gridwatch

[Tim Streater]

Andrew Neil (yes, BrilloPad himself) tweeted about how at this moment wind is providing 12% of the UK's volts requirement, so I tweeted back to him to take a look at gridwatch.

[The Natural Philosopher]

actually last time I looked, it was. 3.8GW from 32GW demand

Now its over 4GW and barely 30GW demand.

"The one day of the year the wind is actually blowing everywhere"

So that will cost the taxpayer a couple of million then.

[Tim Streater]

The more that we can demonstrate to journos what actually happens, and give them a reliable site based on public stats, the more they'll be likely to see through wind. Problem is that most of these folk are trained in media studies and other valuable disciplines, so if someone says "This new windfarm will provide power for xxx homes", they just assume it's not only true but true 24x7.

In fact, even if we could store the power, it wouldn't be xxx homes, but

20% of xxx at best. But they don't appreciate that.

[Dave Liquorice]

10.5% currently. 3.31 from wind demand 31.44.

So without coal (9.97), nuclear (6.88), gas (7.9) and 3i sh from everything else (inteconnects, biomass mainly) one in ten homes could have their lights on.

[AnthonyL]

.3GW out of 32GW demand (everyone turning Andy Murray off?).

So the CCGT's appear to be running flat out. Their cost never seems to get factored in to the headline savings of wind.

[newshound]

Not the taxpayer, the electricity user.

Back to 270 MW now though.

Apart from the usual GW of nuclear on the French interconnector, I see we have another GW on the Dutch. Is that actually Dutch generation (CCGT I suppose) or are they re-exporting more French nuclear?

[The Natural Philosopher]

make that 140MW.

Its almost impossible to say - it is after all a grid. All it IS saying is that bulk prices there are below bulk prices here, so paying to push it over the link is worthwhile.

Looking at the pressure charts, wind is doing SFA anywhere in N Europe. The wind isn't always blowing somewhere. Often its not blowing anywhere.

I'd say that realistically what happens is the France is sitting at this time of year on masses of nuclear capacity, so it floods the market with that, then anyone burning coal will take a view on whether they an sell that to the UK, or shut it off.

[Tim Streater]

110MW and falling.

[The Other Mike]

CCGT capacity today is around 28GW (out of 30GW installed), so it is nowhere near 'flat out'

[The Natural Philosopher]

make that 20MW... :-)

I think that is, whilst discussion rages in the Telegraph about wind power, the worst wind output Ihave EVER seen. £10bn quid plus, lives and landscapes ruined, bats and birds minced to ribbons, and all it will reliably do is get one train out of Euston.

it was like the time in May when the council votes to allow a wind farm 'because of global warming' whilst outside a blizzard was raging.

Never mind, 'the wind is always blowing somewhere'

Not only does God exist, he has a wicked sense of humour.

So right now, not one piece of solar or wind energy is actually producing anything at all.

Well that's a £100 quid off the electricity bill anyway.

[Tim Streater]

Fine, so worst case we get 20MW for 10B quid. Obviously we need to spend

10,000B quid, so we can *guarantee* getting 20GW, "whatever the weather".

Cheap at twice the price, eh harry?

[The Other Mike]

There is currently 7136MW of wind turbine capacity installed (with operational metering)

Given that current output of 20MW and the need to meet 60GW maximum demand the country would require around 21408GW of wind turbine capacity, or 21,408,000 wind turbines of 1MW rating plate output.

The land area of the UK is 243,610 km^2, so that is 88 wind turbines per square km...and 60GW of conventional generation to back it up fitted in the gaps between all those wind turbines.

Privatising the UK energy sector, pissing away the UK's gas resources and not building 50GW of nuclear capacity to displace coal 25 years ago is the most treacherous act carried out by any government. Funding wind turbines and solar PV FIT's is the second most treacherous act.

[The Natural Philosopher]

No there isnt.

ist about 5GW actually. Unless the London Array is actually gone opetational.

No: at the time it made sense. The real issue was that later on, in the Blair years, it should have been considered.

But it was more important to ban foxhunting, as I remember.

Who was mister for energy?

Ah, Someone called Ed Miliband.

By their deeds thou shalt know them..

>

[AnthonyL]

The .3 related to wind. Low wind usually means high CCGT.

Didn't realise tha the CCGT capacity was so high though.

[Dave Liquorice]

What "savings"?

Need it for the winter when demand peaks over 55GW, will need it even more this coming winter as several GW of coal has been shutdown and not replaced.

[The Natural Philosopher]

yeah, it is. CCGT sets are relatively cheap to build, but expensive to run, so they tend to be used in times of high demand when prices are higher. Nuclear is the reverse,. Expensive to build, but fuel costs are minimal, so the way to make money is to run e,m all the time for whatever you can get.

A polished shrink wrapped lead contained fuel rod including disposal costs is something like a penny a unit of electricity it generates, or maybe less. It represents far far less in terms of raw uranium it contains. Th4e cost is all in processing. So all other things being equal., it pays to sell electricity at anything over a penny a unit, as against switching the thing off to 'save money'

So a nuclear power plant will always be the last to drop out of a Dutch auction. Whereas gas is usually the first - with raw gas up around IIRC

5p a unit generated. And coal in the 2-3p region.

Of course wind and solar are like nuclear, The fuel costs nothing so sell it at whatever you can get for it. The problem is that if that was left to the market, they wouldn't be profitable enough to be worth building at all.

(don't take those figures as gospel, I haven't time to actually check them thoroughly)

Left to the market we would have probably around 30GW of nuclear, and

20GW of coal, and 10GW of gas. That would be the cheapest mix.

Which is why the politicians have not left it to the market, because it doesn't suit their politics to have that mix.

[The Other Mike]

bmreports - look at the 2 - 14 days and 2 - 52 weeks Output Usable By Fuel Type and you get the published figures for declared availability - currently just under 6GW.

The information you see there is exactly the same data available to those at National Control only they get to see the live data, the post gate closure redeclarations and the 'up to 2 day' data.

In the context of forecasting, demand and generation there is no reason whatsoever why data on the renewables UK website should ever be used. It's like asking a FIT parasite to have an objective and reasoned view on the UK energy market. Shit data in, shit data out.

[The Natural Philosopher]

which is not either authoritative and not "7136MW " either.

you might think they would be likely to overemphasize wind, not underestimate it.

So tell me, is the London array actually operational yet or not?

Last time I looked I found no actual story saying 'yay! london array is working'

And they don't normally miss an opportunity... # Their web site says "The project should be fully operational by Spring 2013."

And yet its been in the elexon spreadsheet for over six months. As available capacity.

I rest my case.

[The Other Mike]

The data on bmreports, provided by Elexon is as authoritative as you can possibly get. If you cannot accept that the data you are seeing is based on fact and not something churned out by someone in a PR department then you are as daft or blinkered as Drivel or harry.

7136MW is the figure in the spreadsheet, the maximum used for grid system planning. It is used in determining export limits across system boundaries and use of system charges. It is a 'copy' of the data in a fundamental operational document, as important as the one that says the system frequency should be 50Hz.

Who are they?

The figures are given by the operator of the generation at the time of applying for a connection. The 7136MW is the total of all those connections. Some operators of embedded generation, at 132kV and below, both wind and conventionally fuelled may not have operational metering and will not appear in the totals.

The operators of the generation then declare availability on a real time basis which will always be equal to or less than the maximum

The 'just under 6GW' figure (5877MW) is from here

and is the totals of the declarations for availability at 2 days out.

Plant of all fuel types are offline for maintenance, some plant may not have been even commissioned, but the connections are there (this situation is not limited to wind plant)

If it is in the spreadsheet then it is operational for grid system planning purposes and use of system purposes. As to whether it is declared operational to the public then that is down to individual operator, they may decide to say nothing. It may still be in the hands of and under the control of the construction contractor and still undergoing final tests.

As far as the London array there was a peak of around 120MW last Friday on each of the four blocks, so around 480MW of a possible 628MW

Generation is entered in the various spreadsheets at the point at which a connection is made and power, either import or export can occur (for instance conventional generation will be declared yet may not generate anything for an extended period of time, purely taking an infeed for commissioning purposes) A couple of GW of CCGT generation is currently in exactly that position and will not generate commercially for another 5 months or so.

[AnthonyL]

Thanks for that. So do you have a feel for the average cost of wind+solar taking into account the back up requirement of CCGT?