Energy in public ownership

Andy_W said:
I'm more bothered that it's misleading.

It's like saying because a car can go 150mph, it's not serving its purpose at 50mph, when it was expected to run at an average of 50mph for it's entire life, and is profitable/ useful, doing just that.
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You misss the point, you need electricity grids to be reliable and constant.

Using your car analogy

Let's say you had a car that was powered by a solar panel and maximum out put of the panel gave 50 mph speed. You have a 300 mile journey to make and you must be there by 4pm. What time would you set off?
 
BoroBosco said:
You misss the point, you need electricity grids to be reliable and constant.

Using your car analogy

Let's say you had a car that was powered by a solar panel and maximum out put of the panel gave 50 mph speed. You have a 300 mile journey to make and you must be there by 4pm. What time would you set off?
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The solar panel would charge the battery, so no need to worry.
 
Wind needs energy strorage facilities to make it reliable. It is possible with significant investment, but its not happening to a significant scale at present. To me it is has investment potential. Demand for electricity must be increasing with electric vehicles increasing and electric heat pumps. In fact they are both getting forced on people if they want it or not.

There some energy storage companies that could be interesting investments as we are like to have energy deficits in the UK by 2030.
 
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NYboro said:
You don't expect 100% capacity all the time.
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You don't understand this at all do you. At 6pm tonight the windmills could be producing anything from 0 to 100 % of capacity which is exactly the problem, they are not a reliable source of power.
 
BoroBosco said:
There is 13 GW of Solar capacity in UK so right now we have wind producing less than 10% of capacity & solar producing 19% of capacity.
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I don't think anyone is expecting 13GW all over the UK at this moment in time, or at any moment in time in the future (without more panels), We're of course never going to average that over a full day, as half the time is night or the panels are not in view of the sun/ light (which is well known).

Over the course of even a good 24-hour period, the UK's solar panels (as a collective) are not expected to put out more than 25% of their rated capacity (3GW), we're actually getting near that now, and it's cloudy everywhere (it would probably be more than double if it was sunny). In August, the panels over a 24-hour period average between 1-3GW, it's quite predictable and profitable, and cheap to the end user.
 
BoroBosco said:
You don't understand this at all do you. At 6pm tonight the windmills could be producing anything from 0 to 100 % of capacity which is exactly the problem, they are not a reliable source of power.
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No. What is clear is that you don't understand it at all.
 
Andy_W said:
I don't think anyone is expecting 13GW all over the UK at this moment in time, or at any moment in time in the future (without more panels), We're of course never going to average that over a full day, as half the time is night or the panels are not in view of the sun/ light (which is well known).

Over the course of even a good 24-hour period, the UK's solar panels (as a collective) are not expected to put out more than 25% of their rated capacity (3GW), we're actually getting near that now, and it's cloudy everywhere (it would probably be more than double if it was sunny). In August, the panels over a 24-hour period average between 1-3GW, it's quite predictable and profitable, and cheap to the end user.
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Read what you've written here and previously then ask your self if this paints a picture of a reliable system that can produce power on demand.

If I built a 3GW nuclear power station I would expect it to be able to produce anything upto 3 GW at anytime and the same would apply for gas, biomass, waste and geothermal. Tidal would obviously be different but would be fully predictable.
 
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BoroBosco said:
You misss the point, you need electricity grids to be reliable and constant.
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You need a constant supply but this varies over the course of the day and night, and also a lot with the seasons, and can be supplied with a mix of sources. Nobody has ever said use only wind/ solar, but we can use them for the vast majority, for the vast majority of the time, and use the rest as backups.

This can all be modelled, with allowing massive excess for each, as it is all designed to be profitable nowhere near its max, and wind and solar are very cheap per unit. Plus, we can always become a net exporter. If the other countries don't need our exports then they likely have an excess, so can top us up if needed.

On days where we have massive excess (which would happen a lot when it's windy), we can even use inefficient storage, like pumped hydro or whatever, but it may not even be necessary.

Yes, there might be times on an evening in winter when it's not sunny and demand is high, but it's extremely unlikely that the wind will be zero, and you still have all the other renewables which can operate around the clock, on demand, to cover it. We don't need to run biomass, energy from waste or other renewables around the clock, we can use them in accordance with seasons and weather patterns (we already do this).

We also still have nuclear which we can run at a constant 25% supply, which we may need to up this, but maybe not.

We obviously wouldn't disconnect the gas for a decade or whatever, so could still bring that in as a backup, until we figure out a storage option, or until we're fully covered (Easily). We also can use LNG, stored, rather than relying on gas pipelines which others could be competing for, we've got loads of LNG ports already (more than any other EU country I think).

The idea is the gas is the backup, not the around-the-clock source of 40%.

There's no reason to be using as much gas, biomass, energy from waste etc during the day in summer, or in winter when it's windy AF.

We took coal from being the largest supply, to the smallest, in a decade, and replaced it with less demand and more renewables, gas is next. We took out 15GW of coal (half our demand), and only added 3GW of Gas (added becuase it was cheap), and we also lost 3 gw of nuclear. Gas wouldn't have gone up in use if we reatined that nuclear (but nuclear is expensive).

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BoroBosco said:
You misss the point, you need electricity grids to be reliable and constant.

Using your car analogy

Let's say you had a car that was powered by a solar panel and maximum out put of the panel gave 50 mph speed. You have a 300 mile journey to make and you must be there by 4pm. What time would you set off?
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The car wouldn't only be powered by solar, it would be a complex hybrid, with a backup nuclear plant, and an existing connection to the LNG terminals, along with biomass, energy from waste, other renewables and even using inefficient storage methods.

But in answer to your question, from an expected modelled output point, in summer, that panel is only really putting out a max of 75% on the sunniest of hours and 25% if it's cloudy. So call that 35-15mph, so call that travelling 9-20 hours of daylight. Might get away with setting off at 7am, but I'd travel down the day before, and be mad that I bought an undersized panel.

You should really be saying the panel has a max output of 3x what I would need, or expect to travel at (as it was designed), so call that 3 x 50mph, a 150mph panel. I'd only be able to do the speed limit at best, so call that setting off around 11:30 if it's sunny, probably have to set off around 8am if it wasn't.
 
BoroBosco said:
Read what you've written here and previously then ask your self if this paints a picture of a reliable system that can produce power on demand.

If I built a 3GW nuclear power station I would expect it to be able to produce anything upto 3 GW at anytime and the same would apply for gas, biomass, waste and geothermal. Tidal would obviously be different but would be fully predictable.
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That's how nuclear works and that's why ours is 50p per kWh +, and getting it from France is £1 per kWh, the other renewables are also on demand, but they're also expensive (in comparison to wind and solar).

Shall we just go all nuclear and you pay 50p per kWh, plus distribution and supplier costs? Or do we get more from France at £1 per kWh?

Nobody expects solar to put out anywhere near capacity, solar is like 15% average over the year, but call that 30% for daytime when demand is high, and zero at night when demand is low (other than early evening).

Nobody expects wind to put out anywhere near capacity, wind is like 25% average over the year, but can range from 5% to maybe 60%.

I'm not saying turn the backups off, Nuclear would run all year round providing 25% (or more), and maybe increase that to 35% as insurance. The other renewables can run anytime, but we would need more of them, of course.

When it's not windy, at 6pm in winter, turn the gas on, we might only need that sporadically. Using 1GW of gas over the course of a year, in emergencies, and only for power, not homes as backup is better than the 12GW we're using now, as we're still paying high prices for it when it's windy and sunny etc.
Same with nuclear, when it's windy or sunny AF (which we can reasonably predict 5 days so in advance), wind the nuclear down (as it's expensive).

There was no week in Winter last year where wind dropped below 25% of average output, and one week in spring (when it was very mild). It averaged more than nuclear, nearly double for half of the time, and is 1/5th to 1/10th of the price of nuclear.

Pumped hydro storage is like 50-80% efficient, in times of excess fill up the reservoirs. Even at 50% efficiency, electricity out of that supplied by excess wind would be charging that up at 5p per kWh (albeit costing 10p per kWh as we would lose half in losses). It's wasted energy, but still 5x cheaper than using the nuclear plant.

Like I say I'm not saying turn off the gas, or close LNG ports, just use them as backups sporadically, not as the mainstay.

We've already done it with coal, did anyone's lights go off?

The only reason we've not done it for gas was that gas was much cheaper than wind and solar, but now gas is up 20x, and wind and solar have massively decreased in cost, to the same rate gas was at. Gas won't ever come back down to the price which wind and Solar are, the equation and situation has changed. If it becomes the same, then great, we have a cheap backup (rather than relying on the French nuclear).
 
Andy_W said:
You need a constant supply but this varies over the course of the day and night, and also a lot with the seasons, and can be supplied with a mix of sources. Nobody has ever said use only wind/ solar, but we can use them for the vast majority, for the vast majority of the time, and use the rest as backups.
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When I used the word constant I don't mean constant supply I mean constantly available. Supply is variable because demand is variable, when you turn on a load the generators ramp up when you turn it off they ramp down. Wind & solar are completely the opposite, the available supply ramps up & down dependent on wind speed & sun strength.

Andy_W said:
This can all be modelled, with allowing massive excess for each, as it is all designed to be profitable nowhere near its max, and wind and solar are very cheap per unit. Plus, we can always become a net exporter. If the other countries don't need our exports then they likely have an excess, so can top us up if needed.
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The increase in utility charges started last year long before the war in Ukraine. One of the reasons for this was there was less wind production than expected (modelled) meaning more gas had to be burnt leaving Europe's gas storage levels lower than required. This led to a rush for coal & gas which of course drove prices higher.

Weak winds worsened Europe's power crunch

Wind and solar are not cheap when you have to have other forms of generation to back them up & this will be even more the case when we phase out the current cheapest alternative of gas. Buying back up power is very expensive. National Grid spent over a billion pounds on balancing the grid last year. Not all of this can be put down to wind & solar but a fair proportion.

Andy_W said:
Yes, there might be times on an evening in winter when it's not sunny and demand is high, but it's extremely unlikely that the wind will be zero, and you still have all the other renewables which can operate around the clock, on demand, to cover it. We don't need to run biomass, energy from waste or other renewables around the clock, we can use them in accordance with seasons and weather patterns (we already do this).
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Do you really believe that it's "extremely unlikely" that there could be an area of high pressure sitting over Europe in the winter? I've been out in the North Sea in the middle of winter when it's like a mill pond with hardly a breath of wind. Now I'm not saying it's like that very often but if it's going to happen once you need 100% back-up. Very costly building all that plant you are only going to use every now & again.


Andy_W said:
We obviously wouldn't disconnect the gas for a decade or whatever, so could still bring that in as a backup, until we figure out a storage option, or until we're fully covered (Easily). We also can use LNG, stored, rather than relying on gas pipelines which others could be competing for, we've got loads of LNG ports already (more than any other EU country I think).
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Why bring in gas when we have a load of it beneath our land & sea?

Andy_W said:
We took coal from being the largest supply, to the smallest, in a decade, and replaced it with less demand and more renewables, gas is next.
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Can you think of a reason why we have less demand? Is it because we have become so much more efficient or is it because we have shifted so much production out of the country with part of the reason being high energy costs.
 
Andy_W said:
I'd only be able to do the speed limit at best, so call that setting off around 11:30 if it's sunny, probably have to set off around 8am if it wasn't.
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Not exactly reliable then? Do you take the take gamble of waiting until 11:30 to set off & risk not getting there or do you waste 3 hours of your day by setting off early?
 
Wind and Solar are being used a marginal supply source, opposed to core. If they become the core we need storage options. There is no way round that.

We could start using wave which is pretty reliable because of tides, without storage. I assume wave has not been commercially viable to date, but with current high prices possibly this has changed?

One problem is planning 10 years ahead with expensive capital projects when energy prices are all over the place. Someone has to take on the risk.
 
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