Energy policy - and (some) Tory heads-in-the-sand

[AE-NMidlands]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... plans-work says

Will Labour’s energy plans work?
Simon Evans

While there are questions about the pace of Labour’s proposals, criticism in rightwing newspapers is bizarrely wide of the mark

The UK’s low-carbon electricity sources are already saving huge amounts of gas. Photograph: Lindsey Parnaby/AFP/Getty Images
Wed 28 Sep 2022 08.00 BST

Labour’s ambitious plan for zero-carbon power by 2030 raises legitimate questions – which we’ll come to shortly – but the commentary in rightwing newspapers is bizarrely wide of the mark.

Perhaps the strangest was a Daily Telegraph editorial that claimed Labour’s plan “would make the country more dependent on imported gas, not less”. As should be obvious, the opposite is true. The UK used 254 terawatt hours (TWh) of gas last year to generate 123TWh of electricity, 40% of the national total. Under Labour’s plan, gas demand for electricity would be 97% lower by 2030.

(Why does it take 254TWh of gas to make 123TWh of electricity? Simply because burning fossil fuels is inefficient and half of the energy in the gas is wasted at the power station.)
Labour leader Keir Starmer announces the proposed Great British Energy during his speech at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool

The UK’s low-carbon electricity sources are already saving huge amounts of gas: In 2022 to date, nuclear and renewables have generated 129TWh, more than the 95TWh we got from gas.

The Daily Telegraph editorial echoed comments made by the likes of Darren Grimes and Julia Hartley-Brewer, who complained that we “can’t rely on solar or wind to keep our lights on”.

Similarly, while interviewing the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg asked if fossil fuels would still be needed as backup in 2030, pointing to low wind output last Friday.

Elsewhere, the Daily Mail said Starmer had been “forced to backtrack” by “admit[ting]” fossil fuels might still be used as backup under his 2030 plan.
etc. inthe same vein

One major blind spot of the article (and Labour policy) is the lack of storage, and a failure to include a massive expansion of it in plans...

Why can't the Right accept the direction of travel? My guess is that they have lots of money in ffs so don't want to recognise everybody else's reality.
Alternatively, they can clearly see the crises resulting but see opportunities to exploit the situations which are coming/here now.
A

[Oldgreybeard]

I cannot understand why the storage problem always seems to be overlooked. The government overlooked the critical need to maintain Rough, so creating a major issue now that we are reliant on a pretty flaky gas supply system. The government have consistently made it harder than it needs to be to put in distributed battery storage. The objections to new pumped hydro systems and the interconnections needed to make them viable have been ongoing for decades.

There's an obsession with more generation when in reality what we desperately need is more storage. Power cuts aren't usually because we run out of generation capacity, they are because that generation is in the wrong place at the time it's needed, or more often that the generation cannot ramp up fast enough to meet a sudden increase in demand (say, the failure of a power station somewhere).

The need for more storage, particularly electricity storage, has been apparent right from the very first time a wind farm had to curtail, probably 30 or more years ago. If we could store all the energy from periods of curtailment then the percentage of renewable energy used through the year would increase significantly, without actually building any more generation capability (although obviously building more is a good thing).

[Moxi]

Its a pity ree-smog (geddit ) doesn't own a gert big quarry otherwise the tidal barrages would be GO ! as he would make loads a dosh selling his rocks for the barrier construction!

Of course, I am not suggesting that they are all a bunch of pocket lining fly by nights, but it does make you think ............

The one constant we have all around the country that can be timed to the minute is the ebb and flow of the tides - it doesn't take a genius to fathom out that we could have massess of energy and be a net exporter to the continent. The engineering is all standard and well defined the life of the asset is measured in centuries rather than decades and theres incidental benefits which include flood mitigation for the areas behind the barrage's.

Moxi

[openspaceman]

I

The one constant we have all around the country that can be timed to the minute is the ebb and flow of the tides - it doesn't take a genius to fathom out that we could have massess of energy and be a net exporter to the continent. The engineering is all standard and well defined the life of the asset is measured in centuries rather than decades and theres incidental benefits which include flood mitigation for the areas behind the barrage's.

Moxi

Yes but it has proven more difficult to extract energy from the sea than expected, my brother was involved in a small way 25 years ago. Also as you say tidal barrages use an awful lot of material.

The writing was on the wall 50 years ago that alternatives to oil would be needed, what if every available south facing roof in UK was equipped with PV panels how would that change the electricity mix, would it conserve gas used to make electricity in the summer months? Or would it mean their electricity became more expensive as they could only amortise the cost over a less hours. How much excess renewable electricity would be available for storage , we don't seem very near to any excess yet.

With 208 days and counting since I last bought electricity from the grid (barring the 1/3 kWh per day which seems an inevitable consequence of non integrated systems) I am completely sold on LiPo batteries as a short term store, and wish I had bought years ago, but would really need an inter seasonal store for winter needs and I can only see that being possible from synthesised fuel, made abroad and shipped here.

[Oldgreybeard]

It isn't that difficult to massively reduce peak demand with batteries. Many of us here are doing it, and I think we're all agreed that it works, and works well, especially as a simple "peak lopping" mechanism.

Arguably "peak lopping" is mostly what the grid needs. I wonder if anyone in government has looked at the impact of installing even small battery systems to millions of homes? I bet it wouldn't be as costly as something like Hinkley C (which is costing the equivalent of about £800 per household).

If done at scale it could be rolled out fairly quickly, with capacity coming online from the very start, and growing as more and more homes were so equipped.

Imagine 28 million homes (every home in the UK) with just a small 2kWh usable capacity battery. That would give 56GWh of storage, for comparison, Dinorwig stores a bit under 9GWh. A 2kWh battery in every home would therefore be roughly the same as about six Dinorwig scale pumped storage facilities, although in reality the effective capacity would be a lot more, as locally distributed storage is a great deal more efficient (virtually no transmission losses).

[Moxi]

Some forms of sea energy I agree have proven to be difficult to harness but tidal systems are just differential head systems and hydro is a time served energy source.

The problem has always been that investors typically want a fast return on their money so something that will last for centuries after an initial high capex cost isn't as appealing as a gas fired plant that's (historically) cheap to buy cheap to install and has your investment paying back within 18 months.

Thats why tidal barrage systems should be considered as an alternate to nuclear - both operate to serve the base load; both have a long build time but whereas Nuclear has some obvious waste issues and the capacity to go wrong in a global manner the tidal barrage doesn't seem to have the same issues and has a longer life span.

I understand why its not been popular before but now when we are searching for net zero it seems like part of the RE answer - however not it would seem, while the Torries hold the reins?

Moxi

[Burble61]

Interesting point re hugely distributed energy storage.

Others will be closer to how the mechanism works but would one way to get the ball rolling be via the various Building Regs? I mean if they can mandate smaller window areas....

I don't underestimate the resistance the house builders would put up though.

How would you envisage the resource being used to best affect (and avoid causing issues for the grid?)

Not sure about rolling at at scale though, as there are supply chain constraints on many of the components required at the moment. Resolvable, certainly, if the will was there.

[AE-NMidlands]

Interesting point re hugely distributed energy storage.
Not sure about rolling at at scale though, as there are supply chain constraints on many of the components required at the moment. Resolvable, certainly, if the will was there.

As you say, resolvable if the will was there.

Isn't it just like the consequences of our govt's on/off commitment to home insulation etc? Builders and contractors now avoid it as they have had their fingers burnt too many times tooling up to do the job.
I'm sure that if a real commitment emerged and a long-term rolling programme was really happening then the supply chain and specialist contractors would bloom.
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[Mart]

It isn't that difficult to massively reduce peak demand with batteries. Many of us here are doing it, and I think we're all agreed that it works, and works well, especially as a simple "peak lopping" mechanism.

Arguably "peak lopping" is mostly what the grid needs. I wonder if anyone in government has looked at the impact of installing even small battery systems to millions of homes? I bet it wouldn't be as costly as something like Hinkley C (which is costing the equivalent of about £800 per household).

If done at scale it could be rolled out fairly quickly, with capacity coming online from the very start, and growing as more and more homes were so equipped.

Imagine 28 million homes (every home in the UK) with just a small 2kWh usable capacity battery. That would give 56GWh of storage, for comparison, Dinorwig stores a bit under 9GWh. A 2kWh battery in every home would therefore be roughly the same as about six Dinorwig scale pumped storage facilities, although in reality the effective capacity would be a lot more, as locally distributed storage is a great deal more efficient (virtually no transmission losses).

Totally agree, been pondering similar myself. And the funding for storage can be spread around all partners that benefit. The Gov gets CO2 benefits through better RE use lower curtailment), DNO's will save on local grid expansion, energy suppliers will reduce the amount of peak price leccy they need.

And it can be rolled out as appropriate, start in areas where RE is high, but the grid needs expansion, and as well as, or instead of household storage, we could have larger scale (hopefully cheaper) storage at DNO levels, perhaps co-located with local substations. might even allow for higher PV export if said storage can mop up excess.


But ..... not wishing to be negative, we do of course need larger scale storage, and it is rolling out, like the two Scottish batts of 400MW each. But I don't think larger scale leccy storage will really take off, till there is a lot or reliable excess, since batts won't be economically viable if they can't operate Xcycles per year (I don't know what the magic number is). So storage will naturally expand, as and when excess / spill / waste / curtailment grows in scale and regularity.

Back to the good news, we should reach close to 100% low carbon generation by 2030*, just with an annual RE rollout of ~5%, which we seem to now be at or near. I appreciate that FF gas may be providing significant amounts at times when RE is low, but over a whole year, the amount will be small, and cheaper storage will grow ....... eventually.

*In terms of annual generation potential, but of course it won't all be in the right places, and at the right times, but still, a major milestone, and RE rollout should by then be equal to the increase in leccy demand as we transition to a leccy future. Bearing in mind that companies will want to sell us leccy, so RE expansion will be cost effective at whatever scale is needed, perhaps 10%pa?

[Oldgreybeard]

The thing that surprised me when I did the little bit of arithmetic above was just how much grid storage we could gain with even a very modest sized domestic battery system. I really did not expect the number to come out at over six Dinorwigs. That's a fair bit of storage capacity, more than we have in total at the moment, by a hefty margin.

Latest numbers I can find suggest that the total storage capacity we have is only around 12GWh in total. we could very easily more than double this, maybe even quadruple it, with just some relatively low capacity domestic batteries installed in most UK homes.

The really big win is that there would be near-zero infrastructure cost. Adding a few kWh to each home isn't going to have any impact on the existing grid, so unlike all other energy storage schemes there would be no new power lines, substations, etc to worry about.

hard to think of any really good reasons not to just do it, other than some homes perhaps not having the space available for even a small battery. If they were outside wall mounted then that would get around that issue for a lot of homes. Just needs a properly thought through subsidy/grant scheme, on that doesn't get the usual rip-off merchants out in droves.