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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 hav

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.
      - avianlyric 4y ago
        Already happens unfortunately. Usually because the fines for failure to produce when you’re actually called upon and much smaller than profits from pretending to have production capacity. With regards to fraud, doing this deliberately would be fraud (but good luck proving it). Building the equipment and then failing to maintain it, and failing to test it, that’s just bad management…
    - alvah 4y ago
      Is it fantastic for energy consumers? Somebody has to pay for it.
      - avianlyric 4y ago
        What’s energy consumers got to do with it? As a (theoretical) investor in energy I don’t give two shits what the cost to the consumer is gonna be, as long as I get paid. Hence curtailment is always a great investment (for me). Obviously it’s a shitty deal for consumers. But they’re not investors.
- avianlyric 4y ago
  > The article leaves an impression that curtailment is a problem that is costing us money. That’s because curtailment does cost us money. Someone’s paying those wind operators to turn off the farms. We literally pay money to wind farms to explicitly make them produce nothing. How do you reconcile these two statements? > High electricity prices are a problem to be solved. > I'm explicitly calling for more curtailment, because it isn't a problem and doesn't need to be solved. Curtailment cost money, you still need pay the wind operators to the energy you told them not to produce, plus pay someone else to produce the energy that’s now not being produced by wind. That cost ultimately ends driving up the price of electricity. You want to reduce the cost of electricity, a good start would be not paying people for electricity that can’t be used. > Both of those problems can be solved by building more wind power, which almost inevitably increases the amount of wind curtailed. Only if you can transport the energy. Otherwise you’re just building turbines that can’t be used, and paying for the privilege of not using them.
  - Vvector 4y ago
    > Curtailment cost money, you still need pay the wind operators to the energy you told them not to produce Why? What are the real costs? Isn't it just a simple disconnect switch? Why do the wind operators get paid for not delivering power? Is it a contractual issue?
    - Symbiote 4y ago
      Consider reading the article.
    - bluGill 4y ago
      Contract. They have to pay for the the bank for the wind turbines even if not used. They have to pay the land owners (or the bank for the land, and government taxes). You also need to pay various employees. Thus you don't open a wind farm without some form of contract. On top of the above you want to make a profit.
      - avianlyric 4y ago
- midasuni 4y ago
  How would building 100 times as much wind power in Scotland reduce gas usage in England/wales without building more north/south interconnects?
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    The connection isn't saturated all the time. Total curtailment is only 6%. The graph of the day they screenshot shows the curtailment stops as soon as people wake up and start using electricity. On many days there is no curtailment. And... You can build wind in other places, like the offshore wind near Dogger Bank they show on the map and then forget about.
- mcfedr 4y ago
  Curtailment of wind wouldn't be a problem if it's just because too much wind, but that's not the case, there isn't enough transmission, and we are having to use gas, that is a problem
  - ccalloway 4y ago
    But by framing it as a problem of 'curtailment', it looks like a problem which gets worse and worse, the more oversupply of wind capacity that we have. In actual fact, this does not make any sense. Building additional wind generation can never be more wasteful than the costs of its construction. If it were free, it would make sense to vastly overbuild.
    - msandford 4y ago
      > Building additional wind generation can never be more wasteful than the costs of its construction. If it were free, it would make sense to vastly overbuild. In a simple model where there was only one company that owned everything from top to bottom across the entire electrical grid from all power plants to every single power meter and everything in between? Yes I agree 100%. However that's not how the grid actually works, so a simple understanding of the economics of a marginal turbine isn't the same as understanding the whole system.
- stdbrouw 4y ago
  The video you link is about that second scenario: intermittent high availability of renewable resources that can't be used, which is fine for the very same reason that when you're putting solar panels on your own roof you design for what you think it'll net on average, or even what you want to get out of it in fall winter and spring, not for peak power at noon on a cloudless summer day, which would be irrelevant and to call that "oversizing" would be something of a misnomer, it's well thought out dimensioning and hooray for curtailment! The original article is about just being able to move any amount of energy whatsoever to where it is needed. If you don't improve distribution then you hit the saturation point much faster and more often than in an intermittent peak power scenario. Seeing that the original article links to multiple pages by the energy regulator/distributor about this very issue should maybe give us a hint that they, the actual experts, do think this is important enough to merit attention? I upvoted your original post when you said that "it is hard for people to have constructive conversations about" negative prices and curtailing, but I'm starting to wonder whether you may be the common factor in some of those unconstructive conversations you've had in the past :-) Respectfully, it's not helpful to contribute to the discussion with a robotic pattern matched "curtailment is great actually!" whenever the topic is mentioned, without engaging with the arguments that are put forth.
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    The video specifically mentions transmission congestion as an example of "lack of system flexibility" as one of several non-oversupply reason to curtail. Timestamp: 1 minute 5 seconds. If the NREL is specifically making videos to dispel unhelpful myths about a topic then it's worth at least watching their short video before continuing to spreading those very same unhelpful myths.
    - stdbrouw 4y ago
      Fair enough, my apologies, I did skim the video and read the page but didn't watch the video in full so I missed that part. I still feel like you're failing to engage with the issue here: * NREL, just like the UK grid operator, is worried about curtailment and is taking active steps to limit it, the only difference is that while some uninformed schmucks think that any curtailment is bad, grid operators think a little curtailment is to be expected and they just want to keep it within bounds with an awareness of the opportunity costs that you mention -- sometimes it may be cheaper to just build new capacity and not worry about it at all, sometimes not. See for example this 2014 report: https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy14osti/60983.pdf https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy14osti/60983.pdf They're saying: "relax, a little curtailment is nothing to worry about, let us do the worrying", they're not saying it's a non-issue. If it's not an issue, why are new interconnections being built at all? Why is locational pricing being considered at all? * unless renewables are already 100% of the energy mix at a given point in time then any kind of curtailment has to logically be due to either congestion or some other technical limitation (a hiccup in planning/projection or inflexibility of other generators) and strictly speaking cannot be due to overproduction; that said, the original article describes a situation where transmission capacity is not just insufficient for peak production (even if it could have been used) but may slowly get to the point where it's insufficient for average production... both are technically "congestion" but do you really not see the difference?

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.
    - avianlyric 4y ago
      Already happens unfortunately. Usually because the fines for failure to produce when you’re actually called upon and much smaller than profits from pretending to have production capacity. With regards to fraud, doing this deliberately would be fraud (but good luck proving it). Building the equipment and then failing to maintain it, and failing to test it, that’s just bad management…
  - alvah 4y ago
    Is it fantastic for energy consumers? Somebody has to pay for it.
    - avianlyric 4y ago
      What’s energy consumers got to do with it? As a (theoretical) investor in energy I don’t give two shits what the cost to the consumer is gonna be, as long as I get paid. Hence curtailment is always a great investment (for me). Obviously it’s a shitty deal for consumers. But they’re not investors.
avianlyric 4y ago
> The article leaves an impression that curtailment is a problem that is costing us money. That’s because curtailment does cost us money. Someone’s paying those wind operators to turn off the farms. We literally pay money to wind farms to explicitly make them produce nothing. How do you reconcile these two statements? > High electricity prices are a problem to be solved. > I'm explicitly calling for more curtailment, because it isn't a problem and doesn't need to be solved. Curtailment cost money, you still need pay the wind operators to the energy you told them not to produce, plus pay someone else to produce the energy that’s now not being produced by wind. That cost ultimately ends driving up the price of electricity. You want to reduce the cost of electricity, a good start would be not paying people for electricity that can’t be used. > Both of those problems can be solved by building more wind power, which almost inevitably increases the amount of wind curtailed. Only if you can transport the energy. Otherwise you’re just building turbines that can’t be used, and paying for the privilege of not using them.
- Vvector 4y ago
  > Curtailment cost money, you still need pay the wind operators to the energy you told them not to produce Why? What are the real costs? Isn't it just a simple disconnect switch? Why do the wind operators get paid for not delivering power? Is it a contractual issue?
  - Symbiote 4y ago
    Consider reading the article.
  - bluGill 4y ago
    Contract. They have to pay for the the bank for the wind turbines even if not used. They have to pay the land owners (or the bank for the land, and government taxes). You also need to pay various employees. Thus you don't open a wind farm without some form of contract. On top of the above you want to make a profit.
    - avianlyric 4y ago
midasuni 4y ago
How would building 100 times as much wind power in Scotland reduce gas usage in England/wales without building more north/south interconnects?
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  The connection isn't saturated all the time. Total curtailment is only 6%. The graph of the day they screenshot shows the curtailment stops as soon as people wake up and start using electricity. On many days there is no curtailment. And... You can build wind in other places, like the offshore wind near Dogger Bank they show on the map and then forget about.
mcfedr 4y ago
Curtailment of wind wouldn't be a problem if it's just because too much wind, but that's not the case, there isn't enough transmission, and we are having to use gas, that is a problem
- ccalloway 4y ago
  But by framing it as a problem of 'curtailment', it looks like a problem which gets worse and worse, the more oversupply of wind capacity that we have. In actual fact, this does not make any sense. Building additional wind generation can never be more wasteful than the costs of its construction. If it were free, it would make sense to vastly overbuild.
  - msandford 4y ago
    > Building additional wind generation can never be more wasteful than the costs of its construction. If it were free, it would make sense to vastly overbuild. In a simple model where there was only one company that owned everything from top to bottom across the entire electrical grid from all power plants to every single power meter and everything in between? Yes I agree 100%. However that's not how the grid actually works, so a simple understanding of the economics of a marginal turbine isn't the same as understanding the whole system.
stdbrouw 4y ago
The video you link is about that second scenario: intermittent high availability of renewable resources that can't be used, which is fine for the very same reason that when you're putting solar panels on your own roof you design for what you think it'll net on average, or even what you want to get out of it in fall winter and spring, not for peak power at noon on a cloudless summer day, which would be irrelevant and to call that "oversizing" would be something of a misnomer, it's well thought out dimensioning and hooray for curtailment! The original article is about just being able to move any amount of energy whatsoever to where it is needed. If you don't improve distribution then you hit the saturation point much faster and more often than in an intermittent peak power scenario. Seeing that the original article links to multiple pages by the energy regulator/distributor about this very issue should maybe give us a hint that they, the actual experts, do think this is important enough to merit attention? I upvoted your original post when you said that "it is hard for people to have constructive conversations about" negative prices and curtailing, but I'm starting to wonder whether you may be the common factor in some of those unconstructive conversations you've had in the past :-) Respectfully, it's not helpful to contribute to the discussion with a robotic pattern matched "curtailment is great actually!" whenever the topic is mentioned, without engaging with the arguments that are put forth.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  The video specifically mentions transmission congestion as an example of "lack of system flexibility" as one of several non-oversupply reason to curtail. Timestamp: 1 minute 5 seconds. If the NREL is specifically making videos to dispel unhelpful myths about a topic then it's worth at least watching their short video before continuing to spreading those very same unhelpful myths.
  - stdbrouw 4y ago
    Fair enough, my apologies, I did skim the video and read the page but didn't watch the video in full so I missed that part. I still feel like you're failing to engage with the issue here: * NREL, just like the UK grid operator, is worried about curtailment and is taking active steps to limit it, the only difference is that while some uninformed schmucks think that any curtailment is bad, grid operators think a little curtailment is to be expected and they just want to keep it within bounds with an awareness of the opportunity costs that you mention -- sometimes it may be cheaper to just build new capacity and not worry about it at all, sometimes not. See for example this 2014 report: https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy14osti/60983.pdf https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy14osti/60983.pdf They're saying: "relax, a little curtailment is nothing to worry about, let us do the worrying", they're not saying it's a non-issue. If it's not an issue, why are new interconnections being built at all? Why is locational pricing being considered at all? * unless renewables are already 100% of the energy mix at a given point in time then any kind of curtailment has to logically be due to either congestion or some other technical limitation (a hiccup in planning/projection or inflexibility of other generators) and strictly speaking cannot be due to overproduction; that said, the original article describes a situation where transmission capacity is not just insufficient for peak production (even if it could have been used) but may slowly get to the point where it's insufficient for average production... both are technically "congestion" but do you really not see the difference?