It would mean wasting 7/8 of the remaining of the energy in a 20kt wind.
To highlight the pointlessness of that calculation, it would be wasting 99.9% of the energy in a 100kt wind.
A more useful statistic would be what proportion of the time will it be generating its rated output.
To highlight the pointlessness of that calculation, it would be wasting 99.9% of the energy in a 100kt wind.
A more useful statistic would be what proportion of the time will it be generating its rated output.
Not pointless at all, because 20kt winds are common and 100kt winds are rare. So, you are going to build a machine of EIGHT TIMES the nominal capacity -which means a blade swept area eight times larger, after all you can't get something for nothing- just so it can maintain that nameplate output down to 10kt winds? Which will not help if it's a 5kt wind anyway, because that has so little energy it's not worth collecting.
If you stop and think about this for a moment, it's equivalent to building half a terawatt of conventional plant to supply the UK with a peak demand of 60GW. An insanely inefficjent arrangement.
As for Grid-scale battery storage, there are scientists trying to develop this, true. There is currently no commercial product though. The nearest thing to it is Tesla's Powerwall, with which it would cost a cool trillion to back up the UK Grid for just one week of nil wind. To claim that battery storage WILL be a game changer is snake oil selling, because it is not yet even known if it can be done, let alone at any sensible cost.
There are also scientists trying to develop cold fusion. (LENR) There is currently no commercial fusion reactor though, apart from Rossi's somewhat dubious products. Would you consider it acceptable to demand that energy policies are based on the fact that the E-Cat WILL take over the energy market entirely in five years? Or, would you want to wait until a full proof of concept was available?
Dispatch problem gets solved automatically with cost reductions,
No, it isnt., unless you install ridiculous overcapacity.
No, it isnt., unless you install ridiculous overcapacity.
If it saves money investors won't care about what you think is ridiculous. When renewables are cheaper than fuel for a coal plant they'll get used, without subsidy. We aren't there, but we're getting close. If it means keeping the plant on standby for all but one day in a year, that's just what they'll do.
If the costs of ensuring adequate dispatch a mouth are included in the costs of windpower, I'll be content. Normally they aren't.
If the costs of ensuring adequate dispatch a mouth are included in the costs of windpower, I'll be content. Normally they aren't.Dispatchable electrical energy storage is already profitable in the current electricity markets of Australia (and the UK) but its less profitable on 5 to 10 year terms than building open cycle gas turbines, so investment has been on that instead. As gas continues to rise in price storage will come on strong and become the next investment phase.
entirely separate clause....
Renewable generation is profitable at current market rates, the almost zero marginal costs of generation make it a longer investment but still its profitable at current rates. It doesn't need storage to make it profitable or desirable to the market.
You might not like rising consumer prices, but its levelling out the fluctuations in the wholesale market.
practical large scale storage of electricity
practical large scale storage of electricity
As long as lousy round trip efficiency doesn't impact practicality it's not that difficult
N.B. pumped storage or other hydro is difficult in the UK; a 2000ft peak is officially a mountain, and there aren't many of those.
If the costs of ensuring adequate dispatch a mouth are included in the costs of windpower, I'll be content. Normally they aren't.Dispatchable electrical energy storage is already profitable in the current electricity markets of Australia (and the UK) but its less profitable on 5 to 10 year terms than building open cycle gas turbines, so investment has been on that instead. As gas continues to rise in price storage will come on strong and become the next investment phase.The UK energy storage capacity is extremely limited: 33GWh, or about 1 hour of national consumption. Currently it has only three practical justifications:The person that develops practical large scale storage of electricity in the UK will become as rich as Croesus.
- to supply short-term peaks, minutes, not hours and certainly not days; classic case is when a TV programme ends and everyone switches on their kettles
- black-start capability: if the entire network fails, then this is used to get the first power station running again. Fortunately we haven't had a Carrington even recently
- for very small-scale remote communities, classically the Scottish islands
You might not like rising consumer prices, but its levelling out the fluctuations in the wholesale market.What I dislike is not having electricity coming out the wall. Given current policies, that is increasingly likely. Doubly so if some of the greenwash arguments are believed and acted upon.
You might not like rising consumer prices, but its levelling out the fluctuations in the wholesale market.What I dislike is not having electricity coming out the wall. Given current policies, that is increasingly likely. Doubly so if some of the greenwash arguments are believed and acted upon.When have you been in a rolling blackout/brownout?
Its not fallen apart yet and yes things need to be designed in ahead of any major problems but that could be storage or more interconnect capacity, or a different mix of power plants.
Fossil fuels are naturally pricing themselves out of the market because of fuel costs, competing demand for the fuel resource just as there is competing demand for the land space needed for mines, renewable energy, farming, etc.
Australia is...
You might not like rising consumer prices, but its levelling out the fluctuations in the wholesale market.What I dislike is not having electricity coming out the wall. Given current policies, that is increasingly likely. Doubly so if some of the greenwash arguments are believed and acted upon.When have you been in a rolling blackout/brownout?Many many times, mostly but not exclusively in the UK. I well remember revising for exams that would determine the course of my life by candlelight. Not something I want to repeat.
Fossil fuels are naturally pricing themselves out of the market because of fuel costs, competing demand for the fuel resource just as there is competing demand for the land space needed for mines, renewable energy, farming, etc.That's precisely the kind of accountancy jiggery-pokery that I'm talking about.
N.B. pumped storage or other hydro is difficult in the UK; a 2000ft peak is officially a mountain, and there aren't many of those.Pumped hydro can be effective and profitable with just 50-100m (a few hundred feet) of head, or use pumped tidal pools in estuaries or other low depth areas.
The existing pumped hydro in Australia and the UK uses only a small portion of the available dams, and on those dams only a small portion of the available volume.
Its all tradeoffs between storage capacity, water security, blackstart reserves, and environmental concerns, etc so there are no clear boundaries to whats possible. Solid references (for instance "Sustainable Energy - without the hot air") suggest enormous potential in the UK.
“We have a huge amount of wave and wind.” The trouble with this sort of language is
that it’s not sufficient to know that something is huge: we need to know how the one
“huge” compares with another “huge,” namely our huge energy consumption.
To make this comparison, we need numbers, not adjectives.
You might not like rising consumer prices, but its levelling out the fluctuations in the wholesale market.What I dislike is not having electricity coming out the wall. Given current policies, that is increasingly likely. Doubly so if some of the greenwash arguments are believed and acted upon.When have you been in a rolling blackout/brownout?Many many times, mostly but not exclusively in the UK. I well remember revising for exams that would determine the course of my life by candlelight. Not something I want to repeat.Still dodging specifics?
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/444213/The-Last-Big-Blackout-40-years-ago-the-lights-really-did-go-off
1970's was an eternity ago, and despite fossil fuel plants with sufficient capacity they ran out of affordable fuel during worldwide political shenanigans. So how do you prevent that sort of scenario? Energy independence, perhaps with renewables and storage? Or do you have in mind some new energy resource the UK has already but not exploited?
Fossil fuels are naturally pricing themselves out of the market because of fuel costs, competing demand for the fuel resource just as there is competing demand for the land space needed for mines, renewable energy, farming, etc.That's precisely the kind of accountancy jiggery-pokery that I'm talking about.Thats the realities of a market economy, if you want more reliable power you can pay for it, such contracts already exist and are available to the public.
If the costs of ensuring adequate dispatch a mouth are included in the costs of windpower, I'll be content. Normally they aren't.Dispatchable electrical energy storage is already profitable in the current electricity markets of Australia (and the UK) but its less profitable on 5 to 10 year terms than building open cycle gas turbines, so investment has been on that instead. As gas continues to rise in price storage will come on strong and become the next investment phase.The UK energy storage capacity is extremely limited: 33GWh, or about 1 hour of national consumption. Currently it has only three practical justifications:The person that develops practical large scale storage of electricity in the UK will become as rich as Croesus.
- to supply short-term peaks, minutes, not hours and certainly not days; classic case is when a TV programme ends and everyone switches on their kettles
- black-start capability: if the entire network fails, then this is used to get the first power station running again. Fortunately we haven't had a Carrington even recently
- for very small-scale remote communities, classically the Scottish islands
Installed energy storage is limited in scale, your own reference says just for pumped hydro that "significant potential still exists in the UK" along with all the other technologies available. There are abundant resources ready to exploit for storage, it just needs investment with a longer term view to put money into it. Along with your 3 useful values for storage a system will create profit for the operator every day on the wholesale energy market, there is already enough price variation in the UK market to run storage on a daily cycle and make a profitable investment on that alone.
Australia has even larger daily variations and seasonal extremes from heavy use of air conditioning which increase profitability of all dispatchable plants.
N.B. pumped storage or other hydro is difficult in the UK; a 2000ft peak is officially a mountain, and there aren't many of those.Pumped hydro can be effective and profitable with just 50-100m (a few hundred feet) of head, or use pumped tidal pools in estuaries or other low depth areas.
Storage in estuaries is a disreputable claim. Such "batteries" will naturally be replenished when the tide next comes in, so if you want to count them as useful storage of excess wind power, it has to be with two significant conditions:
- it has to be the right time of day to store and use the energy; at other times it is impossible
- any such stored energy has to be used within a couple of hours, before the tide comes in; not much use for wind power outages lasting days due to a blocking high pressure zone
Most people recognise that Australia != UK.
You evidently haven't read/understood "Without Hot Air". The second page of chapter 1 contains this important point describing a primary motivation for MacKay writing the book in the first place
Fossil fuels are naturally pricing themselves out of the market because of fuel costs, competing demand for the fuel resource just as there is competing demand for the land space needed for mines, renewable energy, farming, etc.That's precisely the kind of accountancy jiggery-pokery that I'm talking about.Thats the realities of a market economy, if you want more reliable power you can pay for it, such contracts already exist and are available to the public.
Are you saying that jiggery-pokery is the reality of a market economy? If not, then what are you trying to say?
If the generating plant and capacity is not available, then I can't get electricity no matter how much I might be prepared to pay for it. Don't forget the "<5% excess capacity" and "notices of insufficiency".
Never underestimate the shortsightedness, self interest, and general ineptitude of politicians - particularly when they don't want to hear reality.
The existing pumped hydro in Australia and the UK uses only a small portion of the available dams, and on those dams only a small portion of the available volume.Australia maybe, but that certainly isn't the case in the UK.
Really? Please provide pointers to such installed live plant.
N.B. pumped storage or other hydro is difficult in the UK; a 2000ft peak is officially a mountain, and there aren't many of those.
N.B. pumped storage or other hydro is difficult in the UK; a 2000ft peak is officially a mountain, and there aren't many of those.Hydro has great efficiency too. Thermal storage and using hydrogen from electrolysis stored in mines not so much. The INGRID project has a tiny little hydrogen storage demonstrator in Italy though.