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Well. I suppose this stability is mostly thanks to (A) natural gas and (B) biomass, aka wood pellets being burnt in former coal power plants. Those two basicall

by ephbit 4y ago

Well. I suppose this stability is mostly thanks to (A) natural gas and (B) biomass, aka wood pellets being burnt in former coal power plants. Those two basically replaced the coal that was phased out. See this plot: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-production-by-source?time=2014..latest&country=~GBR https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-production-by... Agree, the speed of transition has been quite fast. As you can see in the following plot the UK started out at a rather low level of renewables. At this relatively low level the transition is probably easier than at higher levels. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-electricity-production-from-renewable-sources?country=OWID_WRL~GBR~DEU~CHN~USA~JPN https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-electricity-prod... I'd guess the real challenge with grid stability will become more visible when grids all over the world reach some 2/3..3/4 of renewables.

HPsquared 4y ago
Good management must also be counted as a factor, I think. Whatever that entails.
tialaramex 4y ago
I don't think that chart really makes your case since it's measuring total production and on a total production basis it simply isn't true that gas and biomass replaced coal. If you pull that chart to its full timeline, over 200TWh of coal production existed, and it's essentially all gone now, but there isn't 200TWh of gas and biomass, in total they're maybe 140TWh. There is 60 TWh of wind power production. Now, in terms of capacity for instantaneous power, the Combined Cycle Gas Turbine plants probably do add up to similar capacity to older coal plants which were phased out, at least very close, but it's pretty rare for all that generation to actually be needed - this chart doesn't really show that. As to "transition" the countries which look "slower" on this chart are mostly using a lot of hydro, which is very different from wind or solar, as well as being readily available from the mid-20th century a point where solar and wind power were not really established options. So we're not talking about China having a bunch of wind turbines, then kicking back for a decade and only adding more recently, but instead their enormous country has hydro power, and now it also is adding wind turbines. The UK is a small island (and some other even smaller islands which are useful for wind but don't produce hydro power) and doesn't have vast majestic water bodies like Lake Mead, so hydro power has always been a tiny niche here, and that's all you're really looking at.
- ephbit 4y ago
  > If you pull that chart to its full timeline, over 200TWh of coal production existed, and it's essentially all gone now, but there isn't 200TWh of gas and biomass, in total they're maybe 140TWh. There is 60 TWh of wind power production. Indeed, if you view the whole chart, the development during the 90s directly supports my claim I'd say. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-production-by-source?country=~GBR https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-production-by... But still, I guess I phrased my actual point rather poorly. True, wind and solar produced almost 1/3 of the UK's total electricity over the last 12 months, but what kept the grid stable was mostly natural gas. In this role natural gas replaced coal. > Now, in terms of capacity for instantaneous power, the Combined Cycle Gas Turbine plants probably do add up to similar capacity to older coal plants which were phased out, at least very close, but it's pretty rare for all that generation to actually be needed - this chart doesn't really show that. Yes, pretty rare. But this is exactly what grid stability is about. Making sure the lights stay on even though it's cold and there's no wind. As for example end of November 2022 till middle of December: https://www.electricinsights.co.uk/#/dashboard?period=1-month&start=2022-11-27&&_k=phc364 https://www.electricinsights.co.uk/#/dashboard?period=1-mont...
- Reason077 3y ago
  Hydroelectric power was pretty widely available by the late 19th century.
sandos 4y ago
Another interesting example is Southern Australia. It also went from coal to renewables, and also with gas as "backup". Its just fascinating how far they have come, from less than 1% renewables in 2007 to more than 60%, all without any hydro which makes reneables "easy". https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/sa-renewables-milestone/ https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/sa-renewables-milestone/
Reason077 4y ago
> "I suppose this stability is mostly thanks to (A) natural gas and (B) biomass, aka wood pellets being burnt in former coal power plants. Those two basically replaced the coal that was phased out." Actually, most of the coal has been replaced by wind and solar. Biomass is not really that significant: it's only around 5% of the UK's grid supply, compared to over 30% for wind and solar. New biomass plants are no longer considered renewable in the UK so it's unlikely to increase in the future. Not sure what data your chart is based on, but it's wrong, at least for biomass. See here for some up-to-date data (you can use the controls at the top to see different periods and historic data): https://www.electricinsights.co.uk/#/dashboard https://www.electricinsights.co.uk/#/dashboard Natural gas is still the largest single contributor to the UK's grid supply, but it's in decline, and will be overtaken by renewables in the coming years. Wind capacity will triple in the UK by 2030! Imports have also increased in recent years as new HVDC interconnects have been brought online.
- ephbit 4y ago
  > Actually, most of the coal has been replaced by wind and solar. Biomass is not really that significant: it's only around 5% of the UK's grid supply, compared to over 30% for wind and solar. True. By electricity produced natural gas and biomass have not replaced all TWh that formerly came from coal. (Even though you can see how natural gas directly replaced coal during the 90s here: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-production-by-source?country=~GBR https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-production-by... ) The point I intended to make is: there's two kinds of electricity production capacity. There's Flexible/dispatchable capacity such as gas, coal and others. And there's intermittent capacity such as solar and wind. Without electrical storage (almost non existent), solar and wind cannot replace dispatchable capacity in the context of grid stability. The increase in electricity produced from natural gas and biomass is what directly contributed to the grid remaining stable, _despite_ the increased production from wind and solar. > Natural gas is still the largest single contributor to the UK's grid supply, but it's in decline, and will be overtaken by renewables in the coming years. Wind capacity will triple in the UK by 2030! Yes. But it won't be the wind, that'll be keeping the grid stable, that's for sure.
  - 4y ago
tzs 4y ago
> Well. I suppose this stability is mostly thanks to (A) natural gas and (B) biomass, aka wood pellets being burnt in former coal power plants. Those two basically replaced the coal that was phased out. More like a little under half due to those. From the plot at ourworldindata, expanded to start at 2012 since that is when the comment above was talking about, here are the changes in TWh contribution: -137 Coal -23 Nuclear 0 Other renewables 1 Hydro 3 Oil 11 Solar 24 Gas 24 Bioenergy 45 Wind
- Reason077 4y ago
  This data does not seem consistent with other sources. There are no active oil-fired power plants in the UK, for example, and there hasn't been for a long time. (There are some that were built as oil-fired plants but were later converted to natural gas CCGT) ourworldindata also seems to be overstating bioenergy by a huge margin. According to reliable sources[1], biomass supplied 20.83 TWh in 2021, not 39.11 TWh. I'm not sure what difference in methodology could account for such a big variance? [1] https://www.electricinsights.co.uk/#/dashboard?period=1-year&start=2021-01-01 https://www.electricinsights.co.uk/#/dashboard?period=1-year...

by ephbit 4y ago

HPsquared 4y ago

Good management must also be counted as a factor, I think. Whatever that entails.

tialaramex 4y ago

I don't think that chart really makes your case since it's measuring total production and on a total production basis it simply isn't true that gas and biomass replaced coal. If you pull that chart to its full timeline, over 200TWh of coal production existed, and it's essentially all gone now, but there isn't 200TWh of gas and biomass, in total they're maybe 140TWh. There is 60 TWh of wind power production. Now, in terms of capacity for instantaneous power, the Combined Cycle Gas Turbine plants probably do add up to similar capacity to older coal plants which were phased out, at least very close, but it's pretty rare for all that generation to actually be needed - this chart doesn't really show that. As to "transition" the countries which look "slower" on this chart are mostly using a lot of hydro, which is very different from wind or solar, as well as being readily available from the mid-20th century a point where solar and wind power were not really established options. So we're not talking about China having a bunch of wind turbines, then kicking back for a decade and only adding more recently, but instead their enormous country has hydro power, and now it also is adding wind turbines. The UK is a small island (and some other even smaller islands which are useful for wind but don't produce hydro power) and doesn't have vast majestic water bodies like Lake Mead, so hydro power has always been a tiny niche here, and that's all you're really looking at.

ephbit 4y ago
> If you pull that chart to its full timeline, over 200TWh of coal production existed, and it's essentially all gone now, but there isn't 200TWh of gas and biomass, in total they're maybe 140TWh. There is 60 TWh of wind power production. Indeed, if you view the whole chart, the development during the 90s directly supports my claim I'd say. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-production-by-source?country=~GBR https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-production-by... But still, I guess I phrased my actual point rather poorly. True, wind and solar produced almost 1/3 of the UK's total electricity over the last 12 months, but what kept the grid stable was mostly natural gas. In this role natural gas replaced coal. > Now, in terms of capacity for instantaneous power, the Combined Cycle Gas Turbine plants probably do add up to similar capacity to older coal plants which were phased out, at least very close, but it's pretty rare for all that generation to actually be needed - this chart doesn't really show that. Yes, pretty rare. But this is exactly what grid stability is about. Making sure the lights stay on even though it's cold and there's no wind. As for example end of November 2022 till middle of December: https://www.electricinsights.co.uk/#/dashboard?period=1-month&start=2022-11-27&&_k=phc364 https://www.electricinsights.co.uk/#/dashboard?period=1-mont...
Reason077 3y ago
Hydroelectric power was pretty widely available by the late 19th century.

sandos 4y ago

Another interesting example is Southern Australia. It also went from coal to renewables, and also with gas as "backup". Its just fascinating how far they have come, from less than 1% renewables in 2007 to more than 60%, all without any hydro which makes reneables "easy". https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/sa-renewables-milestone/ https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/sa-renewables-milestone/

Reason077 4y ago

> "I suppose this stability is mostly thanks to (A) natural gas and (B) biomass, aka wood pellets being burnt in former coal power plants. Those two basically replaced the coal that was phased out." Actually, most of the coal has been replaced by wind and solar. Biomass is not really that significant: it's only around 5% of the UK's grid supply, compared to over 30% for wind and solar. New biomass plants are no longer considered renewable in the UK so it's unlikely to increase in the future. Not sure what data your chart is based on, but it's wrong, at least for biomass. See here for some up-to-date data (you can use the controls at the top to see different periods and historic data): https://www.electricinsights.co.uk/#/dashboard https://www.electricinsights.co.uk/#/dashboard Natural gas is still the largest single contributor to the UK's grid supply, but it's in decline, and will be overtaken by renewables in the coming years. Wind capacity will triple in the UK by 2030! Imports have also increased in recent years as new HVDC interconnects have been brought online.

ephbit 4y ago
> Actually, most of the coal has been replaced by wind and solar. Biomass is not really that significant: it's only around 5% of the UK's grid supply, compared to over 30% for wind and solar. True. By electricity produced natural gas and biomass have not replaced all TWh that formerly came from coal. (Even though you can see how natural gas directly replaced coal during the 90s here: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-production-by-source?country=~GBR https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-production-by... ) The point I intended to make is: there's two kinds of electricity production capacity. There's Flexible/dispatchable capacity such as gas, coal and others. And there's intermittent capacity such as solar and wind. Without electrical storage (almost non existent), solar and wind cannot replace dispatchable capacity in the context of grid stability. The increase in electricity produced from natural gas and biomass is what directly contributed to the grid remaining stable, _despite_ the increased production from wind and solar. > Natural gas is still the largest single contributor to the UK's grid supply, but it's in decline, and will be overtaken by renewables in the coming years. Wind capacity will triple in the UK by 2030! Yes. But it won't be the wind, that'll be keeping the grid stable, that's for sure.
- 4y ago

tzs 4y ago

> Well. I suppose this stability is mostly thanks to (A) natural gas and (B) biomass, aka wood pellets being burnt in former coal power plants. Those two basically replaced the coal that was phased out. More like a little under half due to those. From the plot at ourworldindata, expanded to start at 2012 since that is when the comment above was talking about, here are the changes in TWh contribution: -137 Coal -23 Nuclear 0 Other renewables 1 Hydro 3 Oil 11 Solar 24 Gas 24 Bioenergy 45 Wind

Reason077 4y ago
This data does not seem consistent with other sources. There are no active oil-fired power plants in the UK, for example, and there hasn't been for a long time. (There are some that were built as oil-fired plants but were later converted to natural gas CCGT) ourworldindata also seems to be overstating bioenergy by a huge margin. According to reliable sources[1], biomass supplied 20.83 TWh in 2021, not 39.11 TWh. I'm not sure what difference in methodology could account for such a big variance? [1] https://www.electricinsights.co.uk/#/dashboard?period=1-year&start=2021-01-01 https://www.electricinsights.co.uk/#/dashboard?period=1-year...