UK now has more wind capacity than gas

[dan_b]

Blow the wind southerly!

https://renews.biz/88122/uk-wind-capaci ... takes-gas/

[Oliver90owner]

What a really C.R.A.P. report. Virtually utterly useless and of no practical importance.

The idiots expect everyone to believe they are reporting on a big change in energy generation when they say that, but then follow it up with their claim about “plumetting”.

Of course, everyone on here should know that installed capacity of wind generation still delivers about 50% less energy than the installed gas capacity is able to. The figures are not a huge change in the last year, but still progress.

Lets not forget the side-lined wind generation due to constrainment. Lets not be hood-winked by what was a particularly mild quarter wrt domestic energy usage. Everone on here should know that no new gas generation has been installed recently but more wind generation has.

Of course they are correct re the fact re installed capacity, but the rest is absolute junk reporting - just cherry-picking a few arbitrary statistics to make a story. The reduction in coal usage was just another smokescreen (after the urgent need to retain coal-fired stations because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Yes, just a story. A story on climate change would have been much more relevant, IMO.

[Mart]

Of course, everyone on here should know that installed capacity of wind generation still delivers about 50% less energy than the installed gas capacity is able to. The figures are not a huge change in the last year, but still progress.

But .... looking at the nat grid live site, which I appreciate may be wrong, it shows that over the past year gas has provided 37% of our leccy, and wind has provided 30%. So only 19% less energy. Perhaps your point hinges on the "is able to"? If so, then I think that's an important point, as gas' ability to demand follow is really important to us, for now.

So, if the capacity of each is now the same (and wind would have been lower, but growing), then the capacity factors can't be that different. In fact, rather than try to use any specific numbers, can't we just say that their cfs are in the ratio of 37:30.


But just to add, all of these milestones are important. So reaching the same level of installed capacity is great. Next will be generating more leccy, which I will look forward too.

[Countrypaul]

Of course, everyone on here should know that installed capacity of wind generation still delivers about 50% less energy than the installed gas capacity is able to. The figures are not a huge change in the last year, but still progress.

But .... looking at the nat grid live site, which I appreciate may be wrong, it shows that over the past year gas has provided 37% of our leccy, and wind has provided 30%. So only 19% less energy. Perhaps your point hinges on the "is able to"? If so, then I think that's an important point, as gas' ability to demand follow is really important to us, for now.

So, if the capacity of each is now the same (and wind would have been lower, but growing), then the capacity factors can't be that different. In fact, rather than try to use any specific numbers, can't we just say that their cfs are in the ratio of 37:30.


But just to add, all of these milestones are important. So reaching the same level of installed capacity is great. Next will be generating more leccy, which I will look forward too.

Surely the capacity factors are now in the ratio 27.7:27.9 gas:wind but the production output was in the ratio 37:30?

[Ken]

There was a 1st quarter 2001? when wind actually produced more than gas.

[nowty]

I just did a quick a dirty calculation using data from Gridwatch for the past year (13th Sept 22 to 13th Sept 24).

Gas 39%
Wind 25%
Nuclear 16%
Biomass 5%
Solar 5%
Coal 1%
Rest by subtraction (mostly interconnectors) 9%

EDIT - This is % of the grid and not capacity factors.

[Mart]

Of course, everyone on here should know that installed capacity of wind generation still delivers about 50% less energy than the installed gas capacity is able to. The figures are not a huge change in the last year, but still progress.

But .... looking at the nat grid live site, which I appreciate may be wrong, it shows that over the past year gas has provided 37% of our leccy, and wind has provided 30%. So only 19% less energy. Perhaps your point hinges on the "is able to"? If so, then I think that's an important point, as gas' ability to demand follow is really important to us, for now.

So, if the capacity of each is now the same (and wind would have been lower, but growing), then the capacity factors can't be that different. In fact, rather than try to use any specific numbers, can't we just say that their cfs are in the ratio of 37:30.


But just to add, all of these milestones are important. So reaching the same level of installed capacity is great. Next will be generating more leccy, which I will look forward too.

Surely the capacity factors are now in the ratio 27.7:27.9 gas:wind but the production output was in the ratio 37:30?

I think the capacity would be in the ratio 27.7 : 27.9 so just call it 1:1

From there I took the estimated actual generation for the last 12 months of 37% and 30%, which gives that capacity factor ratio of 37:30. [Note those aren't the actual cf's, just the ratio to each other.]

Edit - Sorry, should have said that yes, the production output was in the ratio 37:30, hence why, with matching total capacities, the cf ratio would therefore be 37:30.

But, using Nowty's figures, the difference in cf is closer to the 50% higher figure originally claimed by Oliver. In fact, almost exactly 50%. But now that coal is all but gone, the cf of gas will steadily fall, as it's displaced by RE, unless some of the capacity is retired.

[Oliver90owner]

Production actually depends on demand. Gas would always be turned down if wind generation was plentiful (and not constrained).

That report could have been done and dusted in one sentence, without the rest of the carp. Just think, here, exactly how many new gas plants are being built? How many wind farms are being closed down? How many wind farms are being modernised with new turbines to increase the wind farm output?

As an matter of fact, wind capacity is greater than coal, greater than nuclear, greater than hydro. But the fact remains that quite often there is very little wind and gas has to take up the slack. Don’t forget the inter-connectors that also play a part in the whole scheme of things. The power grid control has much more to it than any one type of generation.

I expect Ken’s point about gas and wind (whether correct or not) might be masked by the over-bearing use of coal generation, back then?

[nowty]

There was a 1st quarter 2001? when wind actually produced more than gas.

I expect Ken’s point about gas and wind (whether correct or not) might be masked by the over-bearing use of coal generation, back then?

If there was a quarter, I can't believe it was 2001 as even 7 years later in 2008 we had less than 3GW of wind capacity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_powe ... ed_Kingdom

I tried to look back at the data from Gridwatch but it only goes back to 2011. However, Our World In Data gives UK leccy generation in 2001 for wind at 0.25%, gas at 37% and coal at 34%.
https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mix

[Mart]

I believe it was Q1 this year, when wind generated more leccy than gas, for the first time ever.

For other milestones, RE including bio-energy, has already exceeded FF's over a year. I don't think it has, yet, excluding bio-mass (the largest part of bio-energy), but must be very close. Hopefully wind alone will exceed gas in a few years, as wind deployments continue to come on line, and gas gets pushed down, by all RE deployments (not just wind).

But nuclear age-ing out 'helps' gas, since the loss/slack would immediately be taken up, by running gas generation more. And I suppose we also need to consider the source of the imports coming in.