1.4GW !

What's the point of that remark? It's not pantomime season.

Renewable sources do not 'produce more in winter'

Mercury, perhaps?

It is for these believers in magic.

Na depleted uranium, solve that "problem" at the same time :-)

-- Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\ | Internode Ltd -

Yebbut mercury is a liquid so you can pump it uphill. Just dump the water at Dinorwig, use mercury instead. All those mercury thermometers we're no longer making, should be plenty. Shouldn't be any more drowning accidents either. Course, it'll fool the diving seabirds for a while but they'll soon learn.

I'm not convinced mass solar is the best option for the UK - simply not enough sun, little generation when needed most (winter), and limited storage. That said, it is relatively cheap. The detail of Labour's thinking will be interesting. Maybe solar works as part of the suite of generation methods . . .

UK logistics.

Inidividual household solar with battery storage makes more sense - the other strand of Miliband's announcement. A 50% grant (for example) would make for very quick payback, and go a long way to taking the strain of EVs, especially if on-street charging can be organised.

But still something needs to be done for the times the sun doesn't shine.

The Hunterston B nuclear power plant in North Ayrshire has been shut down for the final time after generating electricity for 46 years. The plant's original 25-year lifespan was extended by more than two decades.7 Jan

Still in panto mode.

That will cause global warming :)

Well, it's better than nothing. And I see people agree it's the quickest way to throw up some fueless generation capacity.

In message snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, Chris Hogg snipped-for-privacy@privacy.net writes

There must be many other small hydro generators not under the pumped storage heading. Presumably switchable depending on water storage levels, downstream flood risks and supply demand.

There is a 500kW set at Clywedog with the reservoir intended to control flow levels on the upper Severn. Seriously upset the Welsh Nationalists at the time (late 60's).

During testing, I got to push the button synchronising the set to the local mains supply:-)

it's almost impossible to have a conversation while you're in Trump mode. And you of all people should know the stats.

Here's a summary:

From a quick look/guess, part of the reason for the seasonal variation is that onshore wind and hydro drops off over the summer, and solar picks up.

The previous year saw three separate two-week periods in the November to March period where gas-fired generation exceeded renewables for each of those periods by about 10 to 12 GW.

As an exercise, estimate the land area needed to accommodate the equivalent amount of energy via battery storage, and then describe how that battery/subsidy farm will be recharged after the first period of use due to the inconvenient fact that there won’t be enough energy available.

To get you started, the amount of output required is of the order of

Do you know of any energy-storage facilities with that capacity?

While all that may be true they are average figures and somewhat misleading. Most renewables are intermittent and they will potentially produce more than the demand on one day and little or none of the demand on another day.

It's very much like people claiming solar meets all their needs in that over a period of a year the amount of electricity generated on their roof equals the amount of electricity they used throughout the year. What they fail to mention is that 90% is generated in the six months with longer days. Come the winter they cannot rely at all on solar and therefore have to use the backup.

Without wind and solar we need power stations to supply the peak demand. With wind and solar we have 12,000 wind turbines (plus perhaps another

Perhaps with all this cheap renewable energy supplying 50% of the demand Ofgem should immediately force the energy supply companies to cut our bills by at least 50%. :)

Nope, not my, er, field. I gather storage is the key missing link - and until that is sorted, we'll need at least some non-renewable forms of energy generation.

I've no doubt - do you happen to know the stats?

Of course - they'd have to be pretty dim to think otherwise. The *cost* of using the alternative is largely offset by excess generation during the summer. But, for now at least, in terms of generation, an alternative to solar is needed.

A Passivhaus would probably be OK year-round with just a decent PV array.

Yes, agreed.

Hopefully people will start consuming less as they become more environmentally aware, waste less, and insulate more, ASHP etc. Hopefully.

I'd vote for that :-)

All of the solar farms going up have battery storage. It's only short term storage (hours not days) but enough to shift the peak of generation (midday) to the peak of consumption (teatime) and overnight. I assume windfarms would do likewise.

For the 2-3 periods in the winter where there's no sun or wind (a problem we have in NW Europe but relatively few other places in the world do), burn gas. It's not carbon neutral but it's better than burning gas all year. (the CCGTs would get days/weeks of notice to cold start, so it's not like they would need to be fired in order to ramp quickly, and they'd run for days so wouldn't be used inefficiently as peaker plants)

Yes it costs to build gas plants, but you get a lot of generation for the £34 billion to build Hinkley Point C's 3.2GW.

Solar is so cheap now that you can overbuild to get better winter capacity (even at our latitude). You can then use the excess production in summer to make hydrogen, ammonia, synthetic kerosene, or other uses.

All that can happen today, without any new tech being invented. Should they arrive, new long term storage techniques may assist in reducing the use of gas.

Theo

Burning wood, could. However, from what I remember, it isn't scalable, sustainably.