OT: BEIS announce closure of solar panel export tariff

with a name like that, why would there be a second?

tim

There's just the one Dinorwig, and I recall someone mentioning another, lot smaller, one, elsewhere.

We could have another by choosing some valley in Wales or Scotland, kicking all the residents out, and flooding it. Let me know if this is what you had in mind.

(directed at whoever was doing the belling-the-cat exercise upthread).

talking generically

there are 4 "Dinorwigs" in the UK

as they are not filled "naturally" they do not need to be created by flooding valleys, certainly not habitated valleys

they can be created by hollowing out mountains, which ITYF is a way that is often used - obviously they aren't very big when built that way, or from isolated valleys at the top of mountains

FTAOD, not me

tim

There are 3 others in the UK - 2 in Scotland and an other one in Wales. A

Several, in fact:

If all these come to pass, how many GW could they all generate together and for how long.

Ffestiniog. IIRC another one in Scotland

F****ng taffies, Plabbing our power stations!

I posted a summary of all the current ones in another thread a couple of weeks back. ISTR it was a total capacity of 27GWh, but a max power delivery of under 3GW

Cruachan: 440MW 7.1GWh

Dinorwig: 1.73GW 9.1GWh

Ffestiniog: 360MW can't find the GWh, only this: 'The scheme has the capacity to power the whole of North Wales for several hours'. Lets assume 6 hrs, so that's 2.2 GWh

Foyers 350MW, but no info on GWh. Making the same assumption as Ffestiniog, gives 2.1 GWh.

Loch Sloy 152MW 200GWh (seems an awful lot, but that's what it says

Coire Glas 1500MW 30GWh

Balmacaan 600MW 30GWh but not being progressed.

Gives a total of ~280GWh if you include all those under construction and planned, and assuming my assumptions and calculations are correct. Note that the figures are massively inflated by the Loch Sloy scheme. It would be much less without that.

But if they all ran at maximum capacity, they would run out at different times, so estimating how long it would take before the UK became without electricity if solely dependant on water from pumped storage isn't straightforward.

In my school days, "Sloy" became a swear word - becasuse its a very big "dam(n)"

I found 440 / 10GWh for that...

Only 1.3 GWh on the figures I found.

I found data for Foyers of 305 MW, 6.3GWh

Quite a lot of data here:

The main difficulty ISTM is the lack of power capacity, even if they have lots of storage. Enough to cope with the lost of one or perhaps two major generating plant, but not much else.

I am surpised at that - thiught it was under 10GWh.

Agree with max power tho

They are there to handle a peak evening demand of around +3GW without firing up a (then) coal plant or having to have an extra nuke.

CCGT changed their function. They are now part of the black start IIRC and also there to smooth much shorter term peaks.

They were not designed to balance windmills and solar panels and I doubt they would be very effective if power was upped.

Ben Cruachan was designed to absorb the night time surplus power from Hunterston Nuclear station and make it available during the day.

More or less yes.

However post Tatcher etc 2 CCGT cheaper than either. Especially in capital cost when interest rates at 15% were likely in the 1980s

ISTR Dinorwig was about that on its own...