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Ok, I must have missed this but ... Wind produces 16% of UK electricity, and nuclear produces 13% .... Ok wow. I assumed solar would be the thing that takes o

Ok, I must have missed this but ... Wind produces 16% of UK electricity, and nuclear produces 13% .... Ok wow. I assumed solar would be the thing that takes over, and In Spain that's probably true. But here it seems wind is going to be a win. Anyway I still need to work out how to spend my declining years - how to write software for renewable energy farms ... wind or solar.

rpep 4y ago
Predictive maintenance software for renewables assets is a fairly large area of growth.
OJFord 4y ago
Well bare in mind that capacity's different from the current (as in now, not amperes.. but that too) generation on this Winter day. (Not saying it does go the other way in capacity though, I don't know.)
DrScientist 4y ago
The UK is one of the best positioned countries in the world in terms of natural wind resource. This is because large parts of the north sea are shallow/have banks that very large offshore wind farms can be built on. No terrain to get in the way, no people to object about it being close to their house. Scotland is also windy and not that populated and so has quite a few onshore farms. Eg see. https://orsted.com/en/media/newsroom/news/2022/08/20220831559011#:~:text=%C3%98rsted%20is%20proud%20to%20announce,clean%20and%20secure%20renewable%20energy https://orsted.com/en/media/newsroom/news/2022/08/2022083155....
- pydry 4y ago
  >No people to object about it I'm not sure whether this MP was in the pocket of gas, coal or nuclear interests or whatever but he successfully rounded up residents to NIMBY what would have been the biggest wind farm to date even though it would have barely have been visible. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navitus_Bay_wind_farm https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navitus_Bay_wind_farm I was bitter before. Doubly so now electricity prices are through the roof.
  - thomond 4y ago
    > Doubly so now electricity prices are through the roof. Electricity prices would still be through the roof. The prices are all set on the international markets.
    - substation13 4y ago
      It depends who owns the energy production. If the government keeps a stake then they can use the additional profits to shield consumers from prices.
    - leg100 4y ago
      > Electricity prices would still be through the roof. The prices are all set on the international markets. Only to the extent that electricity can be imported and exported via international connectors, which are of course limited in their capacity. Prices are not set internationally, but domestically. Energy is not a tangible, stored commodity like coal which is internationally priced. If what you said was true then America's electricity would be priced the same as Europe's, whereas it is way cheaper. Therefore building out additional electricity production in the UK could well lower prices, depending on matching of demand and supply, agreed prices in contracts, length of contracts, etc, and of course whether additional connectors are deployed.
      - 7952 4y ago
        Gas prices are a big component of electricity prices at the moment and they are mostly imported.
        makomk 4y ago
        There's actually a similar but much more widespread talking point about gas, claiming the price of that is set on the international market and therefore the UK producing more gas locally would not help reduce prices. That should come with the exact same caveats (only to the extent that it can be imported and exported, American prices are much cheaper for Europe's because of this, and that's likely a big reason why electricity prices are much lower there) but the mainstream media unfortunately ignores them.
- lifeisstillgood 4y ago
  Oh - Doggerland About end of the Stone Age ~15,000BC you could still walk from UK to Europe - there is I believe evidence of civilisation and villages down there still.
snickmy 4y ago
In UK wind is actually broadcasted to take over. After the new line connecting with Norway (for hydro storage) the majority of investments are going into wind. On Nuclear, I think right now there is 1 big nuclear plan offline for maintenance so there might be some of that too. In the Mediterranean area, while there is more prevalence of solar, it's not a clear winner either. For instance in Italy there is quite an aggressive law on usage of agricultural space for big solar farms. Solar will win in the decentralized, domestic space, an area that I'm highly interested in. At scale, Wind seems to offer a better ROI, especially on country on the coast line (or other favourable morphological characteristic) I'm heavily looking to switch to work on the space (from more traditional consumer products), but it's a more full stack space: software is written as a byproduct of the hardware. unfortunately I haven't found any Electrical engineering interesting in doing something in the space. Shameless plug if there is someone out there interested.
- cjrp 4y ago
  I read/heard somewhere that if the Republic of Ireland built all of their potential offshore wind-farms, it could power the country and generate a surplus for export. Obviously need to solve the storage issue or rely on interconnects for when the wind isn't blowing/blows too hard.
  - mrspuratic 4y ago
    The east coast around Dublin (fortuitously, as the major population center) has good banks in relatively shallow waters ~10-20km offshore (Oriel, Kish, Bray, Codling, Arklow banks). There are only 7 offshore turbines in operation today (Arklow, 2003 25MW, planned expansion deferred), but hundreds more planned within the next 5 years. Less wind than the west or north coasts, which is seemingly less amenable, but there is at least one bank planned for Galway. https://gis.seai.ie/wind/ https://gis.seai.ie/wind/
- stuaxo 4y ago
  The Tories said no to onshore wind, now solar is getting really cheap they are banning the building of solar on most farms (by reclassifying low quality land as higher quality land that must be used for food). At the same time they are thinking about allowing wind on land again (probably because it will no longer be the cheaper option). Given their links to fossil fuel interests it comes across as delaying tactics.
jl6 4y ago
The UK is too northerly and has too little spare land for solar to dominate (it will of course still play a large role). Wind is where it’s at. The UK has a vast and windy offshore domain.
- DrScientist 4y ago
  Agreed. But note that a lot of the local solar capacity doesn't actually show up on the grid production numbers. ie if you have a solar panel on your roof and mostly use it to reduce the power you take from the grid, all you will see in the national numbers is lower demand, not increased production.
  - cjrp 4y ago
    Don't most domestic panels actually feed into the grid (so presumably would show up on the stats as solar generation)? Unless you've got a battery system at home.
    - DrScientist 4y ago
      They do - but as the rate you are paid for electricity is now a fraction of the price you are charged, most people without a battery try and align their energy use with production. ( The suns out! Put on the washing machine/dish washer etc ).
      - phas0ruk 4y ago
        Not if you locked in a feed in tariff from years ago. They lasted 15 years I think.
        DrScientist 4y ago
        Sure - don't know what proportion of solar panel installations that is though - it was an early adopter incentive. Bottom line - not all the local solar production is measured at the grid level - much of it results in demand reduction which can't be directly attributed. I think this will only increase - either due to local batteries, or more electricity driven heating systems ( heat pumps for example ). And this isn't just homes - if you have a farm and have a big water reservoir which you fill by pumping water - and you had some solar panels - you'd just run the pumps when it was sunny - there is no particular need to run them at particular times ( same if you had a wind driven pump ).
pydry 4y ago
Ideally you'd have a mix since they anticorrelate. If it's generally sunny when there's little wind and windy when cloudy why wouldnt you? (this is one reason why the amount of storage required for an all solar/wind grid is usually vastly overestimated).
- snickmy 4y ago
  I'm not sure the anticorrleation has ever been proved. While it seems logical, the cloudy / stormy weather that sometime we experience in UK is too harsh for wind farms
  - magnetic-recoil 4y ago
    Named storms often generate records for wind power generation. Even if a few turbines in the middle of the storm have to turn off, the rest of the country still gets lots more wind. If you look at graphs of the wind and solar production in winter vs summer, the correlation is obvious. On a day-to-day basis, much less so, but on average low wind does tend to come along with higher sun.
    - DrScientist 4y ago
      It's complicated by the fact that the relationship between wind speed and power isn't linear - it's cubic - double wind speed - 8 times the power! This only happens in the designed operating window ( too light you get nothing, too strong you need to shut down ). So one question is what window have your tuned your farm for? Air density matters as well - the denser the more power - ie the colder the more power.....
- DrScientist 4y ago
  Isn't it the sun's energy that ultimately creates the wind - through differential heating? So whether it's anti-correlated might a local feature depending on the local factors driving the weather? Perhaps stronger correlation would be that air movement ( wind ) is the thing that drives the weather changing. ie no wind, means slow change ( though the opposite isn't necessarily true - if you are in the centre of a cyclic weather system which isn't moving you could have wind and not much change ).
pjc50 4y ago
Wind is huge, while the last nuclear plant completed in the UK was in 1995. https://www.imeche.org/policy-and-press/from-our-perspective/energy-theme/nuclear-power/about-nuclear-power/nuclear-uk/britains-most-recent https://www.imeche.org/policy-and-press/from-our-perspective... > how to write software for renewable energy farms ... wind or solar. Basically this means working for Siemens. I don't think they have a huge number of software engineers, it's mostly MechE.
cameronh90 4y ago
That's actually below recent historical averages. Over the last year (https://grid.iamkate.com/ https://grid.iamkate.com/) wind has been 28.5% of total energy generation.
cm2187 4y ago
There isn't much wind at the moment, you can see the history, we are in the lower range right now https://gridwatch.co.uk/wind https://gridwatch.co.uk/wind
michaelt 4y ago
> I assumed solar would be the thing that takes over Solar in the UK is highly seasonal. A ~4kW installation that generated 500kWh in June might only produce 50kWh in December [1] - whereas a ~4kW install in Spain might generate 700kWh in June and 200kWh in December [2] So if you want power output in December, Solar in the UK isn't the best choice :) [1] https://pvoutput.org/aggregate.jsp?id=43099&sid=39381&v=0&t=m https://pvoutput.org/aggregate.jsp?id=43099&sid=39381&v=0&t=... [2] https://pvoutput.org/aggregate.jsp?id=91812&sid=81184&v=0&t=m https://pvoutput.org/aggregate.jsp?id=91812&sid=81184&v=0&t=...
IMSAI8080 4y ago
Yeah wind is going well these days. The annual average is around 30%. I've seen it at 60% on a good day.

rpep 4y ago

Predictive maintenance software for renewables assets is a fairly large area of growth.

OJFord 4y ago

Well bare in mind that capacity's different from the current (as in now, not amperes.. but that too) generation on this Winter day. (Not saying it does go the other way in capacity though, I don't know.)

DrScientist 4y ago

The UK is one of the best positioned countries in the world in terms of natural wind resource. This is because large parts of the north sea are shallow/have banks that very large offshore wind farms can be built on. No terrain to get in the way, no people to object about it being close to their house. Scotland is also windy and not that populated and so has quite a few onshore farms. Eg see. https://orsted.com/en/media/newsroom/news/2022/08/20220831559011#:~:text=%C3%98rsted%20is%20proud%20to%20announce,clean%20and%20secure%20renewable%20energy https://orsted.com/en/media/newsroom/news/2022/08/2022083155....

pydry 4y ago
>No people to object about it I'm not sure whether this MP was in the pocket of gas, coal or nuclear interests or whatever but he successfully rounded up residents to NIMBY what would have been the biggest wind farm to date even though it would have barely have been visible. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navitus_Bay_wind_farm https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navitus_Bay_wind_farm I was bitter before. Doubly so now electricity prices are through the roof.
- thomond 4y ago
  > Doubly so now electricity prices are through the roof. Electricity prices would still be through the roof. The prices are all set on the international markets.
  - substation13 4y ago
    It depends who owns the energy production. If the government keeps a stake then they can use the additional profits to shield consumers from prices.
  - leg100 4y ago
    > Electricity prices would still be through the roof. The prices are all set on the international markets. Only to the extent that electricity can be imported and exported via international connectors, which are of course limited in their capacity. Prices are not set internationally, but domestically. Energy is not a tangible, stored commodity like coal which is internationally priced. If what you said was true then America's electricity would be priced the same as Europe's, whereas it is way cheaper. Therefore building out additional electricity production in the UK could well lower prices, depending on matching of demand and supply, agreed prices in contracts, length of contracts, etc, and of course whether additional connectors are deployed.
    - 7952 4y ago
      Gas prices are a big component of electricity prices at the moment and they are mostly imported.
      - makomk 4y ago
        There's actually a similar but much more widespread talking point about gas, claiming the price of that is set on the international market and therefore the UK producing more gas locally would not help reduce prices. That should come with the exact same caveats (only to the extent that it can be imported and exported, American prices are much cheaper for Europe's because of this, and that's likely a big reason why electricity prices are much lower there) but the mainstream media unfortunately ignores them.
lifeisstillgood 4y ago
Oh - Doggerland About end of the Stone Age ~15,000BC you could still walk from UK to Europe - there is I believe evidence of civilisation and villages down there still.

snickmy 4y ago

In UK wind is actually broadcasted to take over. After the new line connecting with Norway (for hydro storage) the majority of investments are going into wind. On Nuclear, I think right now there is 1 big nuclear plan offline for maintenance so there might be some of that too. In the Mediterranean area, while there is more prevalence of solar, it's not a clear winner either. For instance in Italy there is quite an aggressive law on usage of agricultural space for big solar farms. Solar will win in the decentralized, domestic space, an area that I'm highly interested in. At scale, Wind seems to offer a better ROI, especially on country on the coast line (or other favourable morphological characteristic) I'm heavily looking to switch to work on the space (from more traditional consumer products), but it's a more full stack space: software is written as a byproduct of the hardware. unfortunately I haven't found any Electrical engineering interesting in doing something in the space. Shameless plug if there is someone out there interested.

cjrp 4y ago
I read/heard somewhere that if the Republic of Ireland built all of their potential offshore wind-farms, it could power the country and generate a surplus for export. Obviously need to solve the storage issue or rely on interconnects for when the wind isn't blowing/blows too hard.
- mrspuratic 4y ago
  The east coast around Dublin (fortuitously, as the major population center) has good banks in relatively shallow waters ~10-20km offshore (Oriel, Kish, Bray, Codling, Arklow banks). There are only 7 offshore turbines in operation today (Arklow, 2003 25MW, planned expansion deferred), but hundreds more planned within the next 5 years. Less wind than the west or north coasts, which is seemingly less amenable, but there is at least one bank planned for Galway. https://gis.seai.ie/wind/ https://gis.seai.ie/wind/
stuaxo 4y ago
The Tories said no to onshore wind, now solar is getting really cheap they are banning the building of solar on most farms (by reclassifying low quality land as higher quality land that must be used for food). At the same time they are thinking about allowing wind on land again (probably because it will no longer be the cheaper option). Given their links to fossil fuel interests it comes across as delaying tactics.

jl6 4y ago

The UK is too northerly and has too little spare land for solar to dominate (it will of course still play a large role). Wind is where it’s at. The UK has a vast and windy offshore domain.

DrScientist 4y ago
Agreed. But note that a lot of the local solar capacity doesn't actually show up on the grid production numbers. ie if you have a solar panel on your roof and mostly use it to reduce the power you take from the grid, all you will see in the national numbers is lower demand, not increased production.
- cjrp 4y ago
  Don't most domestic panels actually feed into the grid (so presumably would show up on the stats as solar generation)? Unless you've got a battery system at home.
  - DrScientist 4y ago
    They do - but as the rate you are paid for electricity is now a fraction of the price you are charged, most people without a battery try and align their energy use with production. ( The suns out! Put on the washing machine/dish washer etc ).
    - phas0ruk 4y ago
      Not if you locked in a feed in tariff from years ago. They lasted 15 years I think.
      - DrScientist 4y ago
        Sure - don't know what proportion of solar panel installations that is though - it was an early adopter incentive. Bottom line - not all the local solar production is measured at the grid level - much of it results in demand reduction which can't be directly attributed. I think this will only increase - either due to local batteries, or more electricity driven heating systems ( heat pumps for example ). And this isn't just homes - if you have a farm and have a big water reservoir which you fill by pumping water - and you had some solar panels - you'd just run the pumps when it was sunny - there is no particular need to run them at particular times ( same if you had a wind driven pump ).

pydry 4y ago

Ideally you'd have a mix since they anticorrelate. If it's generally sunny when there's little wind and windy when cloudy why wouldnt you? (this is one reason why the amount of storage required for an all solar/wind grid is usually vastly overestimated).

snickmy 4y ago
I'm not sure the anticorrleation has ever been proved. While it seems logical, the cloudy / stormy weather that sometime we experience in UK is too harsh for wind farms
- magnetic-recoil 4y ago
  Named storms often generate records for wind power generation. Even if a few turbines in the middle of the storm have to turn off, the rest of the country still gets lots more wind. If you look at graphs of the wind and solar production in winter vs summer, the correlation is obvious. On a day-to-day basis, much less so, but on average low wind does tend to come along with higher sun.
  - DrScientist 4y ago
    It's complicated by the fact that the relationship between wind speed and power isn't linear - it's cubic - double wind speed - 8 times the power! This only happens in the designed operating window ( too light you get nothing, too strong you need to shut down ). So one question is what window have your tuned your farm for? Air density matters as well - the denser the more power - ie the colder the more power.....
DrScientist 4y ago
Isn't it the sun's energy that ultimately creates the wind - through differential heating? So whether it's anti-correlated might a local feature depending on the local factors driving the weather? Perhaps stronger correlation would be that air movement ( wind ) is the thing that drives the weather changing. ie no wind, means slow change ( though the opposite isn't necessarily true - if you are in the centre of a cyclic weather system which isn't moving you could have wind and not much change ).

pjc50 4y ago

Wind is huge, while the last nuclear plant completed in the UK was in 1995. https://www.imeche.org/policy-and-press/from-our-perspective/energy-theme/nuclear-power/about-nuclear-power/nuclear-uk/britains-most-recent https://www.imeche.org/policy-and-press/from-our-perspective... > how to write software for renewable energy farms ... wind or solar. Basically this means working for Siemens. I don't think they have a huge number of software engineers, it's mostly MechE.

cameronh90 4y ago

That's actually below recent historical averages. Over the last year (https://grid.iamkate.com/ https://grid.iamkate.com/) wind has been 28.5% of total energy generation.

cm2187 4y ago

There isn't much wind at the moment, you can see the history, we are in the lower range right now https://gridwatch.co.uk/wind https://gridwatch.co.uk/wind

michaelt 4y ago

> I assumed solar would be the thing that takes over Solar in the UK is highly seasonal. A ~4kW installation that generated 500kWh in June might only produce 50kWh in December [1] - whereas a ~4kW install in Spain might generate 700kWh in June and 200kWh in December [2] So if you want power output in December, Solar in the UK isn't the best choice :) [1] https://pvoutput.org/aggregate.jsp?id=43099&sid=39381&v=0&t=m https://pvoutput.org/aggregate.jsp?id=43099&sid=39381&v=0&t=... [2] https://pvoutput.org/aggregate.jsp?id=91812&sid=81184&v=0&t=m https://pvoutput.org/aggregate.jsp?id=91812&sid=81184&v=0&t=...

IMSAI8080 4y ago

Yeah wind is going well these days. The annual average is around 30%. I've seen it at 60% on a good day.