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I'm not sure I understand. Sure, letting turbines spin and not use the power, while burning extra gas, isn't worse for the environment than just burning gas in

by SamBam 4y ago

I'm not sure I understand. Sure, letting turbines spin and not use the power, while burning extra gas, isn't worse for the environment than just burning gas in the first place (though it's significantly more expensive to triple-pay for the energy), but it's better is to turn that unused power into used power. The article wasn't decrying the existence of excess wind power, it was trying to describe the best solutions for using that power.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago
The article says we pay three times, curtail wind and then burn gas. Which is bad. But all the solutions are aimed at reducing the curtailment of wind. Rather than reducing the gas burnt. If the money saved by building more wind (or solar) and not having to burn gas saves more money then who cares if more wind is "wasted"? It would be nice to use every last drop, but I dont want to actually spend money to achieve that goal when it could be used to e.g. build yet more wind, and burn even less gas.
- hedora 4y ago
  The article is saying that more transmission lines were needed to avoid wasting 9b pounds of electricity last year. An already approved grid upgrade will cost 4b pounds, and would mostly be adequate. Something had to get built first, and I guess they picked the wind turbines. This seems like everything working as intended to me.
- stdbrouw 4y ago
  Again, that's not what the article is about. If more wind power gets built in Scotland to serve needs in England, then increasingly more of that output will have to be curtailed because we simply can't move the energy to where it needs to be, to the point where the only thing adding more wind farms would do is to provide a tad bit more energy when there's hardly any wind to distribute. In all other scenarios, having more capacity will not translate into not burning gas! The article describes an entirely different problem than "oh no, it's very windy/sunny and we don't know how to use all of this energy" which is not solved with better distribution, but with storage and demand regulation. And actually, the article is in complete agreement with you that we needn't be overly worried: curtailment isn't the end of the world, but we can solve it and it turns out that some of those solutions are cheaper than just building more farms, or would incentivize building those farms closer to where the energy is needed.
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    The article leaves an impression that curtailment is a problem that is costing us money. See most other comments here as evidence of that. I'm explicitly calling for more curtailment, because it isn't a problem and doesn't need to be solved. Burning fossil fuels is a problem to be solved. High electricity prices are a problem to be solved. Both of those problems can be solved by building more wind power, which almost inevitably increases the amount of wind curtailed. To repeat, curtailment is not a problem and does not need to be solved. It's a normal part of running a renewable grid. Any low cost renewable plan will have some predicted degree of curtailment, because it's the cheapest way to meet our energy needs. See: "Reframing Curtailment: Why Too Much of a Good Thing Is Still a Good Thing" https://www.nrel.gov/news/program/2022/reframing-curtailment.html https://www.nrel.gov/news/program/2022/reframing-curtailment... > Video Explains How Having More than Enough Renewable Energy Capacity Can Make the Grid More Flexible
    - consumer451 4y ago
      > To repeat, curtailment is not a problem and does not need to be solved. Agree 95%. The only valid question involving curtailment is how much must occur at each individual turbine or farm to make it a bad investment.
      - avianlyric 4y ago
        Curtailment is never a bad investment. If anything it’s fantastic for wind investors. Someone is paying you twice for not using your assets. You get all the revenue, and have zero wear and tear on your equipment. In an extreme scenario you could even be paid for not turning on non-functional equipment. What a fantastic deal.
        liketochill 4y ago
        Generally outages, deratings, and unavailable equipment have to be reported to the system operator. Not doing so and then claiming for lost revenue from broken equipment due to curtailment would be fraud.
- SamBam 4y ago
  I really feel like you misunderstood the article. Perhaps you went into it with a different assumption of what it was going to say. The article is saying that if we built more transmission lines, or increased storage capacity, or had localized pricing, that more of the power generated would get used, and we wouldn't need to turn on the fossil-powered plants as much. More wind wasted is precisely equal to more fossil fuel burnt right now. Further, the article described why simply building more production doesn't solve things, because most of it would be built in Scotland, and we wouldn't be able to bring in any more power into the grid where it's needed then we do now.
  - makomk 4y ago
    The thing is that some of those options (especially building more storage) might actually be more expensive and less practical than just building even more wind and letting a lot of the power from it be "wasted".
    - mcfedr 4y ago
      That assumes the problem of building wind far away from usage changes, right now most new wind is still being built in Scotland, and the problem will get worse not better without also investing in transmission
- rtpg 4y ago
  I think that on a holistic level if you reduce curtailment then in the end you get side effects (in the geometrical sense) that can cascade. If we store more wind power to reduce curtailment, then that power can be used later. I end up getting a larger fraction of my overall power through wind, so my neighbor can have more access to alternative sources of power that I am not using. Their neighbors now have access to more power as well, because my neighbor is pulling more from my now unused infrastructure. The gas burnt at peak might not change! But out of peak the balance can change (at least until, say, Scotland is running 100% on wind I guess). The nice thing with storage (especially hydro storage, which sidesteps everyone's universal answer of "batteries are expensive") is that you get to actually hold onto the energy and be "smarter".
- dmurray 4y ago
  > The article says we pay three times It isn't true, though, is it? The curtailment payment is instead of the regular payment, not in addition to it. Possibly also instead of some tax breaks the wind turbines got contingent on being operational - but that's only shifting costs from the taxpayers to the electricity consumers, who in the large are the same people. Paying twice is still not as nice as paying once, but it makes me wonder what other sleight of hand the author is employing in his argument.
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    The Drax report they link to (which has some nice photos of the Star Wars set from the recent Andor series) suggests when you net off the avoided support payments, that you save between 1/3 and 2/3 thirds of the cost when you curtail wind, rather than pay twice for it: https://www.drax.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Drax-LCP-Renewable-curtailment-report-1.pdf https://www.drax.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Drax-LCP-Ren...
Joeri 4y ago
The article wasn't decrying the existence of excess wind power, it was trying to describe the best solutions for using that power. But it was missing the most obvious long term solutions for excess wind power: carbon capture and hydrogen generation. We cannot build enough excess wind power to ever have too much for those “sinks”.

by SamBam 4y ago

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

The article says we pay three times, curtail wind and then burn gas. Which is bad. But all the solutions are aimed at reducing the curtailment of wind. Rather than reducing the gas burnt. If the money saved by building more wind (or solar) and not having to burn gas saves more money then who cares if more wind is "wasted"? It would be nice to use every last drop, but I dont want to actually spend money to achieve that goal when it could be used to e.g. build yet more wind, and burn even less gas.

hedora 4y ago
The article is saying that more transmission lines were needed to avoid wasting 9b pounds of electricity last year. An already approved grid upgrade will cost 4b pounds, and would mostly be adequate. Something had to get built first, and I guess they picked the wind turbines. This seems like everything working as intended to me.
stdbrouw 4y ago
Again, that's not what the article is about. If more wind power gets built in Scotland to serve needs in England, then increasingly more of that output will have to be curtailed because we simply can't move the energy to where it needs to be, to the point where the only thing adding more wind farms would do is to provide a tad bit more energy when there's hardly any wind to distribute. In all other scenarios, having more capacity will not translate into not burning gas! The article describes an entirely different problem than "oh no, it's very windy/sunny and we don't know how to use all of this energy" which is not solved with better distribution, but with storage and demand regulation. And actually, the article is in complete agreement with you that we needn't be overly worried: curtailment isn't the end of the world, but we can solve it and it turns out that some of those solutions are cheaper than just building more farms, or would incentivize building those farms closer to where the energy is needed.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  The article leaves an impression that curtailment is a problem that is costing us money. See most other comments here as evidence of that. I'm explicitly calling for more curtailment, because it isn't a problem and doesn't need to be solved. Burning fossil fuels is a problem to be solved. High electricity prices are a problem to be solved. Both of those problems can be solved by building more wind power, which almost inevitably increases the amount of wind curtailed. To repeat, curtailment is not a problem and does not need to be solved. It's a normal part of running a renewable grid. Any low cost renewable plan will have some predicted degree of curtailment, because it's the cheapest way to meet our energy needs. See: "Reframing Curtailment: Why Too Much of a Good Thing Is Still a Good Thing" https://www.nrel.gov/news/program/2022/reframing-curtailment.html https://www.nrel.gov/news/program/2022/reframing-curtailment... > Video Explains How Having More than Enough Renewable Energy Capacity Can Make the Grid More Flexible
  - consumer451 4y ago
    > To repeat, curtailment is not a problem and does not need to be solved. Agree 95%. The only valid question involving curtailment is how much must occur at each individual turbine or farm to make it a bad investment.
    - avianlyric 4y ago
      Curtailment is never a bad investment. If anything it’s fantastic for wind investors. Someone is paying you twice for not using your assets. You get all the revenue, and have zero wear and tear on your equipment. In an extreme scenario you could even be paid for not turning on non-functional equipment. What a fantastic deal.
      - liketochill 4y ago
        Generally outages, deratings, and unavailable equipment have to be reported to the system operator. Not doing so and then claiming for lost revenue from broken equipment due to curtailment would be fraud.
SamBam 4y ago
I really feel like you misunderstood the article. Perhaps you went into it with a different assumption of what it was going to say. The article is saying that if we built more transmission lines, or increased storage capacity, or had localized pricing, that more of the power generated would get used, and we wouldn't need to turn on the fossil-powered plants as much. More wind wasted is precisely equal to more fossil fuel burnt right now. Further, the article described why simply building more production doesn't solve things, because most of it would be built in Scotland, and we wouldn't be able to bring in any more power into the grid where it's needed then we do now.
- makomk 4y ago
  The thing is that some of those options (especially building more storage) might actually be more expensive and less practical than just building even more wind and letting a lot of the power from it be "wasted".
  - mcfedr 4y ago
    That assumes the problem of building wind far away from usage changes, right now most new wind is still being built in Scotland, and the problem will get worse not better without also investing in transmission
rtpg 4y ago
I think that on a holistic level if you reduce curtailment then in the end you get side effects (in the geometrical sense) that can cascade. If we store more wind power to reduce curtailment, then that power can be used later. I end up getting a larger fraction of my overall power through wind, so my neighbor can have more access to alternative sources of power that I am not using. Their neighbors now have access to more power as well, because my neighbor is pulling more from my now unused infrastructure. The gas burnt at peak might not change! But out of peak the balance can change (at least until, say, Scotland is running 100% on wind I guess). The nice thing with storage (especially hydro storage, which sidesteps everyone's universal answer of "batteries are expensive") is that you get to actually hold onto the energy and be "smarter".
dmurray 4y ago
> The article says we pay three times It isn't true, though, is it? The curtailment payment is instead of the regular payment, not in addition to it. Possibly also instead of some tax breaks the wind turbines got contingent on being operational - but that's only shifting costs from the taxpayers to the electricity consumers, who in the large are the same people. Paying twice is still not as nice as paying once, but it makes me wonder what other sleight of hand the author is employing in his argument.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  The Drax report they link to (which has some nice photos of the Star Wars set from the recent Andor series) suggests when you net off the avoided support payments, that you save between 1/3 and 2/3 thirds of the cost when you curtail wind, rather than pay twice for it: https://www.drax.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Drax-LCP-Renewable-curtailment-report-1.pdf https://www.drax.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Drax-LCP-Ren...

Joeri 4y ago

The article wasn't decrying the existence of excess wind power, it was trying to describe the best solutions for using that power. But it was missing the most obvious long term solutions for excess wind power: carbon capture and hydrogen generation. We cannot build enough excess wind power to ever have too much for those “sinks”.