3 ms·
That simplistic calculation is an entirely fictitious scenario. It ignores the fact that energy grids are integrated. Once your wind plants are distributed in a
by lolc 7y ago
That simplistic calculation is an entirely fictitious scenario. It ignores the fact that energy grids are integrated. Once your wind plants are distributed in a wider area they won't all see the same weather and the differences even out much better.
I thought it was acknowledged in the industry that interconnects need to be built out to distribute wind power better. Why did you choose to ignore that in your calculations?
- abricot 7y agoWell.. brexit means brexit
- lolc 7y agoWhat's your point? You don't need to be in the EU to link up to your neighbours. See for example North Sea Link for a project which is actually relevant to the discussion here.
- isostatic 7y agoThat's assuming an infinite grid across the UK, I don't have the wind generation figures of other countries on a per-minute basis. The current integration is about 10% of the UK's demand. The reason I'm "ignoring" it, even with an infinite grid across europe, when the wind is blowing in the UK's wind farms in the north sea, it's also blowing in the north sea for Denmark - UK wind production peaks match that of Denmark and Netherlands peaks. The figures are based on real figures in the UK from the last 12 months. The UK is the world leader in offshore wind power, with Netherlands, Germany and Denmark having their farms in the same location What happens when the wind isn't blowing in the North Sea, and UK, Denmark and Netherlands are all running out? That's not to say we shouldn't be pushing to double, triple or even quadruple wind production in the UK and the North sea especially, but we'll still rely on gas to fill in the quiet days for a long time yet. Dogger Bank alone can generate 110GW of energy, which is great, but that would mean when the North Sea is quiet we need to find 110GW from elsewhere. Sadly political changes in the UK, first in 2015, then in 2016 through today, have reduced the investment in wind power.
- lostapathy 7y agoAn "infinite grid across the UK" really isn't so big, though. There are US states with larger power grids than the UK. Which, I guess, both shows how possible it is to spread load around the UK, and shows how massive a problem anything in the US is to solve.
- lolc 7y agoThanks for the details. I still don't understand the point of calculating national scenarios with only wind and battery storage.