When the wind doesn't blow...

[KrisW]

Improved interconnection is a better fix than storage-farms. It is always windy somewhere, and there’s always somewhere else that needs electricity, but the ability of interconnects to bring that energy from one national generation system to another is limited. Doubly so for the UK and Ireland which have high potential for wind energy production but lie in two separate AC synchronous regions from Continental Europe (Yes, Northern Ireland lies in a different electrical grid from the rest of the UK - until the Moyle interconnect started operation in 1991, NI was completely isolated from UK generators).

Long-term, there are plans to interconnect the European power grid with grids in North Africa. Climatic wind patterns in Africa and Europe are nicely aligned: in Europe, we tend to get lots of wind in Summer when there’s low electricity demand, in North Africa higher wind is in Winter when there’s low demand there (electricity demand in hot countries is driven by cooling, not heating).

 

[martin clark]

A bit of an aside, but there has bene a recent bump in teh UK interconnect capcity with teh EU and Scandinavia.
There's detail of current links and future projects here.

https://www.nationalgrid.com/national-grid-ventures/interconnectors-connecting-cleaner-future

Current bidirectional capacity is 2GW to / From France; 1GW - Netherlands; 1GW - Belgium; 1.4GW - Norway; and 2GW to Ireland, which is usually running exporting from UK.

 

[MUTTY1]

A bit of an aside, but there has bene a recent bump in teh UK interconnect capcity with teh EU and Scandinavia.
There's detail of current links and future projects here.

https://www.nationalgrid.com/national-grid-ventures/interconnectors-connecting-cleaner-future

Current bidirectional capacity is 2GW to / From France; 1GW - Netherlands; 1GW - Belgium; 1.4GW - Norway; and 2GW to Ireland, which is usually running exporting from UK.

Then France goes threatening to cut Jersey off if they don’t get stroked the right way. It undermines very sensible energy strategies. As an island we need to keep a core percentage of energy in-house. It’s probably all post-brexit froth but it does scare the horses when this nonsense comes out of the mouths of senior ministers of state.

 

[KrisW]

There’s an additional 1 GW between France and UK that was fried in a fire in the UK end of the interconnect last September, and will take another 12 months to come back on line. There’s also an additional 500 MW of interconnection between Ireland (Wexford) and Great Britain (Pembrokeshire) coming on line in 2023–4.

Brexit or not, the UK is a net electricity importer from the Continent - 90%+ of capacity on the continental interconnects is transfer into the GB grid; as is Ireland (North and South). Increased wind output in Scotland could possibly reduce that situation for GB; for the Irish grid it very likely will.

Ireland and France will be directly connected in 5 years by a 500km long 700 MW interconnector. 700 MW is more than we need for domestic imports, and has been sized for future wind-energy exports. Part of the justification for this project was that, based on recent behaviour, we couldn’t rely on the UK government not getting itself (and by extension, us) cut off from the Continental grid.

 

[MUTTY1]

Ireland and France will be directly connected in 5 years by a 500km long

That’s wandering about a bit?

 

[cctaylor]

Interconnecters can suffer from political interference. Just look at the games being played by Russia with gas supplies.

 

[Rob998]

teh UK interconnect

Now don’t go turning this into a cable thread!

 

[martin clark]

Now don’t go turning this into a cable thread!

I refer the Honourable Gentleman to the previously-established fact the National Grid is investing in fancy Cable Lifters too.

; )

 

[Jim Audiomisc]

We can't build enough Tesla type battery banks to capture sufficient worthwhile amounts of energy so we do need to do something with it. Building the likes of efficient hydrogen manufacturing plants is one idea that keeps getting kicked around. How that hydrogen is utilised I'm not sure. Storage would be an issue. I'm fascinated to see what cleverer people than me will hatch.

I think that both 'battery' storage *and* using wind/etc to generate Hydrogen will come into play. Indeed, in some locations I suspect that simply having a wind turbine power an H2 generator at its base may make more sense than running electric power over many km of cables. A hydrogen powered vehicle can then collect this at intervals to be fed into larger storage-pipe-consumer networks.

Similarly, from what I've seen I expect much better storage batteries to appear. Ones that hold more energy/km and don't use the rare elements, so can be made cheaper on a larger scale.

The basic requirement is simply that we need to fund and encourage the engineers to work on these things rather than squeezing the last drop of oil from the ground.

 

[ff1d1l]

We also need to urgently transfer the subsidies for the PFI style centuries of liability trainwreck which is the nuclear industry to renewables. Now.

 

[Jim Audiomisc]

Nuclear fission generators suffer the same fundamental drawback as many huge projects.

Government has to fund them, and buy from a large corp that promise, "No problems, just give us X million and we'll get it done by next Friday". However once they've spent about half the money they come back and say, "Nope. We hit problems no-one could forsee. So we now need another Y million and Z years to finish. Give us that or take the X million as down the loo." Government duly obliges... and then....

Later on when the station may finally work you get 'events, dear boy' as SuperMac put it. e.g. Fukashima, or some other "Oops!" to clear up.

The problem is the huge corporation approach. These days perhaps lubricated by 'consultantcies' for politicians, etc.

So fission was a nice idea... 80 years ago. Nowdays, experience shows it needs a "Welcome, Brave Sir Robin!" sign painted on it. 8-]

 

[Richard Lines]

Good Afternoon All,

I am opposed to nuclear BUT even looking at all the things which are possible now and could be in the near future baseload capability still needs to be addressed. Something which can be relied on when the wind doesn't blow and the sun don't shine, the storage 'batteries' are run down and the import cables can't import anymore.......

Regards

Richard

 

[KrisW]

That’s wandering about a bit?

It’s actually a fairly direct route. Ireland really is that far from France.

 

[Jim Audiomisc]

Good Afternoon All,

I am opposed to nuclear BUT even looking at all the things which are possible now and could be in the near future baseload capability still needs to be addressed. Something which can be relied on when the wind doesn't blow and the sun don't shine, the storage 'batteries' are run down and the import cables can't import anymore.......

Regards

Richard

How often do you expect all your 'and' guesses to come to pass at the same time, and what's the basis of your stats. Include all the area covered in the map I showed wrt wind/wave/flow power, etc.

BTW there was time when the UK had quote a lot of storage for gas to tide over many days of a lack of stream-in. But the clever UK Gov allowed it to be destroyed to save money. Having a similar facility for hydrogen is quite feasible. Hint: Hydrogen can come from wind/wave/etc power. And even electric storage doesn't have to be using Li batteries.

As it is, what you wrote seems just like a comment of belief that: "Many ands make light NOT work". Reality may not be quite as you assume, though.

 

[Richard Lines]

How often do you expect all your 'and' guesses to come to pass at the same time, and what's the basis of your stats. Include all the area covered in the map I showed wrt wind/wave/flow power, etc.

BTW there was time when the UK had quote a lot of storage for gas to tide over many days of a lack of stream-in. But the clever UK Gov allowed it to be destroyed to save money. Having a similar facility for hydrogen is quite feasible. Hint: Hydrogen can come from wind/wave/etc power. And even electric storage doesn't have to be using Li batteries.

As it is, what you wrote seems just like a comment of belief that: "Many ands make light NOT work". Reality may not be quite as you assume, though.

We saw it just a few weeks back..........................

Regards

Richard

 

[Jim Audiomisc]

BTW some sunny nations thousands of miles from Europe are thinking of solar PV which then feeds long HVDC lines to Europe as a way to make income. It tends to be sunny over quite a lot of Africa, for example. Also Gulf states may find this an alternative to fossil. HVDC interconnects are going to be quite handy - as distinct from 'and-ie' as above.

Admittedly, some of these might find they pass though dodgy states in-between. But it may at least be better than pipelines from Putin. Or at least give us alternatives/diversity rather than be bound to just a few oil/gas regimes.

 

[Jim Audiomisc]

We saw it just a few weeks back..........................

Everywhere on the map area I referenced a while ago at all levels, for 24 hours? Can you point at the source for that belief? And were there no waves or flows/tides at all, either? Reference?