4 ms·

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 inexp

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!
        4y ago
- p1necone 4y ago
  > the power network cannot transport it, you get told not to bother producing it I know I just don't understand the details but I'm always kinda confused about how hard it seems to be to dump excess power off the grid. Is it just really hard to build something that can use enough power even when it doesn't need to do any useful work?
  - Gwypaas 4y ago
    It is starting to come. People already schedule their car charging when it is cheap. But it does not get built over night.
    - londons_explore 4y ago
      But, due to the lack of transmission, and the 'single price' scheme, this power isn't cheap. It's expensive, but there is too much of it in one region only.
  - pyrale 4y ago
    > Is it just really hard to build something that can use enough power even when it doesn't need to do any useful work? It's just easier to not produce it. The issue with building up the grid is investment, but there is little marginal cost to turn off an existing plant.
- nicoburns 4y ago
  That makes sense. You'd think they'd have prioritised this and have it done by now though. Both the new payment system and extra transmission capacity.
- toast0 4y ago
  It seems absurd to me that spending $10B on a transmission cable from Africa to the UK is more sensible than spending that amount to make a much shorter cable to southern Europe and increasing capacity at bottlenecks along the way (including within the UK). That takes a lot more cross-governmental cooperation, of course.
  - nicoburns 4y ago
    > Increasing capacity at bottlenecks along the way This would presumably amount to building a slightly shorter but nevertheless very long cable on/under land. And I think it's much easier to just drop a cable under the sea than it is to dig and bury it under the ground or build pylons to carry it above the ground.
    - throwaway742 4y ago
      This is true. In my experience constructing additional pylons is always a bottleneck.
    - aforwardslash 4y ago
      Not necessarily. The shortest maritime path crosses at least one country maritime economic exclusive area, that will have to agree on that, without reaping any meaningful benefit. Plugging by land is easier to negotiate, maintain and finance, as the connection can also be used by those countries. I'd guess the reason this isnt being done that way is both because the UK left the EU and the whole Gibraltar debacle. I may be wrong on this, but the whole thing just looks like UK being UK - trying to solve their problems while ignoring the rest of the world exists.
  - londons_explore 4y ago
    I think building new subsea power transmission is cheaper per mile than building over land. If you need to upgrade most of the links along the way, then building the longest possible cable at sea makes sense. There might also be plans to tap off this cable to feed into portugal, spain, france and ireland along the way - that allows the cable to also take the role of some of the local transmission grid

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!
      - 4y ago
p1necone 4y ago
> the power network cannot transport it, you get told not to bother producing it I know I just don't understand the details but I'm always kinda confused about how hard it seems to be to dump excess power off the grid. Is it just really hard to build something that can use enough power even when it doesn't need to do any useful work?
- Gwypaas 4y ago
  It is starting to come. People already schedule their car charging when it is cheap. But it does not get built over night.
  - londons_explore 4y ago
    But, due to the lack of transmission, and the 'single price' scheme, this power isn't cheap. It's expensive, but there is too much of it in one region only.
- pyrale 4y ago
  > Is it just really hard to build something that can use enough power even when it doesn't need to do any useful work? It's just easier to not produce it. The issue with building up the grid is investment, but there is little marginal cost to turn off an existing plant.
nicoburns 4y ago
That makes sense. You'd think they'd have prioritised this and have it done by now though. Both the new payment system and extra transmission capacity.
toast0 4y ago
It seems absurd to me that spending $10B on a transmission cable from Africa to the UK is more sensible than spending that amount to make a much shorter cable to southern Europe and increasing capacity at bottlenecks along the way (including within the UK). That takes a lot more cross-governmental cooperation, of course.
- nicoburns 4y ago
  > Increasing capacity at bottlenecks along the way This would presumably amount to building a slightly shorter but nevertheless very long cable on/under land. And I think it's much easier to just drop a cable under the sea than it is to dig and bury it under the ground or build pylons to carry it above the ground.
  - throwaway742 4y ago
    This is true. In my experience constructing additional pylons is always a bottleneck.
  - aforwardslash 4y ago
    Not necessarily. The shortest maritime path crosses at least one country maritime economic exclusive area, that will have to agree on that, without reaping any meaningful benefit. Plugging by land is easier to negotiate, maintain and finance, as the connection can also be used by those countries. I'd guess the reason this isnt being done that way is both because the UK left the EU and the whole Gibraltar debacle. I may be wrong on this, but the whole thing just looks like UK being UK - trying to solve their problems while ignoring the rest of the world exists.
- londons_explore 4y ago
  I think building new subsea power transmission is cheaper per mile than building over land. If you need to upgrade most of the links along the way, then building the longest possible cable at sea makes sense. There might also be plans to tap off this cable to feed into portugal, spain, france and ireland along the way - that allows the cable to also take the role of some of the local transmission grid