SOT Dunkelflaute

This is true but irrelevant. The backup as others have pointed out still has to be capable of producing 90% or so of peak demand, because during those dark, windless days, they are producing as near to nothing as makes no odds. And they still have to be staffed and maintained for the periods when they are not needed. That clear?

You clearly have no idea. You assume, as the journos seem to, that because

I thought it was all lets get rid of the demand now, i.e. can you not use any power for such and such a time?

It'll be can you not use the electric railway on some days get the old diesels out and that electric blast furnace can cool a little;!..

Still the high pressure will blow over - won't it;???!...

If, as we seem to have decided, we want to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, but clearly can't do that overnight, why is it not possible that the lowest cost way of doing it is to:

What else is there? Carry on burning gas for everything? Try to get nuclear back in the realm of the possible (both acceptance by public and feasible costs)?

Have we come too far in the direction of giving everyone having as much power as they want whenever they want it? Is there happy medium between that and the old miller, who ground his corn when the wind blew and did other things when it didn't !

nib

Turn off crypto currencies and AI training, for a start ...

Or force them to use only self-generated. Like Google with its recent decision to help support the development of small nuclear reactors to power their servers. 6 years it reckons for the first one - does nuclear development ever stick to timescales like that?

nib

Because the problem is the expensive-to-keep-idle backup systems that are necessary to support renewables. Someone has to pay to keep power stations available, and that *costs*. Then there are their inefficiencies as the ramp up and down.

A CCGT power station, ramping up and down, or starting from cold, is very inefficient, the problem being the unreliability of renewables.

Like sit in the dark, freeze, and don’t go out to socialise? Sounds more like a gulag than a rational modus.

Pipe dream.

And when at a critical time some hostile actor blows up the interconnector between the UK and North Africa, what then? Have you never heard of Nordstream?

Like the Irish do, you mean, following their system-wide study that showed how costly it was to ramp their CCGT power stations up and down because of the variability of wind? They run their CCGTs in efficient mode - that is, flat out - and flog their unwanted wind output to the UK, dumping the variability problem on us. Clever, eh?

You don’t seem to have heard of the SMR project.

Which handbook of Marxism-Leninism, a failed philosophy if ever there was one, did that come out of?

Sheesh, you talk some tripe.

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Don't need to reply to most of that, but how on earth did you get from cut use where possible and avoid waste to sitting in the dark and freezing?

Blimey!

nib

Yes, close down all industry and retail when there is low generation by renewables. I'm sure that the taxpayer will provide the unemployment benefits when for those forced into unemployment for weeks at a time.

What do you suggest? There is also the cost of leaving something idle for months.

Yes, we could cut electricity use by not buying EVs and having heat pumps for central heating. It would also help if the population wasn't growing so fast and we didn't have to use so much energy building homes.

That already happens.

How much storage? The linked video gives some figures for efficiency and likely investment costs to make and store hydrogen. Say the average UK base usage is 30GW and Dunkelflaute lasts a week during the winter. That's around 5TWh. Using excess electricity to make hydrogen and then using the hydrogen to again make electricity is around

i) it doesn't make economic sense to produce massive amounts of excess electricity just make up for a shortfall for a week or more. The problem with wind is it is intermittent and not just a problem during Dunkelflaute. One day it's working at 30% of peak capacity and the next at 5%.

ii) for the average household the storage could cost 30+% of their electricity bill.

During cold spells the whole country is not that much different in terms of temperature. Most industries and retail etc. work every week of the year.

Try a back of envelope costing for the number of wind turbines, the extra infrastructure and backup needed to meet our needs if we didn't burn gas and dirty wood-chip and we didn't use our own or imported nuclear

The public will accept nuclear if they start experiencing power cuts in the next 10 years. Unfortunately by that time there may no longer be any short term solutions. If the policy of more and more wind turbines and solar farms is plan A with no SENSIBLE plan B then we are stuffed!

Who decides the rationing regime? What other things in the way of heating your home in mid-winter do you use when the wind doesn't blow? No more gas fitted in new houses, a rush to EVs, a rush to electric heat pumps. All the alternatives are being actively discouraged.

There is also the bullshit about carbon offsetting. Buy your way out of generating Co2 by buying up farm land to just plant mono-culture forests. Sometimes called re-wilding to make it more acceptable. Fair enough re-wild unproductive land but leave productive farm land alone!

Already as good as it gets

Die of cold

Increase their costs leading to inflation

Increase everyones cost and introduce a technology FAR more dangerous than either natural gas or nucler,

Unfortunately te cables needed to exchnage with Australia would be exrreemely exoesnivce

Cheap reliable local nuclear power.

since 80% of the cost of nuclear is in the regulations, simplify the regulations,

It depends how many sticks the regulatory authorities and jobsworths stick in its spokes.

On quite a few occasions I read (paraphrasing) " my solar provides more electricity in a year than I'm using and so I'm self sufficient"

Yes, in term of kWh hours generation exceeds individual usage. BUT Most of the generation is in the long Summer months and bugger all In Winter. In Winter these people are almost totally reliant on the National Grid where near zero comes from solar.

In some respects it's the same logic being applied to people who only buy 100% green energy from their supplier.

Simples.

Via a Labour government. The Old Dear hunters...

Mild hybrids (VERY small batteries) make a similar claim. The battery is only used to boost acceleration and thus increasing mpg.

That's because at times we are running out of capacity now.

Not long ago (with Octopus) I was actually getting paid not to use electricity at certain peak times.

Because those of us who are not grossly overpaid do all that already. It's only rich people and those spending other peoples' money who can afford to take a relaxed attitude to waste.

Its all the difference between virtue signalling marketing and engineering facts.

Marketing tells your is all f****ng wonderful,. The actual deals and the cost of your bills shows its a f****ng disaster. See Germany...

All windmills and solar panels on the face of it. Behind the scenes filthy lignite burining power stations and Russian gas.

My mild hybrid does even less with the energy recuperated into the battery ... powers the engine start/stop function.

Like they did and are doing for renewables.

As I see it, PHEV hybrid benefits from:

1. Can run on electricity entirely for local journeys
2. Regenerative braking
3. Engine run only in efficient way, no idle, no light load
4. Engine optimised for steady high load, eg Atkinson cycle
5. Engine sized for moderate performance, electric boost when needed
6. No NOx emissions in urban areas by careful use of battery or engine

and a "self-charging" hybrid, ie one that can do more than crawl on electric, can still gain from 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 of those.

nib