Providing grid stability and decarbonising the final few percent

[dan_b]

https://mliebreich.substack.com/p/decar ... ew-percent

A worthwhile read/listen

[Ken]

Whilst laying it out nicely he is not saying anything new. NESO and Gov/climate change commitee are following that line of thinking already.

What is not mentioned is that overbuilding of PV and wind is probably a good partual solution and a fig of 130% overbuild is often proposed as the ideal amount.

He does not mention the importance of EU interconnectors which will prove to be a vital flexible source import and export. UK excess wind will be exported thus allowing us to overbuild economically. Import of Norway excess hydro and store our excess export. France nuclear being used economically instead of just dumped. etc

He does mention demand management which i believe has huge potential with a bit of carrot and stick.

He is quite right to point out that the last 5/10% is going to be more costly as it already is. That is the price to be paid for 24/7/365 reliability.
I liken it to on route EV charging as it does not really matter how much it costs if you only use it for 5% of the time.

The UKs RE is going to make a huge jump by 2030 with lower grid curtailment and the huge dogger bank wind farms which will be noticeable in the decline of petrol and diesel.

We have not yet seen the full impact of the falling battery and PV costs something i think the Gov should wake up the public to even if NESO dont like it, because they cannot control it.

[Stinsy]

I don't think we need to decarbonise the last few percentage points of grid generation!

We are in danger of "net zero" becoming a religion. It is way, way, cheaper to have a few FF plants on the grid for use in times of poor renewable generation and high demand. And the huge fortunes that would need to be spent to achieve 100% renewable grid can be better spent elsewhere.

I'm all for overbuilding of solar/wind. I don't know what percentage of British homes have solar, but I'd guess it is less than 10%. Increase that to 50% and we'd have 9-months of the year sorted.

[Mart]

Interesting point Stinsy. I'm very interested in carbon removal, but crucially at the moment, it's far cheaper to reduce CO2 by displacing FF's with RE. But there has to come a tipping point where the economics shift in favour of some sort of carbon capture and storage.

The global temp targets (like the 1.5C that's next to impossible now) are based on reaching net zero emissions, and then preventing the continued temp rise, due to the lag behind CO2 levels, of 20 or so years. But carbon removal is very expensive, with suggestions that this is something that will be deployed in the second half of this century ...... once we work out how to do it more efficiently and cheaper.

For now, I'd go with the general definition of net zero leccy as being 95% low carbon, and then just keep moving more and more energy demand over to leccy, with the 'true' decarbonisation being the move away from FF's for transport, space heating etc etc.

Maybe while this is all happening CAES will become economically viable at TWh scale, displacing much of that hard to beat last 5%?

[Stinsy]

Interesting point Stinsy. I'm very interested in carbon removal, but crucially at the moment, it's far cheaper to reduce CO2 by displacing FF's with RE. But there has to come a tipping point where the economics shift in favour of some sort of carbon capture and storage.

The global temp targets (like the 1.5C that's next to impossible now) are based on reaching net zero emissions, and then preventing the continued temp rise, due to the lag behind CO2 levels, of 20 or so years. But carbon removal is very expensive, with suggestions that this is something that will be deployed in the second half of this century ...... once we work out how to do it more efficiently and cheaper.

For now, I'd go with the general definition of net zero leccy as being 95% low carbon, and then just keep moving more and more energy demand over to leccy, with the 'true' decarbonisation being the move away from FF's for transport, space heating etc etc.

Maybe while this is all happening CAES will become economically viable at TWh scale, displacing much of that hard to beat last 5%?

We also have to bare in mind that China generates something like 60% of their electricity from Coal. Them shifting a few percentage points to renewables will have a vastly bigger impact than the UK shifting our last few percentage points.

I'm not in favour of "carbon capture" as I believe that to be fraud. However once the grid is 98% renewable we'll get a better return by looking at aviation, or other sectors before we decarbonise the last bit.

We need a pragmatic, not dogmatic, approach.

[smegal]

Interesting point Stinsy. I'm very interested in carbon removal, but crucially at the moment, it's far cheaper to reduce CO2 by displacing FF's with RE. But there has to come a tipping point where the economics shift in favour of some sort of carbon capture and storage.

The global temp targets (like the 1.5C that's next to impossible now) are based on reaching net zero emissions, and then preventing the continued temp rise, due to the lag behind CO2 levels, of 20 or so years. But carbon removal is very expensive, with suggestions that this is something that will be deployed in the second half of this century ...... once we work out how to do it more efficiently and cheaper.

For now, I'd go with the general definition of net zero leccy as being 95% low carbon, and then just keep moving more and more energy demand over to leccy, with the 'true' decarbonisation being the move away from FF's for transport, space heating etc etc.

Maybe while this is all happening CAES will become economically viable at TWh scale, displacing much of that hard to beat last 5%?

We also have to bare in mind that China generates something like 60% of their electricity from Coal. Them shifting a few percentage points to renewables will have a vastly bigger impact than the UK shifting our last few percentage points.

I'm not in favour of "carbon capture" as I believe that to be fraud. However once the grid is 98% renewable we'll get a better return by looking at aviation, or other sectors before we decarbonise the last bit.

We need a pragmatic, not dogmatic, approach.

I agree. I'd argue the last few percent is getting well into diminishing returns.

[Oliver90owner]

Grid stability is one thing and continuing fossil fuel generation is another. I am all for running without fossil generation at every opportunity. That means having sufficient fossil generation to hand only if/when needed.

IIRC, the local open circuit gas station could start generating in about 8 minutes. This plant is inefficient, compared to combined circuit gas generation, and not of high enough capacity to be worth keeping on (almost) permanent stand-by. Fast reaction will not be needed once the grid completes and adopts the necessary black-start alternatives.

Retaining the minimum combined cycle plants off-line (cold) could likely be cheaper than constraining large amounts of renewable generation. However, the grid is still not strong enough, in some areas, to transmit off-shore generation to areas where needed It is a difficult and delicate balancing problem that the National Grid will eventually sort out.

Operating without fossils (for generation, transportation and heating) must be the aim - and the sooner the better. Any example to the rest of the globe would demonstrate, to the dinosaur fuel peddlers that they should, and could, do the same.