90 comments on Daddy, will the lights be on at Christmas?
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90 comments on Daddy, will the lights be on at Christmas?
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Actually, it more than offsets that at a 40% or greater capacity factor that might be expected for offshore wind. The UK has wisely avoided pushing refuling cycles for nuclear plants beyond reasonable limits so that their system works at about 70% capacity allowing careful attention to maintenance. In the US, pushing up the capacity factor for nuclear power has led to reliability issues owing to unscheduled outages as poorly maintained equipment fails.
As to intermitancy, it is turning out that geographically dispersed wind does a good job at providing power reliably so that, for the UK, is seems like an optimal choice.
Chris
Chris that's true, but the problem is load balancing the demand peaks at early morning and early evenning. The chances of wind following that demand profile are really slim. Storage will be needed even if only to acomadate daily demand variations.
So long as you are above the demand profile, there is no real problem, you just sell your excess. It is worth remembering that nuclear does a very poor job of tracking demand, coal a little better, gas even better and hydro the best of all. The UK has some pumped hydro storage now. I mention below that chemical storage in the form of methane might be a good fit with the UK's energy infrastructure.
Chris
To whom?
Chris, I'm a fan of wind owing to its reported high eroei, but feel there are some significant engineering and market regulatory steps need to be taken to make this truly viable. This would include pump storage and balancing against gas fired plant. I also kind of like the idea of building a parallel HVDC grid for renewables that sits along side our existing HVAC grid.
Euan
Do you think these engineering and market regulatory steps can be accomplished within the 2020 time frame as announced?
Boris
london
Euan,
Sorry to leave this unanswered. I know of at least one electrical connection between the UK and France through the Chunnel. By 2040, France may be interested in excess wind power since their renewable development is somewhat hindered by their present reliance on nuclear power. You'll likely be seeing excess at about that time that you won't want to put towards industry all the time. So, the timing may work out pretty well. There are other places where you might want to build an 8 or so GW line for export. The lines on the Risk board look like a rough draft of what might be useful.
Chris
Do you have statistics for wind farms operating at 40% or more? Real world operation, not theoretical.
I can confirm that the existing offshore windfarms in Europe operate in the vicinity of 40% or better (from real data I had access to during due diligence processes).