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The UK in particular has a vast abundance of wind power off it's coasts. It makes more sense to double down with 22bn investment in wind! These solar projects

by kinnth 4y ago

The UK in particular has a vast abundance of wind power off it's coasts. It makes more sense to double down with 22bn investment in wind! These solar projects are good to start as they could empower more african nations with cheaper electricty. We just need more electricity everywhere if were going to drop the reliance on oil.

nicoburns 4y ago
From what I understand, the UK actually has private companies ready and more than willing to build wind farms with their own money. The government is just inexplicably being slow at handing out the permits.
- adaml_623 4y ago
  They've (the right wing government) underfunded the government so much there aren't sufficient staff to run the beaucracy. The recent (failed) rocket launch from the UK was massively delayed because of slow government processes
  - diordiderot 4y ago
    They also price energy in a way that props up fossil fuels
- londons_explore 4y ago
  The market for wind in the UK is unusually profitable due to a quirk of the UK electricity market. Specifically, the power price across the UK is the same everywhere. However, there isn't infinite transmission capacity. So, if you generate power in one place, but the power network cannot transport it, you get told not to bother producing it, but you still get paid, and you get paid compensation on top. You know what's better than producing power... being paid to produce power, paid extra compensation, and then not need to actually have those wind turbines spinning (so much reduced maintenance too!). The government is delaying lots of permits till they can figure out how to change these perverse incentives... Needless to say, the wind industry isn't happy about the fact they might no longer get paid such large amounts, so they're demanding the old scheme be kept in place for existing producers for 25+ years, and having the new pricing rules only apply to new builds...
  - Gwypaas 4y ago
    UK need to divide the country into cost regions based on the bottlenecks and it will work like international power connections. The political problem is making Scotland its own separate region. Have a look at the regions in for example Sweden which face similar bottlenecks in transmission capacity from north to south. https://app.electricitymaps.com/map https://app.electricitymaps.com/map
    - londons_explore 4y ago
      There are lots of wind businesses dependent on the old market rules. There are lots of multi-decade power delivery agreements using the old single-price market as a benchmark. If you change the rules, you have to give everyone compensation, or run the risk of being seen as a 'bad place to invest'.
      - Gwypaas 4y ago
        The CFD scheme UK has employed works just as well when introducing regions.
    - caf 4y ago
      Yes, or indeed Australia. https://www.aemo.com.au/Energy-systems/Electricity/National-Electricity-Market-NEM/Data-NEM/Data-Dashboard-NEM https://www.aemo.com.au/Energy-systems/Electricity/National-...
      - xthrown1 4y ago
        Copying the Australian power market with it's >$20k mWh price swings, negative energy prices and brown outs on hot days is not something anyone sane should do. Australia and California are the poster children of why renewables are terrible for an electricity grid once they get past 10% of generation.
        caf 4y ago
        Those price swings are reflecting the economic reality of a product which there is very limited capacity to store and for which both demand and supply can vary rapidly. In practice energy consumers and generators are both limited in their exposure to them through financial instruments like CFDs. "brown outs on hot days" is straight up propaganda. And at least having different pricing regions means that it's not investing in building useless generation where there isn't the demand or transmission capacity to move it to where it's required!
makomk 4y ago
The UK has built a huge amount of offshore wind generation - in fact it had the most in the world until quite recently, and is currently second only to China. This just isn't a complete solution because wind is intermittent, and in particular it tends to drop off to nearly nothing during the coldest parts of winter when energy demand is at its highest. All of the solutions to this are about as speculative and questionable as this proposal.

by kinnth 4y ago

nicoburns 4y ago

From what I understand, the UK actually has private companies ready and more than willing to build wind farms with their own money. The government is just inexplicably being slow at handing out the permits.

adaml_623 4y ago
They've (the right wing government) underfunded the government so much there aren't sufficient staff to run the beaucracy. The recent (failed) rocket launch from the UK was massively delayed because of slow government processes
- diordiderot 4y ago
  They also price energy in a way that props up fossil fuels
londons_explore 4y ago
The market for wind in the UK is unusually profitable due to a quirk of the UK electricity market. Specifically, the power price across the UK is the same everywhere. However, there isn't infinite transmission capacity. So, if you generate power in one place, but the power network cannot transport it, you get told not to bother producing it, but you still get paid, and you get paid compensation on top. You know what's better than producing power... being paid to produce power, paid extra compensation, and then not need to actually have those wind turbines spinning (so much reduced maintenance too!). The government is delaying lots of permits till they can figure out how to change these perverse incentives... Needless to say, the wind industry isn't happy about the fact they might no longer get paid such large amounts, so they're demanding the old scheme be kept in place for existing producers for 25+ years, and having the new pricing rules only apply to new builds...
- Gwypaas 4y ago
  UK need to divide the country into cost regions based on the bottlenecks and it will work like international power connections. The political problem is making Scotland its own separate region. Have a look at the regions in for example Sweden which face similar bottlenecks in transmission capacity from north to south. https://app.electricitymaps.com/map https://app.electricitymaps.com/map
  - londons_explore 4y ago
    There are lots of wind businesses dependent on the old market rules. There are lots of multi-decade power delivery agreements using the old single-price market as a benchmark. If you change the rules, you have to give everyone compensation, or run the risk of being seen as a 'bad place to invest'.
    - Gwypaas 4y ago
      The CFD scheme UK has employed works just as well when introducing regions.
  - caf 4y ago
    Yes, or indeed Australia. https://www.aemo.com.au/Energy-systems/Electricity/National-Electricity-Market-NEM/Data-NEM/Data-Dashboard-NEM https://www.aemo.com.au/Energy-systems/Electricity/National-...
    - xthrown1 4y ago
      Copying the Australian power market with it's >$20k mWh price swings, negative energy prices and brown outs on hot days is not something anyone sane should do. Australia and California are the poster children of why renewables are terrible for an electricity grid once they get past 10% of generation.
      - caf 4y ago
        Those price swings are reflecting the economic reality of a product which there is very limited capacity to store and for which both demand and supply can vary rapidly. In practice energy consumers and generators are both limited in their exposure to them through financial instruments like CFDs. "brown outs on hot days" is straight up propaganda. And at least having different pricing regions means that it's not investing in building useless generation where there isn't the demand or transmission capacity to move it to where it's required!

makomk 4y ago

The UK has built a huge amount of offshore wind generation - in fact it had the most in the world until quite recently, and is currently second only to China. This just isn't a complete solution because wind is intermittent, and in particular it tends to drop off to nearly nothing during the coldest parts of winter when energy demand is at its highest. All of the solutions to this are about as speculative and questionable as this proposal.