Wind curtailment Monitor

[Cells]

So what?? In the UK we have about 75GW of generation connected yet we rarely if ever need the full 75Gigs, there has ale=ways been capacity sitting around idle costing money to staff and maintain for when it is needed, curtailed if you like. This has been the same ever since Mr Elec built the first Tron, so why we are getting jumpy about it now baffles me. The argument we need to build a load of reserve to back up heatpumps made up there is not really true either. We already have a perfectly good back up system in place and in use as we speak, build the heatpump system to cope with 95% of the demand and revert to our existing heating systems when needed.
A bit of creative plumbing and policy making is needed though so don't hold your breath

It's not the same thing it'd not even an order of magnitude close to each other

A 1GW CCGT might operate say 2,000 hours of the year
If it cost £500m to build at 7% interst that's £35M over 2,000h = £17.5k / 1000MWh = £17.50/MWh

But your marginal transmission cost €2.5B /GW
And you only need it 1 week in 30 years to power your heat pums in the coldest winter week in memory

So that's 170 hours you need it
But it cost you €2.5B x 7% interst x 30 years = 5.25B / 170h / 1000MWh = €30,900 /MWh

That's about 2,000x more costly
That's the issue with building infrastructure You only need for 1 weeks worst winter in memory

Or.... just don't do it and accept a few hundred thousand frozen old people when half the grid fails

This hasn't been a issue for us becuase for the best part of 20 years we have had falling peak demand thanks mostly to LEDs replacing incandescent lights. But going forward if you want yo buuld out 40 million heat pumps you are going to need transmission and distribution built to feed those heat pumps not on average winter days but the coldest winter nights every generation

[AE-NMidlands]

Or.... just don't do it and accept a few hundred thousand frozen old people when half the grid fails

This hasn't been a issue for us becuase for the best part of 20 years we have had falling peak demand thanks mostly to LEDs replacing incandescent lights. But going forward if you want yo buuld out 40 million heat pumps you are going to need transmission and distribution built to feed those heat pumps not on average winter days but the coldest winter nights every generation

40 million heat pumps? there's only 60 million people here, so what about multi-person households?
No recognition of the potential value of dispersed storage and TOU tariffs either? That will be doing quite a bit here.

There will be more than 1 solution to the problem, it's horses for courses. Don't dismiss an option just because it can't do everything.
In a town I shan't be looking to burn stuff, but for others in the countryside WBS will do the heavy lifting - but only providing extreme weather protection for others.

[Cells]

So yeah we really should have a policy of trying to get as many buildings towards passive homes as possible

Else we are going to face huge transmission and distribution costs and likely a freak winter week one day in the future that cripples the grid for millions of homes & businesses

Spend 3x as much to get to passive house than to do a heat pump. Probably better long term in every respect and likely cheaper long term too

The grid going down in a very cold winter week isn't just a bad week. Its also quite likely burst pipes and flooded homes and frozen old people. It would be a huge disaster akin to an earthquake. But self inflicted

Subsidise into existence a few thousand passive house upgrading companies. Hopefully the learning curve of these companies will get the cost down low enough to be affordable to do it nationally

[Joeboy]

You've landed a bit heavy for day 1 pal.

Where is your source for these figures?


"A 1GW CCGT might operate say 2,000 hours of the year
If it cost £500m to build at 7% interst that's £35M over 2,000h = £17.5k / 1000MWh = £17.50/MWh

But your marginal transmission cost €2.5B /GW
And you only need it 1 week in 30 years to power your heat pums in the coldest winter week in memory

So that's 170 hours you need it
But it cost you €2.5B x 7% interst x 30 years = 5.25B / 170h / 1000MWh = €30,900 /MWh

That's about 2,000x more costly
That's the issue with building infrastructure You only need for 1 weeks worst winter in memory

Or.... just don't do it and accept a few hundred thousand frozen old people when half the grid fails"

As for the inflammatory last line, alarm bells. My advice, tread easy There is no your or you.

[Cells]

Or.... just don't do it and accept a few hundred thousand frozen old people when half the grid fails

This hasn't been a issue for us becuase for the best part of 20 years we have had falling peak demand thanks mostly to LEDs replacing incandescent lights. But going forward if you want yo buuld out 40 million heat pumps you are going to need transmission and distribution built to feed those heat pumps not on average winter days but the coldest winter nights every generation

40 million heat pumps? there's only 60 million people here, so what about multi-person households?
No recognition of the potential value of dispersed storage and TOU tariffs either? That will be doing quite a bit here.

There will be more than 1 solution to the problem, it's horses for courses. Don't dismiss an option just because it can't do everything.
In a town I shan't be looking to burn stuff, but for others in the countryside WBS will do the heavy lifting - but only providing extreme weather protection for others.

Uk is about 68 million people in 2024 this will probably be ~80 million come 2050

There are approx 30 million homes in the UK and by 2050 it'll be ~35 million homes

I don't know about other buildings but probably millions of offices shops schools etc. So 40 million heat pumps is a reasonable guess

Re extreme weather protection
Whatever your choice
It's going to have the same problem
Using it one week in 30 years = v.expesive

It's best to have a policy today to reach max insulation levels. This will lower the peak demand and lower the costly need for transmission and distribution. Its not something much considered as we have had 20 years of falling peak demands

And its not an issue for the next 5 years
But if you want to do mass electrification of heating it's going to be a significant issue

[AE-NMidlands]

So yeah we really should have a policy of trying to get as many buildings towards passive homes as possible

Who said that? Nobody has ever suggested that the current UK housing stock could ever reach passivhaus standard, and it is also recognised that even trying to would be trying to polish a turd. On the other hand, improving energy efficiency can't be bad, if it cuts heat loss (pure waste) and puts adequate heating - even habitable houses - within the reach of people.

Else we are going to face huge transmission and distribution costs and likely a freak winter week one day in the future that cripples the grid for millions of homes & businesses

Spend 3x as much to get to passive house than to do a heat pump. Probably better long term in every respect and likely cheaper long term too

The grid going down in a very cold winter week isn't just a bad week. Its also quite likely burst pipes and flooded homes and frozen old people. It would be a huge disaster akin to an earthquake. But self inflicted
Subsidise into existence a few thousand passive house upgrading companies. Hopefully the learning curve of these companies will get the cost down low enough to be affordable to do it nationally

You obviously didn't bother to read my post. You are putting up your own strawman when nobody else thinks that a single technical fix will provide the solution.
I shan't waste any more time on this.
A

[Cells]

You've landed a bit heavy for day 1 pal.

Where is your source for these figures?


"A 1GW CCGT might operate say 2,000 hours of the year
If it cost £500m to build at 7% interst that's £35M over 2,000h = £17.5k / 1000MWh = £17.50/MWh

But your marginal transmission cost €2.5B /GW
And you only need it 1 week in 30 years to power your heat pums in the coldest winter week in memory

So that's 170 hours you need it
But it cost you €2.5B x 7% interst x 30 years = 5.25B / 170h / 1000MWh = €30,900 /MWh

That's about 2,000x more costly
That's the issue with building infrastructure You only need for 1 weeks worst winter in memory

Or.... just don't do it and accept a few hundred thousand frozen old people when half the grid fails"

As for the inflammatory last line, alarm bells. My advice, tread easy There is no your or you.

I mean the only thing you can argue against is the cost of transmission. If you think its cheap it would be easy to prove with a couple of transmission projects and their cost

Here is the Germany HVDC North to South link I spoke about. Its called the Sued Link. 700km North to South just started building. €10B cost for 4GW

https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/ge ... transition

Re hundreds of thousands frozen
Obviously that's not something I want to happen
But it's a real risk if you don't plan and build a grid to meet the worst winter in a generation

I'm not so sure we build such a grid
I hope we will, Despite the cost
Because not doing so will be a huge disaster
Almost akin to war
Imagine millions of homes without power in an extreme winter most also flooded due to frozen pipes bursting

[Cells]

So yeah we really should have a policy of trying to get as many buildings towards passive homes as possible

Who said that? Nobody has ever suggested that the current UK housing stock could ever reach passivhaus standard, and it is also recognised that even trying to would be trying to polish a turd. On the other hand, improving energy efficiency can't be bad, if it cuts heat loss (pure waste) and puts adequate heating - even habitable houses - within the reach of people.

Else we are going to face huge transmission and distribution costs and likely a freak winter week one day in the future that cripples the grid for millions of homes & businesses

Spend 3x as much to get to passive house than to do a heat pump. Probably better long term in every respect and likely cheaper long term too

The grid going down in a very cold winter week isn't just a bad week. Its also quite likely burst pipes and flooded homes and frozen old people. It would be a huge disaster akin to an earthquake. But self inflicted
Subsidise into existence a few thousand passive house upgrading companies. Hopefully the learning curve of these companies will get the cost down low enough to be affordable to do it nationally

You obviously didn't bother to read my post. You are putting up your own strawman when nobody else thinks that a single technical fix will provide the solution.
I shan't waste any more time on this.
A

Well the path is to electrify heating

Re upgrading UK homes to near passive house
I was serious I wasn't being facetious

We can't achieve 100% of homes
But as many as we can we should

Some will be upgrades
Others will be knocking down and rebuilding
For example in London some old council estates were knocked down and rebuilt with more flats so eg you knock down 100 and rebuild 250 at near passive standards. The land value is so high in these instances that it costs close to nothing to do. That is to say you can make a profit doing this

[Joeboy]

You've landed a bit heavy for day 1 pal.

Where is your source for these figures?


"A 1GW CCGT might operate say 2,000 hours of the year
If it cost £500m to build at 7% interst that's £35M over 2,000h = £17.5k / 1000MWh = £17.50/MWh

But your marginal transmission cost €2.5B /GW
And you only need it 1 week in 30 years to power your heat pums in the coldest winter week in memory

So that's 170 hours you need it
But it cost you €2.5B x 7% interst x 30 years = 5.25B / 170h / 1000MWh = €30,900 /MWh

That's about 2,000x more costly
That's the issue with building infrastructure You only need for 1 weeks worst winter in memory

Or.... just don't do it and accept a few hundred thousand frozen old people when half the grid fails"

As for the inflammatory last line, alarm bells. My advice, tread easy There is no your or you.

I mean the only thing you can argue against is the cost of transmission. If you think its cheap it would be easy to prove with a couple of transmission projects and their cost

Here is the Germany HVDC North to South link I spoke about. Its called the Sued Link. 700km North to South just started building. €10B cost for 4GW

https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/ge ... transition

Re hundreds of thousands frozen
Obviously that's not something I want to happen
But it's a real risk if you don't plan and build a grid to meet the worst winter in a generation

I'm not so sure we build such a grid
I hope we will, Despite the cost
Because not doing so will be a huge disaster
Almost akin to war
Imagine millions of homes without power in an extreme winter most also flooded due to frozen pipes bursting

I am going to be polite & honest. I don't like the way you've dropped in on a dead thread and it looks as if you (sic) are slightly off the beat and possibly looking for entertainment through reaction? I don't appreciate the "you" or "your" in continual use. We (sic) are more about "our". Fair play to pov & opinion and I that. Be aware of the speed of the forum and take a moment to introduce yourself. It's only polite.

As for arguing, I don't but I am happy to discuss.

[spread-tee]

I don't buy this "one week in thirty years" argument, as I said earlier we already have the gas infrastructure in place to cope with freak events.
We know we must burn less stuff, so we electrify heating at a sensible rate but design hybrid heating systems to run HP and Gassers in parallel.
Sure insulation is great too, but forget PH for mass housing, the biggy is existing housing which will be here for a hundred years or so. !5 million leaky old houses could easily swallow up 20 grand each, makes the cost of transmission look cheap.

Realistically though these ideas are twenty and more year projects and bear in mind the GOVT crated close to 400Bn to fund the covid pandemic so the funds could be there given the will. More problematic is the workforce and raw materials.