so far.
| uf00lme wrote:
| I have octopus agile for electricity and octopus tracker
| for gas. Been on both since February when my last fixed
| rate ended.
|
| It has worked out great so far, some days when there isn't
| much wind can be painful but overall it works out better.
| Even if it didn't, I'd rather pay a fair amount than have
| energy companies rip me off.
| jonatron wrote:
| Over the last year, my overall average rate on the agile
| (time of use) tariff has been about PS0.19/kWh. It's
| significantly cheaper than on the standard tariff, which
| would have been somewhere between PS0.28/kWh and PS0.35/kWh
| approx.
| cjrp wrote:
| Do you still pay the same standing charge? That's where a
| lot of the cost seems to have shifted (on my non-variable
| tariff at least).
| jonatron wrote:
| For some reason the standing charge is a bit less too.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| The higher the standing charge as a percentage of the
| final cost, the less motivation there is to respond to
| the price signal, which is part of the point of providing
| varying prices to the end user.
| passwordoops wrote:
| Awesome. With increasing capacity they'll keep on breaking
| records. Now can we start sharing links to storage projects too?
| Because not every day is windy
| jonatron wrote:
| On 9 August 2019 there was a significant power cut due to lack
| of inertia. This duration was significantly reduced because of
| batteries [1]. Since then, gas turbines have been repurposed to
| provide inertia without generation [2]. Check out the
| documentary series "Guy Martin's Great British Power Trip" [3]
| for more national grid facts.
|
| [1]
| https://www.theblackoutreport.co.uk/2023/08/09/9-august-2019...
| [2] https://www.nationalgrideso.com/news/deeside-power-
| station-b... [3] https://www.channel4.com/programmes/guy-
| martins-great-britis...
| 4ggr0 wrote:
| For everyone who doesn't know Guy Martin, I initially know
| him as a superbiker and first heard of him in the context of
| the Isle of Man TT[0][1], so I was a bit surprised to see
| he's now doing docuseries about power grids :D
|
| [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmNXCJt7K3Q
|
| [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isle_of_Man_TT
| cm2187 wrote:
| I am not even aware that any are planned at scale. I think
| their plan is to keep using LNG to offset.
| martinald wrote:
| There is an absolutely enormous amount of battery storage in
| the pipeline. There's been major problems with transmission
| capacity though which National Grid is seemingly finally
| getting on top of - https://www.pv-
| magazine.com/2023/11/07/uk-grid-operator-stre....
| cm2187 wrote:
| This link and the other websites where I tried to find the
| numbers quote the capacity in GW, which is very curious
| because that's not a battery capacity unit. I have the
| feeling that when they quote 10GW, they mean 10GWh. If it
| is the case those batteries are peanuts. On a typical year
| you often have episodes of several days if not a couple of
| weeks with low to no wind.
| chippiewill wrote:
| It's not about the capacity of the batteries themselves,
| it's about the _grid_ capacity they can cover. GW isn't a
| mistake, they care that it can deliver 10GW of
| instantaneous power, not 10GWh.
|
| National Grid don't want these storage projects to allow
| us to tide over for days of no wind / no solar, but to
| add grid balancing.
|
| At the moment if a large power supplier disconnects (e.g.
| a 1.2GW Nuclear plant) then to handle the drop in
| supplied power over a period of seconds/minutes before a
| standby gas turbine generator can fire up they currently
| rely on the "spinning" mass within the system - literally
| the intertia of the spinning steel within all the
| remaining nuclear, gas, coal, biomass power plants. As
| the grid is being decarbonised this spinning mass is
| being reduced (Unfortunately wind turbines don't have
| enough mass for this) and they need to add more
| responsive balancing.
| cm2187 wrote:
| ok but then we are back to my point that there is no
| large battery capacity to deal with the volatility of
| wind. From what I can tell from gridwatch, LNG is what
| they fire up when there is no wind.
| ksec wrote:
| I would like to think the best way for Storage isn't a a giant
| battery somewhere ( although we could certainly do that with
| Hydro Dam ), may be something like a Tesla Powerwall that could
| work 20-30 years minimum, minimal to zero fire risk. All the
| homes could then install their own and take advantage of the
| cheap electricity price at night or in other hours. It would
| ultimately serve as the biggest buffer to any surge in energy
| usage.
| standeven wrote:
| A buried flywheel storage system would accomplish this,
| they're just prohibitively expensive at the moment. Vehicle-
| to-grid will be big once it catches on and consumers get over
| the idea of adding cycles to their vehicle batteries.
| cm2187 wrote:
| Why? You lose the diversification effect. You would have to
| size the battery to each house's max consumption.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| The grid is still a big bottleneck across the board, from
| production (can't connect wind or solar farms) to deliver
| (can't connect charging stations, etc).
| Blehmo wrote:
| Easy: get an EV and allow bidirectional charging; done.
|
| My ev has 100kWh, just the bi directional is not yet working
| r00fus wrote:
| Which EV is that? I know Tesla doesn't support bidirectional
| and most other EVs top off at 75-80kWh.
| standeven wrote:
| Here's the storage solution project I'm working on:
| https://vortical.io
|
| Flywheel storage (which is not new), but we sacrifice some
| efficiency and energy density so we can do it for cheap.
| lolc wrote:
| Unfortunately the linked page has zero info on how their
| flywheels differ from current tech.
| standeven wrote:
| Waiting for patents to file before public disclosure of the
| tech, but I can give you a basic overview. We use mass
| instead of speed to store energy. This is slightly less
| efficient but way less expensive; speed requires magnetic
| bearings and operating in a vacuum and many other expensive
| design constraints. Other flywheels operate in the 7500 -
| 100k RPM range, and we spin at 2000.
| lolc wrote:
| If you forego magnetic bearings and vacuum, the energy
| drains within hours, no?
| standeven wrote:
| Bearing and windage losses scale down drastically with
| lower speeds, so only slightly worse than other flywheel
| systems. They are best for daily cycles or multiple-daily
| cycles. Things like load shifting, peak shaving,
| frequency regulation, etc. They are not well suited for
| storage beyond a few days.
| bufio wrote:
| Lovely. Can we have lower bills yet?
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| No, they are going up in the new year.
| swarnie wrote:
| Its already pretty cheap right?
|
| Checking Octopus it seems to be averaging about PS140 a month
| on my account.
| midasuni wrote:
| That's menaingless without saying what your consumption is
| maccard wrote:
| If you have a smart meter, yes. My electricity rate today is
| 15p/kWh.
| uf00lme wrote:
| As per other comments, I will likely net profit today from
| maxing out usage during negative pricing via octopus agile.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| On the solstice, too, when solar production will be relatively
| low. It's a good anecdote in the conversation about the renewable
| mix.
| standeven wrote:
| Wind often increases when solar energy decreases and vice
| versa, which is why they are deployed together when possible.
| cm2187 wrote:
| It's a pity it was really low when it was really cold in early
| Dec.
| sovande wrote:
| Really cold weather doesn't have much wind. It's metrology.
| Without long term storage, wind power during the winter in the
| northern hemisphere is just meh. Same with any variable
| renewable energy source. Instead of celebrating the few times
| renewable energy actually produces energy when it's needed we
| should celebrate every time a new Nuclear power plant comes
| online.
| doingtheiroming wrote:
| The constant 15% that everyone forgets. And the U.K. is still
| importing French nuclear energy today.
| thehappypm wrote:
| Generally speaking extreme temps don't coexist with wind for
| very long. Wind, after all, convects air around, and
| fundamentally you'll have the extremes mixed with non-extreme
| air.
|
| Like a heat dome, for example, is only possible when there's
| no wind to push the dome away.
| alamsterdam wrote:
| Ireland is generating 75% renewable today also!
|
| https://www.eirgrid.ie/grid/real-time-system-information
| mrspuratic wrote:
| I understand 75% is the current "limit", I guess for grid
| stability: https://www.eirgrid.ie/news/eirgrid-and-soni-
| recognised-rene... (aiming for 95% by 2030, pending ROCOF
| related upgrades)
|
| The forecast is to beat the record peak 4610MW for wind today
| too.
| wiredfool wrote:
| Looks like a peak of 4517MW from wind today, just shy of the
| record.
| jwhiles wrote:
| I did think it was very windy today.
| louthy wrote:
| I'm not surprised, it's like Lord of the Rings outside right now!
| gandalfian wrote:
| While impressive to be boring electricity use was about 30GW but
| direct heating by gas and oil consumption was another 150GW or
| so. Heat pumps might reduce that in theory but still quite a way
| to go...
| jahnu wrote:
| If I understand it correctly a heat pump would have produced
| the same heat with 1/3 the energy?
|
| Yeah a long way to go but considering we are only really at the
| beginning of the green energy revolution this is all great
| news. It affirms that we can do it.
| chippiewill wrote:
| Yes, and a heat pump tends to run at lower output for longer
| periods of time versus traditional fuel fired boilers so the
| peak power demand would be even lower still.
| time4tea wrote:
| Can confirm that in my 1920s house, now with heat pump, my
| energy use is now a fraction of what it used to be, since
| replacing boiler with heat pump.
|
| Before: Jan 600kWh electricity, 3300kWh gas = 3900kWh
|
| After: Jan 1580 kWh electricity, 20kWh gas (cooking hob)
|
| So in total, 41% of previous amount, and for heating, 30%.
|
| So yes, for crappy uk houses heat pumps are totally fine.
|
| Adding in solar pv, and a time shifting battery, and the
| bills are maybe PS2k per year lower than they would be.
| choeger wrote:
| Germany today (massively rainy and windy day) had a peak of over
| 50GW. Surprisingly we still had 2GW solar peak even today with
| the worst possible weather and over 9GW just two days ago.
| TheFuzzball wrote:
| Yeah it's pretty windy out.
| petercooper wrote:
| It's particularly impressive to me given the stormy conditions. I
| remember about twenty years ago when my area got a huge wind farm
| and they used to "turn it off" if it got a bit too windy which
| always seemed amusing to me.
|
| Look further at the 'past day' stats on that page, 61% of power
| came from wind in the past 24 hours and 78.5% from 'zero carbon'
| sources overall (also including hydro and nuclear). This is
| fantastic progress.
| vegancap wrote:
| Was lying in bed last night listening to the wind, thinking 'I
| wonder how much energy that's generating', checked this morning
| and wasn't disappointed. If we could sort renewable energy
| storage out, we'd be laughing energy prices wise. We're a windy
| little island, after all.
| standeven wrote:
| Yes, storage is the bottleneck that not many people talk about.
| The transition to renewable energy is still young and already
| we're seeing negative spot prices. My company is working on
| affordable, lithium-free storage for the grid to address this.
| vegancap wrote:
| Well, I wish you and your company the very best of luck and
| hope you succeed! It's going to change the game completely
| once that problem's addressed
| superposeur wrote:
| Great Scot! 21.81 Gigawatts!
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fzuO9wHrvGg
| fulafel wrote:
| See also: https://theconversation.com/britain-is-a-net-
| electricity-exp... (" Britain is a net electricity exporter for
| first time in 44 years ")
|
| Seems the links to/from rest of europe are working out fairly
| well. Is there some web source that would show the "trade
| balance" on eg monthly basis?
| speps wrote:
| You can see a live map there:
| https://app.electricitymaps.com/map
| fulafel wrote:
| Maybe I'm missing something but there doesn't seem to be
| import/export angle shown there?
| youngtaff wrote:
| Part of the reason we were a net export last winter was the gas
| pipeline's to continental Europe were at capacity, so we were
| burning the LNG here and then exporting the electricity instead
|
| Since then Germany has increases it's own LNG capability and
| gas storage in Europe was filled much sooner
| Angostura wrote:
| This would explain why yesterday evening and this evening Octopus
| Energy's electricity price is negative (I'm on their agile
| tariff). My olar batteries will be going on forced charge during
| that time and my electric water heater (usually unused - we are
| on gas) will automatically come on.
| Angostura wrote:
| If anyone doesn't know it - Gridwatch is fun
|
| http://gridwatch.templar.co.uk
| zeristor wrote:
| Caveat: I have gleaned bits and bobs from across the web, but I
| do not work in the UK power industry.
|
| I believe there might be a lot of wind power, but the UK grid
| doesn't yet have the capacity to transfer it, with London and the
| SE being a key user of power. Until then a proportion of wind
| power needs to be curtained, and gas power generated near the
| South East.
|
| A coming link from Scotland to Norway should allow power to be
| exported, in addition to the England Norway link.
|
| The main issue I believe is the Scotland to England link, a
| second interconnect, this time on the Eastern side of the British
| isles is being built.
|
| Batteries can only soak up only so much extra wind power, and
| currently there isn't much call for desalination plants in
| Glasgow.
| youngtaff wrote:
| Robin Hawkes GB Renewables Map is great for looking at wind farms
| and how much energy they're producing
|
| https://renewables-map.robinhawkes.com/#5/55/-3.2
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