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Offshore turbines also access more consistent winds, so not only will the turbines be cheap, they will be reliable, which will reduce grid integration costs. E

Offshore turbines also access more consistent winds, so not only will the turbines be cheap, they will be reliable, which will reduce grid integration costs. Edit: The UK’s already up to 50% nuclear and renewables on the electricity grid, this is an extra 6GW of capacity, and goes on top of previous auctions which are currently under development, it looks like we’re headed for 60-70% in the mid to late 2020s.

isostatic 7y ago
> The UK’s already up to 50% nuclear and renewables on the electricity grid In the last year UK produced Coal: 3% Gas: 42% Nuclear: 20% Wind: 17% Solar: 4% Hydro: 1.4% Biomass: 6.4% Pumped 0.66% So 28% renewable, 20% nuclear, total of about half. Wow. The good news is we're not overproducing - even on the most renewable days (Aug 17 at 15:15) when 44% came from wind and 25% from solar, we still had 12% coming from gas, 5% from biomass (edit - looked at wrong row on my spreadsheet!)
- hollerith 7y ago
  Do you happen to know if all the natural gas used to generate electricity in the UK comes from the UK's territory (e.g., the part of the North Sea where they enjoy mineral rights)?
  - isostatic 7y ago
    We use gas a lot in central heating (and cooking) However looking at https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2018/03/16/uk-natural-gas-imports/ https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2018/03/16/uk-... Looks like equal parts domestic gas, electricity, and industry About half imported, half mined in the UK. From that page: "The vast bulk of imports comes direct from Norway. Technically, Russian gas can only arrive via the Belgian and Dutch pipelines, which amount to 10% of total imports. It is estimated that 35% of Europe’s gas comes from Russia, so in theory about 3% of Britain’s gas comes from Russia."
    - Robotbeat 7y ago
      The UK has some LNG import terminals so could import from elsewhere if required.
- fyfy18 7y ago
  For anyone curious, most of the UKs nuclear power is due to be comissioned in the next decade. However most reactors have received short term extensions. There's currently one reactor under construction, and a bunch more planned, so I expect the current reactors will receive extensions until these or renewables take over.
sempron64 7y ago
Silly question, but is wind at sea guaranteed? What if weather patterns change? It's really expensive to put up these offshore turbines, but with systemic climate change is it possible they'd be becalmed?
- jsingleton 7y ago
  You can explore the data here: https://electricinsights.co.uk https://electricinsights.co.uk You can even split wind into onshore and offshore, although the data is patchy. Wind varies, but from a quick look offshore hasn't gone to zero over the past year and neither has onshore.
- mattmanser 7y ago
  It's not guaranteed, if you'd ever been sailing you'd know it's definitely not guaranteed!
  - viraptor 7y ago
    Sailing is a different use case though. For wind turbines it doesn't matter if the wind died down in a single place, if you have them spread over a large area and in multiple sites. It's definitely not guaranteed that a single one will always work, but pretty much guaranteed that the system overall will never stop.
- mjlee 7y ago
  Some winds are generated because of the Earth's structure. The trade winds are pretty consistent. My favourite bit of meteorology trivia is that the wealthier areas in British cities are almost exclusively to the west - this is because the prevailing wind is from the west and so pollution producing factories have been placed in the east of the city. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_winds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_winds
- martinald 7y ago
  No but you can put far larger turbines up at sea (much easier to transport a 100m blade at sea than taking it down windy back roads up a hill on land). Larger turbines are more productive especially at lower wind speeds as far as I know.
cal97g 7y ago
Often that wind is too strong for these turbines and they have to stop completely to save literally breaking themselves.
belorn 7y ago
https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&solar=false&remote=true&wind=false&countryCode=GB https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&solar=false&rem... Looking at that I get a very different view of UK electricity grid, one where natural gas plays its very very common role when wind/solar is not at its peak production. Would be very interesting to see the UK pledge to get rid of the natural gas plants at some date in the future, rather than say build more of them.
- Brakenshire 7y ago
  I'm talking about aggregate figures for last year. Even looking at the figures on the website you linked, which provides production figures just over the last hour, it shows 21% solar, 20% nuclear and 7% wind. The current plan is to maintain about 30% of the grid as gas, to provide backup, and then to deal with the carbon emissions using carbon capture and storage. The target is for a net zero electricity grid by 2030.
  - Reason077 7y ago
    > "The target is for a net zero electricity grid by 2030." It's more like 2050 according to National Grid's forecasts. Carbon capture and storage is still a pipe-dream, really. The technology exists (arguably - not proven at scale) but not in an economically viable way. To put it another way, it's cheaper to avoid emitting carbon in the first place than to try and capture and store it.
    - Brakenshire 7y ago
      I agree deploying CCS on that scale doesn’t seem very realistic, but that is the formal target of the government.
  - belorn 7y ago
    aggregate figures look like they are moving towards 100% renewable, but look when renewable is at is bottom 12% (bottom level for the last 24hrs). That is when the so called "backup" gas grid burn brightest. 30% of the power usage or 30% of the capacity? A nation that has three times the capacity compared to power usage could produce 100% of the energy on gas and still claim a 33% capacity being based on gas. 2030 sounds good, but the average expected life time of a natural gas power plant is 50 years. I would hazard a guess that the most common type of new power plants being built in the UK (in terms of costs) is natural gas power plants. Is the expectation here that all that investment currently being poured into natural gas will just have to give it up in 10 years?

isostatic 7y ago

> The UK’s already up to 50% nuclear and renewables on the electricity grid In the last year UK produced Coal: 3% Gas: 42% Nuclear: 20% Wind: 17% Solar: 4% Hydro: 1.4% Biomass: 6.4% Pumped 0.66% So 28% renewable, 20% nuclear, total of about half. Wow. The good news is we're not overproducing - even on the most renewable days (Aug 17 at 15:15) when 44% came from wind and 25% from solar, we still had 12% coming from gas, 5% from biomass (edit - looked at wrong row on my spreadsheet!)

hollerith 7y ago
Do you happen to know if all the natural gas used to generate electricity in the UK comes from the UK's territory (e.g., the part of the North Sea where they enjoy mineral rights)?
- isostatic 7y ago
  We use gas a lot in central heating (and cooking) However looking at https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2018/03/16/uk-natural-gas-imports/ https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2018/03/16/uk-... Looks like equal parts domestic gas, electricity, and industry About half imported, half mined in the UK. From that page: "The vast bulk of imports comes direct from Norway. Technically, Russian gas can only arrive via the Belgian and Dutch pipelines, which amount to 10% of total imports. It is estimated that 35% of Europe’s gas comes from Russia, so in theory about 3% of Britain’s gas comes from Russia."
  - Robotbeat 7y ago
    The UK has some LNG import terminals so could import from elsewhere if required.
fyfy18 7y ago
For anyone curious, most of the UKs nuclear power is due to be comissioned in the next decade. However most reactors have received short term extensions. There's currently one reactor under construction, and a bunch more planned, so I expect the current reactors will receive extensions until these or renewables take over.

sempron64 7y ago

Silly question, but is wind at sea guaranteed? What if weather patterns change? It's really expensive to put up these offshore turbines, but with systemic climate change is it possible they'd be becalmed?

jsingleton 7y ago
You can explore the data here: https://electricinsights.co.uk https://electricinsights.co.uk You can even split wind into onshore and offshore, although the data is patchy. Wind varies, but from a quick look offshore hasn't gone to zero over the past year and neither has onshore.
mattmanser 7y ago
It's not guaranteed, if you'd ever been sailing you'd know it's definitely not guaranteed!
- viraptor 7y ago
  Sailing is a different use case though. For wind turbines it doesn't matter if the wind died down in a single place, if you have them spread over a large area and in multiple sites. It's definitely not guaranteed that a single one will always work, but pretty much guaranteed that the system overall will never stop.
mjlee 7y ago
Some winds are generated because of the Earth's structure. The trade winds are pretty consistent. My favourite bit of meteorology trivia is that the wealthier areas in British cities are almost exclusively to the west - this is because the prevailing wind is from the west and so pollution producing factories have been placed in the east of the city. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_winds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_winds
martinald 7y ago
No but you can put far larger turbines up at sea (much easier to transport a 100m blade at sea than taking it down windy back roads up a hill on land). Larger turbines are more productive especially at lower wind speeds as far as I know.

cal97g 7y ago

Often that wind is too strong for these turbines and they have to stop completely to save literally breaking themselves.

belorn 7y ago

https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&solar=false&remote=true&wind=false&countryCode=GB https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&solar=false&rem... Looking at that I get a very different view of UK electricity grid, one where natural gas plays its very very common role when wind/solar is not at its peak production. Would be very interesting to see the UK pledge to get rid of the natural gas plants at some date in the future, rather than say build more of them.

Brakenshire 7y ago
I'm talking about aggregate figures for last year. Even looking at the figures on the website you linked, which provides production figures just over the last hour, it shows 21% solar, 20% nuclear and 7% wind. The current plan is to maintain about 30% of the grid as gas, to provide backup, and then to deal with the carbon emissions using carbon capture and storage. The target is for a net zero electricity grid by 2030.
- Reason077 7y ago
  > "The target is for a net zero electricity grid by 2030." It's more like 2050 according to National Grid's forecasts. Carbon capture and storage is still a pipe-dream, really. The technology exists (arguably - not proven at scale) but not in an economically viable way. To put it another way, it's cheaper to avoid emitting carbon in the first place than to try and capture and store it.
  - Brakenshire 7y ago
    I agree deploying CCS on that scale doesn’t seem very realistic, but that is the formal target of the government.
- belorn 7y ago
  aggregate figures look like they are moving towards 100% renewable, but look when renewable is at is bottom 12% (bottom level for the last 24hrs). That is when the so called "backup" gas grid burn brightest. 30% of the power usage or 30% of the capacity? A nation that has three times the capacity compared to power usage could produce 100% of the energy on gas and still claim a 33% capacity being based on gas. 2030 sounds good, but the average expected life time of a natural gas power plant is 50 years. I would hazard a guess that the most common type of new power plants being built in the UK (in terms of costs) is natural gas power plants. Is the expectation here that all that investment currently being poured into natural gas will just have to give it up in 10 years?