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back to article Wind power: Even worse than you thought

A new analysis of wind energy supplied to the UK National Grid in recent years has shown that wind farms produce significantly less electricity than had been thought, and that they cause more problems for the Grid than had been believed. The report (28-page PDF/944 KB) was commissioned by conservation charity the John Muir …

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        1. Anonymous Coward
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          Anonymous Coward

          rivers

          you can, and doing such things is great on a local level, farmers are getting in on the idea in quite a big way but it would not be possible to roll it out on a massive scale. for the likes of a city

          Defence in depth is what is needed, you must have a back bone of core power generation capable of powering the country if needed, coal oil gas and Nuclear are idea for this, all of them have pros and cons, in the long term however nuclear is the only viable design if we are not to rely on a source of energy that wouldnt run out in the near-ish future. Future Nuclear designes are even more intresting if it can be made to work and would prolong the life of nuclear energy until the sun blows up.

          suppliment this with whatever else you can get, geothermal is sustainable but im unsure how easy it would be to get working efficiently in the UK, tidal is fine if you dont mind buggering up the seas, solar would be useful if it could be made significantly more effecient (solar cells are crap)

          Wind and hydro are ok for local communities but somehow i doubt local communities would want one of those bloody great farms on their doorsteps but to suppliment standard power for LOCAL use would be fine, ie, i could park a turbine on my roof to help my personally, or a local hamlet could put a couple of big ones up, hydro is intresting but i think its safe to say its only a last resort, and i dont like the idea of flooding more of our great country side. rivers would be fine again for local use

          all of these need to be in place to help out when they can, setting your target of x% to be wind in 10 years is stupid, 100% of the power needs to be available 24 7, that means big plants, if its windy or sunny then some of that can be offset reducing the total output to say 80% at any given moment.

          geothermal is probably the only one that could be relied apon at any given time.

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          1. Andydaws
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            The problem is, the amount of energy available

            Even in areas like Cornwall, the available energy from geothermal is small - you need to drill down 7-10km to get to rocks hot enough to boil water,. And there's then the issue of pumping losses (since you're having to drill two bores and crack the rock between them). You have to refracture the rock periodically, due to plasticity.

            Rock's not that conductive, too. Which means that each bore pair and crack system has a limited life before you get local cooling, and have to drill a new pair.

            It's worth remembering that the Icelandic Government - who have rather a vested interest in selling geothermal - estimate that their developable capacity for export is about 2GW. Not startling, in a country that's got massively more favourable conditions than anywhere in the UK.

            Even in Iceland, the majority of geothermal applications are for space heating rather than power generation. Realistically, you need steam supply at a minimum of 150C, and preferably 200C plus to make steam turbines reasonably efficient.

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    2. Anonymous Coward
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      Coat

      What about solar

      Solar would be much better, after all... Wait, for the UK you say? Oh, well never mind then.

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      1. sola
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        depends on the price

        It doesn't matter if the UK has worse solar potential than the EU average as long as the price of solar electricity generation is comparable or cheaper than other forms.

        Solar generation technologies are continually falling in price. PV the most prominent but other solar tech is advancing too. As others have said, even PV can match grid-parity at a lot of places in the world TODAY, possibly 5 years for the EU average and 10 years for the UK.

        There are a lot of news about breakthroughs in the area of cheap, direct hydrogen/methane production from solar energy. Methane production is the most promising because that can be immediately used by NG power plants and distributed through existing networks.

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    3. Scorchio!!
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      Re: Bad siteing.

      I think you mean 'a methane trap'.

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Nuclear energy.

    It's about time people and especially the green lobby opened their eyes.

    There is only one realistic replacement for fossil fuels.

    We need to start building new reactors immediately.

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    1. longbeast
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      Unhappy

      We can't go 100% nuclear without major investment.

      Nuclear power is great for base load and we ought to be going for about 40% nuclear without any hesitation, but it isn't a good fit for Britain if you want more than that. There will still have to be something to fill the gap.

      We're a small island with no land borders - it's difficult to export power in large amounts - so when our own usage dips at night, the generating capacity has to dip too. Nuclear reactors can't be shut down that quickly, so they end up having to run at full power with nobody to sell that power to. They become uneconomical very quickly under such circumstances.

      Nuclear power is fantastic and cheap for countries like France that can export power overnight, but we can't do that, not without a really seriously huge investment in the channel tunnel power link.

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      1. Anonymous Coward
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        Anonymous Coward

        hmm

        "Nuclear power is fantastic and cheap for countries like France that can export power overnight, but we can't do that, not without a really seriously huge investment in the channel tunnel power link."

        So what your saying is that nobody thought to build a bigger service tunnel when they had the chance? Sounds about right

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        1. Anomalous Cowturd
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          Stop

          Re: Hmm

          There are cable trays in all three tunnels. And there's room for a few more, if you don't mind the disruption of single tunnel working whilst they are being installed...

          Space is a bit tighter in the service tunnel.

          HTH.

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      2. defiler
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        Thumb Up

        Pumped storage?

        I think we currently generate around 20% of the electricity in the UK from nuclear sources. Upping that to 40% will greatly reduce our reliance on hydrocarbon fuels, so that's a good start. Surely, though, there's milage in pumped storage systems. Increase the base load (nuclear is perfect for this) beyond the minimum actually consumed in the country, and then use that extra generation to pump water into reservoirs overnight (or whenever there's surplus). This gives you an excellent store of power which is (a) clean, (b) cheap because you're using "spare" electricity to do it, and (c) very responsive to peaks in consumption.

        It takes seconds to open the tap on a hydro-electric generator, so this is an excellent resource to have. In fact, it could be used to handle the lulls in wind generation (or smooth it out so that less responsive generators like gas / oil can react). Of course that depends on whether wind is actually economical - who knows...

        As for exporting power, we export to France, Holland and Ireland I think. Geographically, we're limited in what we can do though. The peak will (obviously) chase the sun around the world, and there's nobody West of us that's close enough to realistically sell it. Storing it for the next day's peak, though - that's a good plan.

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      3. The First Dave
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        Boffin

        @We can't go 100% nuclear without major investment.

        Sorry, but that is rubbish - of all thermal power generators, nuclear is the cheapest to 'blow off' - the direct running costs are tiny, and unlike coal/gas/oil/waste burners, they are designed with extra cooling capacity. The majority of their costs are from the build phase, followed by the costs of dealing with spent fuel - and unlike coal, the fuel last pretty much the same amount of time whether on full chat or idle.

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        1. PJ 1
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          "the direct running costs are tiny"

          That's precisely why it is the least economic to blow off. The economics rely on maximising the utilisation of the plant to pay off those build costs. For a conventional plant the cost is mostly fuel so ramping down is fine.

          There is also an argument from practicality that the flow of coolant through the reactor and therefore generation cannot be stauched as quickly as with conventional plant (where the heat source can be killed relatively quickly) as the reactor will continue to require cooling after shutdown and the condenser will not be designed to remove all heat from the outcoming steam without that steam having previously done work in the turbines.

          Furthermore, ramping and blow off increases thermal cycles meaning decreased life of thermally stressed plant meaning in turn more servicing. Now servicing most parts of a conventional plant can be done by a man with a MIG set and a gas axe for a tenner an hour. Not really the case for a nuclear plant where you pay a man just to number the bolts you take out.

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          1. Andydaws
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            PJ1 - that's complete claptrap

            1 - you're mixing up maximising return, with having sufficient return to run profitably - and that electricity prices vary through the day.

            2 - power output from the fuel in a generation III+ reactor can be varies quite rapidly - there's no particular limiting factor on ramping down (in a running reactor I can cut power from 100% of nominal to about 5% instantaneously, and to under 1% within an hour. On ramping up, there's an inherent limitation caused by the production of Xenon, but again, it's easily manageable by a system called "grey" control rods. It's also not that much of a limiation - the EPR can vary power impressively fast, at 5% of maximum power/minute.

            Remember that France already operates most of its nuclear fleet in a "load following" mode - it has to. 80% of its output is nuclear, but it's daily demand varies (like ours) by more than 2:1.

            3 - you're mixing up temperature with actual levels of heat production - providing I vary coolant flow alongside heat production there's no cycling of temperatures (and hence stresses) involved.

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      4. Andydaws
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        Thumb Down

        whatever makes you think renewables are low investment?

        The latest large windfarm to be committed is the "London Array" It's a near in-shore development in the Thames estuary.

        Its nominal capacity is 640 Mw.

        According to it's owners, they'll be investing €1.9 billion.

        I make that roughly £2.6Bn per Gigawatt, But, it'll only run (on Lewis' numbers) at a 25% availabiltty/capacity factor (the same are the two for wind, as it has a guaranteed market).

        So, that's about £10.3Bn per gigawatt average output.

        A 1630MW EPR costs about £2.5-3bn. That'll run at 90%+ availability (and can load follow in a way that wind can't).

        I make that about £2.1Bn/available GW

        Incidentally, all the Generation III+ designs are able to ramp production up and down by about 3% per 15 minutes.

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      5. Captain Thyratron
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        What kind of objection is that?

        What solution /won't/ require a lot of investment? Is there some bleeding-obvious way to bring down the cost of electricity cheaply? No matter what you do, you're going to have to build a lot of something. The question, then, becomes which "something" gives you the most zap for your buck.

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      6. Anonymous Coward
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        Anonymous Coward

        france

        given that we buy a large chunk of energy from France i think there must be ways of getting power across a wee bit of water, if it goes one way it can go the other,

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    2. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      OK.

      We'll store the waste in your home town then. That'll be alright with you won't it?

      4 13
      1. GrumpyJoe
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        Flame

        Then we'll let you clean up...

        the chopped up bird carcasses and let you deal with the noise pollution and the possibility of the bloody turbine in your back garden coming off and killing your entire family then?

        What's that? I can't hear you, the internet needs electricity to work and you don't have any...

        9 4
      2. Anonymous Coward
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        WTF?

        Re: OK.

        I'm pretty certain they wont store any waste in any towns, even the smaller amounts that modern reactors produce.

        If you haven't got anything better to offer than 40 year old scaremongering then I suggest you just keep quiet.

        9 3
      3. Captain Thyratron
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        Sure!

        Vitrify it, put it in a lead-lined reinforced concrete cylinder, and let me see if I can turn it into some kind of yard decoration. Probably safer than the trees--those bastards keep mangling the eaves and heaving breezeblock walls.

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Whereas...

    ...the colossal volumes of water that rush up and down our estuaries, twice a day, reliable as clockwork, have been dismissed as a source or power generation.

    You couldn't make it up.

    9 1
    1. proto-robbie
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      Pirate

      Right on

      The new Forth crossing, for example: the perfect site for a barrage. And yet the concept never arose. Sure, there are issues, but to not even talk about them?!?

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      1. The First Dave
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        Boffin

        @Right on

        The new Forth crossing is _not_ a good place for a barrage, given that it is downstream of quite a few facilities, such as Grangemouth, that rely on having a navigable passage.

        On the other hand, just about two weeks ago, a turbine-style tidal generator was dropped into the water somewhere off the Minches (I think, can't remember the exact location) - a few more of those space out appropriatly so that their peak times overlap each other seem like a fairly good idea.

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        1. Colin Miller
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          Thumb Up

          Sound of Lewis

          It's in the Sound of Lewis, just to the east of Islay. It has 10 turbines, each rated at 1MW (peak I think).

          http://www.scottishpowerrenewables.com/pages/press_releases.asp?article=82&date_year=2011

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      2. Andydaws
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        Thumb Down

        The Forth Crossing

        No, because compared to Atlantic tides, North sea ones are small - perhaps 14 the height. And, since even with a big Atlantic tide it'd take an 18 mile Severn barrage to make 1.9GW average, how much do you think a 3 mile or so Forth barrage could make - perhaps 50-70MW?

        For what'd cost a couple of billion......

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        1. Yag
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          the calculations are not that simple...

          For example, the oldest tidal station, La Rance, is around half a mile long and have a peak power production of 240 MW.

          With some awesomely good conditions.

          It is still the most powerful tidal station in the world, more than half a century after the start of its construction.

          I'll be surprised if you even reach 50 MW in Forth...

          Speaking about the costs, don't forget that the dam itself can last for a long time, there is no fuel cost (only maintenance), no decommission "hidden" costs (oops, we forgot to take it into account for those lovely nukes) and (almost? can't even figure of any) no risks in case of dam rupture.

          In the end, the cost per kWh is lower than those of nuclear station (If the site is fit for purpose, of course!) and the production is freakingly reliable.

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    2. Ken Hagan Gold badge
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      Re: Whereas

      "have been dismissed as a source of power generation"

      Here on my planet, they've been pursued for several decades. The problem is actually harnessing a useful amount of power from what is a very diffuse source. It's not as bad as wind, but there's no free lunch sitting out there in the sea. Smart people have tried and failed.

      6 2
    3. Andydaws
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      Big volumes may rush

      But they don't rush very fast(and slower on average), and they need immense structures to extract any power.

      The largest Severn Barrage option needed a dam 18 miles long, to make an average of 1800MW. And that's the second best site in the world. Do the same on Liverpool bay - the next best site in the UK - you need a 25 mile dam to extract a gigawatt.

      If you think those are good investments, I've got a bridge you may be interested in.....

      5 0
  4. Dino
    Alert

    er electric transport users charge at night??

    Just a thought... plugin hybrids usually need to charge at night - so all that generation at night would come in handy and make more power available for them...

    Problem is the ROCs as implemented, look like they are deeply upsetting the market rather than wind power itself being the problem..

    6 1
    1. David Pollard
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      Nightly recharge?

      Recharging of cars with night-time wind power would be fine if the wind were to blow every night, The problem is that it doesn't. People just won't be prepared to use their cars only one day in three following a breezy night. So, if the aim is to replace petrochemicals, another power source would be needed two nights out of three. Because this would be used only to partial capacity, costs would be increased and efficiency reduced.

      However, plentiful night-time energy is available on a regular basis from nuclear or other plant that is efficient by virtue of large scale and which it is better to run at near-constant output. That's where the idea of night-storage heating started and one of the reasons why Dinorwig was built.

      Electric cars can make environmental sense when coupled to nuclear power, but not much otherwise. Hybrids that charge up only one night in three seem like an expensive solution to a problem that can be solved better in other ways.

      7 0
      1. Thomas 4
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        One thought does occur

        Well, if wind is unreliable as a means of feeding the grid continually, why not develop some form of storage for electricity generated through wind power and tap into it as needed? For example, on blustery days, wind power can charge up the storage facility and once the facility is full, divert to grid and on slower days, draw energy from the storage facility.

        It probably won't be feasible but it worked for me when I was playing Total Annihilation the other day.

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        1. David Pollard
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          One thought - three problems

          First, energy storage and re-use introduces inefficiencies. Pumped-hydro, one of the better contenders, returns about 75% of input energy, with perhaps another 5% lost in transmission losses

          The second problem is the cost of storage, both capital and environmental costs.

          Thirdly, there are periods of up to three weeks when no significant wind energy is available and storage would be depleted. Backup generating capacity would still be required in addition to the storage; and this is not cheap. Nor would ii be likely to be low-carbon.

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          1. Manu T
            Reply Icon

            Perhaps we can donate the batteries from our phones and laptops to them

            They're Li-ion or Li-polymer batteries. Suposedly hi-tech and they should be able to store energy for some time. In fact that's the promotional sentence that Bosh uses to sell their Ixo-electric screwdriver.

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        2. Andydaws
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          Storage

          I can see this'll be a theme

          DO THE FUCKING SUMS!!!

          We've got one big pumped storage plant - Dinorwic. Replicating it would cost about 3 billion, and there's only about a dozen sites in the country that even come close to being suitable.

          Dinorwic can generate about 1,800 MW for 6 hours or so. Call it 10,000MW-hours,

          If you've a wind capacity of 10,000MW - and it's average output is 2,500 MW. And it's subject to (say) a couple of five day periods a year when it generates fuck-all - which is conservative, a ten day outage is closer to the mark.

          5*24*2,500 = 300,000MWh. Or 30 Dinorwics.

          good look finding the sites. And paying for them.

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          1. copsewood
            Reply Icon
            Dead Vulture

            @Andydaws: storage

            An easily findable study: http://www.esru.strath.ac.uk/EandE/Web_sites/03-04/wind/content/storage%20available.html looking at the potential of uprating existing hydro dams with additional generating plant for storage purposes discovers 514 GWh potential storage capacity in Scotland, or about 50 Dinorwics, or the 300GWh you claim is needed plus a substantial margin. The same study suggests no storage is required in relation to variable wind until it meets more than 15% of UK electric demand. In practice, the cost of the storage required will depend upon how much you can afford to spend on avoiding industrial holidays based upon weather forecasting. Before you get into the really high expenditures of building new dam capacity the main additional cost is likely to be in adding additional generating plant at existing dams and in strengthening the regional and national grid in order to have sufficient capacity to take energy mainly stored in Scotland for demand mainly in England.

            We need to do the sums on nuclear as well. Personally, based on the known and externalised costs (e.g. those currently experienced in Japan over failure of nuclear plant and concerning long term waste storage) I find it difficult to justify relying for nuclear on more than 25% of UK electric demand or for more than 1 final generation of nuclear build. If it is important enough to get C02 down over the next 30 years and beyond then we'll need both renewables and nuclear in the near term. Nuclear is useless for peak demand anyway - it is most suited for baseload.

            Given another 20 years of wind development at current growth rates and taking wave, tidal and solar heating from where these now are to where these can reasonably be expected to be in 20 years, I'd be very surprised if nuclear can achieve similar cost reductions over the same period while retaining acceptable safety margins in relation to geological and extreme weather caused risk. But the time to decide whether the next generation of nuclear plant should be the last will be then and not now.

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            1. Andydaws
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              The people who actually build them disagree

              SSE, who've been seeking sitres for years, currently reckon only two are economically developable - I've discussed them elsewhere.

              There's a lot more to finding viable dam site than simply looking for high valleys, which is what that particular study appears to have done - there's minor issues like the geology of the dam site (you need water retentive bedrock reasonably accessible, and ground conditions capable of taking the loadings from the dam istelf - poor shear strength, etc. rules out lots of sites.

              As a rule, if a site wasn't worth developing for conventional hydro (other than for catchement reasons), it's not developable for pumped storage - if you think of the costs model, you'll see why.

              Capital costs are slightly lower for pure hydro. However, the water capture is free. By contrast, the welectricity input for a wind-PS system has to be assumed to be at least on capital cost recovery for the wind plant, adjusted for the 75% efficiency of the syscle.

              Further, since you're trying to use this to supply base-load, you can't assume peaking prices for the power produced - it's baseload.

              "The same study suggests no storage is required in relation to variable wind until it meets more than 15% of UK electric demand."

              That argument works only if you're willing to assume that the entirity of your system marging can be dedicated for compensating for wind variability. That's not what it's therefore - it'd for peaking load, and for compensating for outages.

              Since (as the study quoted by Lewis shows) that reserve would be called on to generate to compensate for wind outage for a significant proportion of the time, it'd be unavailable to do its proper job. There's therefore a major increase in system exposure.

              "Nuclear is useless for peak demand anyway - it is most suited for baseload."

              define "peak load".

              You may have noticed, 80% of French production is nuclear. Also, they have a similar daily swing as we do - over 2:1 between peak and minimum demand. Do the sums, and you'll see that the swing has to be, at least in part, met by running nuclear plant in load-following mode.

              And that experience is incorporated in all of the generation III+ plant. ESBWR is inherently a load follower anyhow (it's an artefact of the behaviour of the water flow through the core as steam off-take increases), and the EPR and AP1000 both have "grey control rods" to allow it. The EPR is rated to follow load increase at 5% of output/minute between 25% and 100% of full power.

              What muclear (or coal, or CCGT) can't do is true "peaking" - extremely short notice variation to maintain system frequency. That's done by Pumped storage, or by OCGT. But that's a small proportion of overall load - the balancing market is power use, and peaking is a minority of that.

              "Given another 20 years of wind development at current growth rates and taking wave, tidal and solar heating from where these now are to where these can reasonably be expected to be in 20 year about 3% of total"

              I'm not aware of cost reductions happening on tidal or wind. Forecast cost/MWH on the Severn Barrage went up more than 20% between the last report and the current one (in real terms), and wind cost has been escalating, not falling, as reliabiloity challenges become apparent.. Maybe you can show evidence, and I'll share the data on installed cost/MW that I've seen - it's part of the London Array consortium's claim for 2 ROC subsidy, instead of one.

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        3. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          Two more thoughts

          The surplus electricity from wind turbines could be used to generate hydrogen by electrolysis. This could then be liquefied and used to power a new generation of hydrogen powered vehicles and aicraft. Thus allowing an horrendously expensive and impractical technology to feed an expensive and horrendously impractical technology. Or they could be converted to grind corn?

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  5. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind

    It very much depends where you are: a lot of on-shore wind farms, especially in England, have slightly lower utilisation than 30%. Go North of the Border, to places like the Hebrides and the Orkneys, and you'll find confirmed utilisation values of 60% (Lewis) and 80% (Orkney).

    Not that you actually /want/ your turbines to operate at maximum power all the time; mechanical components wear out faster, electrical components overheat. You wouldn't constant rev your car close to the red line, would you? So it is with turbines.

    What it really boils down to, though, is a matter of risk: risk is a function of both the probability of a catastrophic failure in your power plant, and the impact of that catastrophe. If the blades of a turbine at Whiteless were to fall off, a sheep may be frightened. If Torness or Hunterston B were to suffer a partial meltdown, that would force the evacuation of most of the Central Belt, and the economy of Scotland would grind to a halt - for years. Whatever perceived hidden costs Lewis is alluding to with wind farms, the price to pay for such a disaster such as this would dwarf them. (How many tens of billions for Fukashima currently, Lewis?)

    Of course both are improbable - but one demonstrates significant risk over the other.

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    1. Loyal Commenter Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Boffin

      A quick amble around the internet tells me...

      ...That the estimated clean-up cost of Fukushima is in the tens of billions. This is compared to an estimated cost for fixing the damage caused by the earthquake and tsunami in the hundreds of bilions. I wasn't able to find many figures for the clean-up costs of the ichihara oil refinery which arguably caused more environmental damage than fukushima, but what I could find indicated costs in the billions. Most of the costs associated with Fukushima are most likely to be related to early decommissioning costs and remediation of any radioactive leakage around the plant. These are probably inflated because of public fear of radioactivity meaning that pretty much every radioactive particle has to be cleaned up, regardless of the danger it poses. Huge slicks of organic pollutants arguably pose a greater risk, in terms of mutagenesis, teratogenesis and carcinogenesis, but are considered 'safer' by the public, so clean-up costs are generally lower. After all, if you can get away with polluting the environment without having to pay for it, this is an externality.

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    2. Old Tom
      Reply Icon
      WTF?

      Where's your stats?

      I'd love to see your figures on Orkney and Lewis.

      Looking at figures for April '09 to March '10, the best utilisation I can find in Scotland are Thorfinn and Northfield in the Orkneys which exceed 40%, Burradale in Shetland approaches 50%, and Bruxiehill managed 50.41% in its first 2 months with its .8MW plant. The latter was the only site in the UK to exceed 50% over that period.

      http://www.clowd.org.uk/Downloads/UK%20Renewable%20Energy%20Generation/2009/UK%20Renewable%20Generation%20Summary%20Compliance%20April%202009%20to%20March%202010.pdf

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    3. Andydaws
      Reply Icon

      you're confusing availability, or

      proportion of the time generating, with capacity factor.

      The basic physics should tell you that - wind output varies with the cube of the windspeed. If I've a 1MW turbine designed for maximum output at (say) 30m/s, in a 10m/s wind it's making 4% of design output.

      Alternatively, I could design for 10 m/s - but then the turbine will be tripped a significant proportion of the time.

      I'll bet you can't provide a credible source for those 60 or 80% numbers - they're bollocks

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  6. Gotno iShit Wantno iShit

    Treading carefully...

    Maybe I'm more of a rampant green then I previously knew but having read this I'm left with he feeling that ROCs are by far a bigger problem than wind generation itself.

    So the advocates overstated the case and we need to use 25% of capacity or even lower instead of 30%. New technology evangelists lied - what a shocker. Even less of a shock is that a fiscal smoke and mirrors exercise devised by New Labour is an utter unmitigated balls up. Oh and its a stealth tax too, my flabber hasn't been so ghasted since I found that the sun had risen this morning.

    Redo the sums based on 25% or whatever is deemed realistic, replace ROCs with something fit for purpose and move on.

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    1. Andydaws
      Reply Icon
      Unhappy

      Move on may be the word.

      The latest big wind development committed is the "London Array"

      It's 640MW, and according to the developers (Dong & Masdar) will cost about €1.9Bn, plus a bit for the grid connection. At £1:€1.15 that's £1.62Bn.

      A reasonable weighted average cost of capital for a decent size energy firm is maybe 9% - let's go conservative, and say 7%. So, just servicing the capital spend will cost about £116M per year. That's before anything for depreciation, operations, maintenance, etc.

      Energy market prices for a 2-3 year contract - about the longest term deal you can get - are about £45/MWh. That'd usually be considerably less for unreliable power, but we'll ignore that.

      640*.25*24*365*45 = £63M. So, covering just over half the cost of capital, never mind those other costs.

      That's why the RO scheme was devised. Wind's generally lowest cost renewable here in the UK, and you can gather how infeasible it is, if you assume low capacity factors.

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  7. Neil Barnes Silver badge
    FAIL

    And in other news, bears crap in the woods...

    Wind power was never going to be useful for anything other that either local with-storage small systems or for green-credential PR - it's going to be even less so if a bulk change to electric vehicles happens anytime soon.

    Get rid of this idiotic scheme that effectively sells to the grid at more than the consumer pays, and subsidises uneconomic power generation - if a utility can't sell power more cheaply than another, given its amortised costs over its expected lifetime, why should we pay for it?

    If we must use renewables until we get fusion generators working, let's use something reliable - at least the tide comes in twice a day... but then, think of all those little wading birds!

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    1. Anonymous Coward
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      Headmaster

      Bears don't crap in woods...

      ... at least not where I live. Round here they crap in zoos.

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  8. Fatbot

    Joined up thinking

    Your article contains within it one of the answers to the intermittent nature of wind generated electricity - power the pumped storage with wind power. They could be sited together, reducing transmission losses (pumped storage requires high places and its windier high up). The water turbines generate steady, predictable and grid friendly electricity while the wind powered pumps replenish the reservoir whenever the wind is blowing.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      As Lewis points out...

      ...you'd have to build an awful lot of reservoirs to store anywhere near the required capacity.

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      1. copsewood
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        Lewis ignores most of the reservoir capacity which already exists

        Current pumped capacity involves having 2 reservoirs with a height difference between them. If you uprate the generating capacity on existing hydro power dams and allow the water level to vary more, rather than have these compete with nuclear for baseload suppy, then you won't need as much new pumped capacity to balance wind and tidal electric output. Then there is the question of whether or not water supply reserviors could be dual purposed during times of low wind but adequate rainfall.

        Intermittent wind electricity can also be stored as carbon neutral fuel by using the Fischer Tropsh process, once captured biofuel carbon can be used for the C02. There's probably no other realistic way you can achieve sustainable air transport anyway, because you certainly can't fly commercial aircraft using batteries or nuclear generators.

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        1. Andydaws
          Reply Icon

          we have about 4GW of pumped storage

          with reservoir capacity enough to run for 6-12 hours. Call it 40GWh

          If we raised the dam height on every single hydro dam in the UK, and converted it to PW, we might be able to have 100 Wh of storage.

          If we build 10,000 MW of wind plant, with an average output of 2500MW, to cover a 10 day period of no, we need 600 GWh.

          Feel free to check the numbers yourself. Then tell me where we can put the other 500GWh.

          What is it about this subject which makes people who are too fucking lazy to do basic arithmetic think they've got a serious contribution to a discussion?

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    2. longbeast
      Reply Icon
      Happy

      Pumped hydro is nice if you've got a good spot already...

      I've commented about this elsewhere in the thread too - smaller scale power storage would be better, allowing it to be sized to fit the wind farm, and not needing too many factors in combination when you're choosing where to put your plant.

      Hot sodium-sulphur cell batteries are the way to go.

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