Wind curtailment Monitor

[Mr Gus]

Thanks for that.

[Mart]

The diagram is from ngeso:

https://www.nationalgrideso.com/researc ... boundaries

The two planned new HVDC once finished in 2030 should have capacity for all 70TWh (about 90%) of 2022's curtailment. But they won't have the capacity for 2030's planned new generation, where the aim is to keep it below 15TWh curtailed on the 30GW extra going in. But this assumes some very generous storage amounts of beyond 30GW behind deployed in that timeframe.

Sorry, did you say that 70TWh is 2022's curtailment?

70TWh sounds more like all of 2022's entire wind generation?

[Swwils]

Yes you are right wrong figure by me. 3.8 TWh in 2020 and 2.4TWh in 2021.

This is the report.

https://www.nationalgrideso.com/documen ... 1/download

[Cells]

Unfortunately, the downside of wind power is that the national cost of transmission is going to be significantly higher

Germany just started building a new North to South HVDC line its 4GW and is expected to cost €10 billion

In a world where you electrify everything and deploy mass offshore wind farms Germany might need 10 such links at a cost of €100 billion assuming a 7% cost of capital that's a €7 billion per year cost in perpetuity forever. Plus maintenance plus the line consumes power. This €7B pa cost of transmission wouldn't be needed if they had built ~20 reactors in the South

Building transmission and distribution is now very costly vs the transmission and distribution built a hundred years ago. Back then, you'd be glad to have wires across your land or home as it means finally getting electricity and joining the modern world. It meant the value of your farm or home went up getting electricity. And even if you needed to compensate a farmer or homeowner land and homes were chepaer, so a 10% compensation on a home costing £50k is a lot lower than 10% compensation on a home costing £500k. Plus the number of buildings is some 5x higher, so 5x more people to compensate. So yeah Transmission and Distribution costs are only going to go up

Nuclear in this regard would have been far less costly. You can build nuclear near existing transmission plus we did, and you can build nukes close to cities. I once lived in Redcar, and the Harlepool Nuclear station was some 5 miles away as the crow flies. Most people had no idea they were that close to a nuke. Plus the UK could have built nukes in a relatively uncontroversial way by citing new nukes at existing nuke sites the locals would mostly have been greatful for the jobs

Anyway the debate is already over we have committed to wind power and by 2030 the UK grid will be mostly Wind powered so the question is how best to deploy the wind so as to minimise the additional transmission costs

I would suggest the UK and a lot of of Europe would do well to deploy heat only reactors (these would be cheap 100% efficient small simple and technically zero waste as the 'waste' wouod simply be long life fuel for the nuclear heating grids). This way heating grids can provide heating needs rather than heat pumps. The problem with heat pumps is that on a national scale youd have to build transmission and backup to meet the coldest day in a 30 years. So youd need to build assets which you will use just 1 day in 30 years but you'd have to pay for the cost of capital and upkeep for the other 29 years 364 days

And the way heat pumps work is the colder it is outsids the less efficent they get. So while you might get 3.5 COP typically the once a generation cold snap might be 1.5 COP so model out 40 million buildings heating needs at -10 centigrade at a COP of 1.5x and thats the transmission and distribution you need. As a first order guess 40 million buildings x 3kw / 1.5COP = 80 GW. So you'll need to pay to build 80GW more transmission using the €10B for 4GW cost for the new German line in construction that would be €200 billion just for the transmission . Plus distribution plus maintenance plus cost of capital...... or you know you can ignore the once in a generation cold snap and not build the above and just accept half the homes in the country will be without heat or electricity in the coldest week in living memory resulting in some people literially freezing to death. I guess thats one way to reduce the state oension costs.... Or just build out nuclear heating grids, which wouldn't need any of the above. Im not particularly pro nuclear electricity but for heating it makes a lot of sense. I dont forsee the above happening. Instead we will have to overbuild transmission to meet peak coldest week in decades. Or maybe just hope a really cold week newvr arrives and that when it does you are long gone and the next government/minister can take the blame

[Joeboy]

Unfortunately, the downside of wind power is that the national cost of transmission is going to be significantly higher

Germany just started building a new North to South HVDC line its 4GW and is expected to cost €10 billion

In a world where you electrify everything and deploy mass offshore wind farms Germany might need 10 such links at a cost of €100 billion assuming a 7% cost of capital that's a €7 billion per year cost in perpetuity forever. Plus maintenance plus the line consumes power. This €7B pa cost of transmission wouldn't be needed if they had built ~20 reactors in the South

Building transmission and distribution is now very costly vs the transmission and distribution built a hundred years ago. Back then, you'd be glad to have wires across your land or home as it means finally getting electricity and joining the modern world. It meant the value of your farm or home went up getting electricity. And even if you needed to compensate a farmer or homeowner land and homes were chepaer, so a 10% compensation on a home costing £50k is a lot lower than 10% compensation on a home costing £500k. Plus the number of buildings is some 5x higher, so 5x more people to compensate. So yeah Transmission and Distribution costs are only going to go up

Nuclear in this regard would have been far less costly. You can build nuclear near existing transmission plus we did, and you can build nukes close to cities. I once lived in Redcar, and the Harlepool Nuclear station was some 5 miles away as the crow flies. Most people had no idea they were that close to a nuke. Plus the UK could have built nukes in a relatively uncontroversial way by citing new nukes at existing nuke sites the locals would mostly have been greatful for the jobs

Anyway the debate is already over we have committed to wind power and by 2030 the UK grid will be mostly Wind powered so the question is how best to deploy the wind so as to minimise the additional transmission costs

I would suggest the UK and a lot of of Europe would do well to deploy heat only reactors (these would be cheap 100% efficient small simple and technically zero waste as the 'waste' wouod simply be long life fuel for the nuclear heating grids). This way heating grids can provide heating needs rather than heat pumps. The problem with heat pumps is that on a national scale youd have to build transmission and backup to meet the coldest day in a 30 years. So youd need to build assets which you will use just 1 day in 30 years but you'd have to pay for the cost of capital and upkeep for the other 29 years 364 days

And the way heat pumps work is the colder it is outsids the less efficent they get. So while you might get 3.5 COP typically the once a generation cold snap might be 1.5 COP so model out 40 million buildings heating needs at -10 centigrade at a COP of 1.5x and thats the transmission and distribution you need. As a first order guess 40 million buildings x 3kw / 1.5COP = 80 GW. So you'll need to pay to build 80GW more transmission using the €10B for 4GW cost for the new German line in construction that would be €200 billion just for the transmission . Plus distribution plus maintenance plus cost of capital...... or you know you can ignore the once in a generation cold snap and not build the above and just accept half the homes in the country will be without heat or electricity in the coldest week in living memory resulting in some people literially freezing to death. I guess thats one way to reduce the state oension costs.... Or just build out nuclear heating grids, which wouldn't need any of the above. Im not particularly pro nuclear electricity but for heating it makes a lot of sense. I dont forsee the above happening. Instead we will have to overbuild transmission to meet peak coldest week in decades. Or maybe just hope a really cold week newvr arrives and that when it does you are long gone and the next government/minister can take the blame

This must take the prize for longest 1st post! Welcome to the forum. A few ex and possibly active nuclear plant workers hereabouts.

I'd far rather see the cost paid in generational financial terms now to transmit the RE power, improve the future generations qol than see any nuclear plants built. Clean wins.

[John_S]

I cannot help but think that the curtailment problem is only going to get worse.

At the moment, maximum demand is in the region of 45-50GW. The move away from fossil fuels for transportation, heating and generation will increase this. I don't have figures to hand, but let's say to 80-100GW.

The pipeline of offshore wind capacity is 100GW, although this, illogically, includes existing installed offshore wind of GW. Not sure how far this goes out and if it only includes definite projects instead of proposed projects. It does not take a rocket scientist to see that there will be the potential for much more curtailment in the future. Sure, more interconnectors to Europe will reduce it, but the nations at the other end of export interconnectors will also be developing capacity and installing inter connectors to sunnier north African countries.

At the moment wind farms have a heads I win, tails you lose situation. They get the contract for difference price whatever happens for all they generate and no penalties if they don't generate. OfGem needs to shake up this cosy situation. Possibilities include: Make the wind farms take more risk. Encourage long term supply contracts with energy suppliers rather than dumping all production into the spot market. Restrict curtailment payments to curtailment below 80% of nameplate capacity. Oblige wind farms to buy electricity in the spot market to fulfil a minimum of 20% of nameplate supply on their contracts with energy suppliers.

Make the market take the risk and find the solutions.

[spread-tee]

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

[Cells]

So long as you are willing and understand and are happy to have higher per unit electricity prices you can choose which option you want. Wind is cheaper generation but the transmission and storage is far more costly (and not v green). Nuclear is more expensive but the transmission and storage is far cheaper

The UK is more lucky in that we have sufficient offshore space that we could potentially build wind farms closer to the SE than to transmit vast quantities from soctland down 700km (whereas Germany doesn't have a lot of options and will need to transmit vast quantities of eletricity south)

One of the problems I see is that our market is set up as one price so a wind farm developer best option is to link the shortest route. So from dogger bank to Teesside link when it wouldn't be that much more costly for the cable to instead go to say Great Yarmouth

Using Google maps distance measure feature
Dogger bank to teesside = 162 miles
Dogger bank to Great Yarmouth = 172 miles
It would cost maybe 3% more but 1: have less overall transmission losses and importantly 2: Probably cost less on future grid transmission upgrade needs

Uk offshore wind farms should be incentivised to connect as south as possible. A small additional cost today to save a big additional cost tomorrow

Electricity is more or less solved the next big one is heating

As I've suggested already if you want to do heat pumps it's going to need a vast additional investment in transmission and distribution amd that's going to be very costly

Also transmission isn't a once and done thing. The lines built 100 years ago still cost money today. Even under state ownership transmission and distribution was the biggest cost to the end user not the generation so double or triple the transmission is going to cost double or triple the amount indefinitely into perpetuity

EVs help reduce per unit transmission and distribution costs. But heat pumps exponentially increase transmission and distribution costs as you need to meet peak demand. EVs can be charged outside of peak. Heat pumps create the worst type of peak. The coldest day in a generation needs to be planned for and built and paid for even if you only use it for 1 week in 30 years. That kind of infrastructure is very very expensive as it site idle 99.9% of the time

The lower the temp The more heat your home needs
The lower the temp the lower the COP
It's gona be a huge problem
One we will provably ignore
Until that once a generation cold snap comes and the +100GW (or whatever it is) transmission and distribution isn't there tp feed the heat pumps so half the grid collapses during the coldest night in memory when you need it the most

[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

Gas fired power stations are 'dirt cheap' to finance staff and operate so having idle gas fired stations isn't that big a cost

Also I was talking about transmission and distribution not generation

There isn't really much to debate we have a rough estimate of the cost of additional transmission. Going by Germany €10B for 4GW it costs ~€2.5 billion /GW

So if you want to do mass Scotland to S.England transmission you have a reasonable cost estimator. If you want 20GW south x €2.5B = €50B

EVs don't add much to transmission and in fact make per unit transmission costs cheaper

Heat Pumps are doable
The risk is the once a generation cold snap
You either build the grid for it
Or accept significant death and destruction
Unfortunately it's likely we will accept the carnage as the costs to build out the grid to handle the worse winter day in a generation will probably be too much

Re using existing infrastructure
I suppose you could keep the gas infrastructure
And gas boilers in homes
But you have a similar problem
Having to pay for a second infrastructure that you'll need 1 week a generation but need to oay for it for the other 30 years you don't need it

[Cells]

I cannot help but think that the curtailment problem is only going to get worse.

At the moment, maximum demand is in the region of 45-50GW. The move away from fossil fuels for transportation, heating and generation will increase this. I don't have figures to hand, but let's say to 80-100GW.

The pipeline of offshore wind capacity is 100GW, although this, illogically, includes existing installed offshore wind of GW. Not sure how far this goes out and if it only includes definite projects instead of proposed projects. It does not take a rocket scientist to see that there will be the potential for much more curtailment in the future. Sure, more interconnectors to Europe will reduce it, but the nations at the other end of export interconnectors will also be developing capacity and installing inter connectors to sunnier north African countries.

At the moment wind farms have a heads I win, tails you lose situation. They get the contract for difference price whatever happens for all they generate and no penalties if they don't generate. OfGem needs to shake up this cosy situation. Possibilities include: Make the wind farms take more risk. Encourage long term supply contracts with energy suppliers rather than dumping all production into the spot market. Restrict curtailment payments to curtailment below 80% of nameplate capacity. Oblige wind farms to buy electricity in the spot market to fulfil a minimum of 20% of nameplate supply on their contracts with energy suppliers.

Make the market take the risk and find the solutions.

Curtailment isn't a huge issue
So long as the generation is cheap enough

For example if your per unit cost is £60 but you need to curtailment 15% of your output then you need to achieve £70.60 to make it work so long as £70.60 is acceptable price for your society. It is additional cost but that might still be affordable enough

The bigger problem is that transmission and distribution is expensive and the cost isn't a one time cost but ongoing

Heat pumps on a national scale are IMHO a bad idea
We will need to build vast infrastructure that will be a huge burden

We should imo aim for passive home upgrades

A heat pump might cost (just for arguments sake) £10k but then you'll need maybe another £10k spent on transmission and distribution in your name for that heat pump and another £5k in wind farms and £5k in Batteries and pumped hydro. Spend that 30k on trying to get to passive home standards instead where possible. The government should perhaps offer as much as £50k to upgrade or rebuild older properties to passive house standards and aim to get 80%+ of properties there

We have a growing population
And could probably economically destroy whole streets and rebuild at twice the density at passive home standardsls

But again this is fantasy
We aren't a totalitarian dictatorship and can't just take people's property off them to destroy and rebuild