23 ms·

Wind is main source of UK electricity for first time

192 points by ljf 3y ago

samwillis 3y ago
Not today though, sadly it's down at 1.77% right now: https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/ https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/ It's nearly 50% gas (cctg, combined-cycle gas turbine) at the moment. Nice to see solar at up at nearly 18%!
- sph 3y ago
  Linked are our French neighbours, with 71% nuclear vs UK's 10%. Also 14% hydroelectric. Impressive! https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/france/ https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/france/
  - cbmuser 3y ago
    France is almost green here: > https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/FR https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/FR Yet, many people think that nuclear is not the way to go.
    - pydry 3y ago
      France got a 40 year head start. They werent even aiming to decarbonize their electricity, it was a side effect of chasing energy independence during the oil crisis. It was the way to go in 1970. People think nuclear isnt the way to go now because it's eye wateringly expensive. EDF's bankruptcy and the rapidly exploding costs and risks of dealing with France's aging plants confirms this. In spite of still spending hand over fist, the % of nuclear power is in decline in France (theyre officially hoping solar and wind can fill in the gaps).
      - jacquesm 3y ago
        'Force de Frappe' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_de_dissuasion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_de_dissuasion
      - vladvasiliu 3y ago
        It should also be noted that the French government went out of its way to gut the nuclear ecosystem for electoral reasons (F. Hollande hoping to get the Green vote some 15 years ago). Only recently did they realize that we don't have nearly enough renewables and that, yes, if you don't maintain your plants, they do tend to degrade rather quickly. And presenting the sector as a dead-end, of course they're now missing qualified people to do the maintenace and the design of new plants. This is in additation to the weird scheme forcing EDF to sell cheap energy to their competitors.
      - krupan 3y ago
        I always hear it's so expensive, but compared to what? Just continuing to burn fossil fuels? Costs I see to solar and wind that I rarely see anyone mention are: What happens when you cover large deaths of land with solar and windmills? What does that do to the micro climates of those areas and what affects will that have on the global climate? What does that do to the wildlife (both plant and animal) long term? What are the true costs of the mines and manufacturing and transportation needed to build and maintain all of that? I grew up near hydroelectric dams and when I was young they were hailed as free renewable energy. By the time I hit highschool they were demonized for forever changing the river's ecosystem and nearly driving certain fish species to extinction. How does wind and solar not end up the same?
        otherme123 3y ago
        In fact, I've seen the "solar and wind cover lots of land" in every single post about energy that comes on HN or Reddit. The answer the "compared to what?" is everything. It is clean, continuous, it's compact and other benefits. But it's expensive. You need over 30 years (being optimist) to break even. You need government financial support because no bank would finance that. That's the reason only countries like France or China build them: the costs are partially hidden in the country budgets or public owned corporations balances. About hydro, that was a "unknown unknown" paraprhasing Rumsfeld. You can't avoid what currently seems our best bet to our current knowledge (wind and solar) because maybe there's an unknown unknown that could bit us hard in 40 years.
        7952 3y ago
        The science of understanding environmental impact has improved hugely. We can actually know pretty well the answer to those kind of questions. And often the impact will be less damaging to the environment than what it is replacing (such as farmland).
  - flakeoil 3y ago
    But how many heat their homes with electricity? Many households in France (and the UK and elsewhere) are heating their homes with gas and the same goes for cooking. The share of electricity of the total energy consumption is also important to consider.
- jesprenj 3y ago
  Could it be possible that they are talking about energy production instead of energy use and conveniently writing "UK's electricity" to add ambiguity? https://www.bbc.com/news/business-63976805 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-63976805
- ljf 3y ago
  True - but solar is doing well today considering how grey is it: https://grid.iamkate.com/ https://grid.iamkate.com/ 17.7% right now, and 7.7% for the full 24 hours of yesterday. Good to see coal at zero, but sad to see the amount of gas we still require. Great progress though!
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    It's sunny here.
    - ljf 3y ago
      Maybe for you... https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/forecast/uk https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/forecast/uk Day of rain and flood alerts for much of the UK, with lower temperature than the previous 5 days.
- trebligdivad 3y ago
  That is the challenge; we often have a few weeks with low wind so need those fossil fuel generation to fill the hole. And adding more turbines doesn't help the bad cases much. (I tend to like https://grid.iamkate.com/ https://grid.iamkate.com/ now )
  - samwillis 3y ago
    Yes grid.iamkate.com is brilliant, and it has good insights into costs. However, I just like the 90s skeuomorphic design of gridwatch.templar.co.uk, makes me think of simpler times.
  - sh4rks 3y ago
    Wow that website loads surprisingly fast
    - samwillis 3y ago
      It's almost entirely static (or at least server rendered) even all the SVG graphs. I'm going to take punt and say it's a static pre-rendered flat file based on the response time.
  - melx 3y ago
    "...we often have a few weeks with low wind..." Plenty of wind up North + Scotland - just no means to transport it over where the most demand is (the South).
    - tialaramex 3y ago
      Not always. Often, but not always, and that's the problem. This afternoon for example, even off the East Coast of Scotland the wind was about as brisk as a stroll with your elderly grandmother. If you've got 10GW of wind turbines, but they're running at 5% output, that's 500MW, which isn't nothing but it's not even enough for Scotland.
      - Gwypaas 3y ago
pixelbreaker 3y ago
Convenient of the BBC to publish this after https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/10/uk-tops-list-for-fossil-fuel-sites-in-nature-protected-areas https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/10/uk-tops-...
- gumballindie 3y ago
  I’d take any content from the guardian with a pinch of salt. I am certain that most countries ranked below the uk dont have as many protected areas, therefore dont have this issue. While damaging the environment is bad so is the misinformation the guardian loves to spread around.
  - Symbiote 3y ago
    > I am certain Perhaps a cursory check is in order? The UK has 28% on-land protected areas: https://www.protectedplanet.net/en/country/GBR https://www.protectedplanet.net/en/country/GBR Venezuela 57%: https://www.protectedplanet.net/en/country/VEN https://www.protectedplanet.net/en/country/VEN Germany has 38%: https://www.protectedplanet.net/en/country/DEU https://www.protectedplanet.net/en/country/DEU
    - gumballindie 3y ago
      What about china, canada and nigeria? These protect at most half of what the uk does. Coincidentally germany is EU’s largest co2 emitter and a source of highly polluting cars. While it doesnt extract coal or other resources from its own territory it has no issue in using such resources from other countries. So while in absolute numbers it may appear better, overall it’s worse.
- detritus 3y ago
  It's the Guardian's raison d'etre to be critical of its country to the point of almost derogatory pessimism. I say this as a subscriber. Such analysis also fails to take into account the steps that are [necessarily] taken to mitigate the impact in protected areas and the fact that our land mass is pathetically small compared to other countries on that list.
reedf1 3y ago
100% of the renewable capacity is backed by the equivalent capacity for natural gas. This is fine it it is intended, and people understand that intermittent renewables are inexorably linked to natural gas. At least for the time being. The alternative is nuclear - which has no such requirement, and is consistent baseline capacity.
- rosebay 3y ago
  [dead]
- konschubert 3y ago
  You can make hydrogen and methane from electricity and use that to replenish the gas storage. Gas peaker plants are still required, yes. But they will need to run much less frequently than today.
  - zabzonk 3y ago
    > You can make hydrogen and methane from electricity and use that to replenish the gas storage. so, sort of like perpetual motion?
    - signaturefish 3y ago
      No, but I see what you mean. Generating hydrogen and methane using electricity will probably never be that efficient, but if you have spare power then using it to get 60% of its energy back again in the form of future burnables may still be worth it (percentage guessed and probably optimistic).
    - dmbche 3y ago
      No - what is being explained is that you need constant electricity, and wind and solar are not constant, so you need a way to skim the "extra" energy when it's made, and to being it back in the system when there's no wind/sun - by for example using the extra energy to make hydrogen gas and bringing that back in the system at night
wepple 3y ago
This is a bit buried but important: > And electricity only accounts for 18% of the UK's total power needs. There are many demands for energy which electricity is not meeting, such as heating our homes, manufacturing and transport. Currently the majority of UK homes use gas for their heating Perhaps we should start talking about what % of “energy” comes from renewables? Probably far more difficult to calculate and we’ll never hit 100% I guess?
- trebligdivad 3y ago
  The UK does have live gas usage data which includes the amount used for electricity and that going to other uses; https://mip-prd-web.azurewebsites.net/ https://mip-prd-web.azurewebsites.net/ (I don't know of a friendlier URL)
- ZeroGravitas 3y ago
  One complication is that burning fuel is so much less efficient than electrical usage If you ignore that, then it radically changes the impression you get from these stats. The technical terms are "primary energy" (the amount of energy you put in as fuel) and "final energy" the actual useful stuff you want done. Cars moving to EV will reduce the need for "primary energy" by about 4x if the useful final energy remains flat. Similar for heat pumps for home heating.
  - ThomPete 3y ago
    The problem with that argument is that wind and solar needs backup from fossil fuel.
    - dmbche 3y ago
      Or a buffer system with batteries - there are a few options that are being researched!
    - ericd 3y ago
      There’s always wood… those stoves have gotten surprisingly efficient, and no new carbon in the carbon cycle, it’s basically a solar battery.
spants 3y ago
....have a a 100% renewables tariff but my bills go up because of oil/gas prices. WTF. They also don't go down as quickly as they rise. The energy market is a giant con.
- Paianni 3y ago
  Your bills go up because of supplies of all sources of energy not meeting demand as well.
- bryanlarsen 3y ago
  Price is set at the margin. Take a look at this graph: https://www.economist.com/img/b/400/507/90/media-assets/image/20220917_WOC867.png https://www.economist.com/img/b/400/507/90/media-assets/imag... If demand decreases, the supply/demand intersection will switch to the next highest cost producer. Or the same thing could happen if the supply of cheap electricity increases.
- tialaramex 3y ago
  Everybody who shops around has a 100% renewables tariff. What that tells you is that most UK consumers don't shop around. This was more remarkable before prices spiked, because previous to that the actual price you paid was usually much lower if you shopped around, and yet they also threw in "100% renewable" because it costs basically nothing. Now the only price it makes sense to pay is the price the government guaranteed, so shopping around is pointless. Which is fair, that was the reality anyway, the companies "selling" electricity exist only on paper, they aren't laying cables, or building power stations [similar companies in the same corporate family might but it's not important here] they just have a spreadsheet basically. Anyway, the reason it's so cheap to give the few people who care 100% renewable electricity is that the people selling the electricity get effectively paper "It's renewable" tokens which they can sell separately from the electricity, they're called REGOs. So say I make 10GWh of wind energy today, I get 10GWh of REGOs. I sell my electricity for the same grid market price as the gas electricity or coal power†, or whatever, nobody cares electricity is fungible, and I also sell my REGOs for very little because they're almost worthless, to Very Green Energy Co. That huge industrial site near you which makes stuff (I know, they do exist in the UK they just don't employ many people any more). They consume 15GWh of electricity, they don't care where it comes from, maybe it's from me, maybe it isn't, electricity is fungible, who cares. They don't care about the REGOs, they just need electricity. People like you, in your house, consume 5GWh of electricity. Again, electricity is fungible, so who cares where it came from, maybe it's gas, but Very Green Energy Co. have 10GWh of REGOs, so they can assure you that you're all getting renewable energy. † Actually the Subsidy rules mean I might sort of sell for a different price, but we'll ignore that here, it doesn't clarify this situation at all. As a consumer you can't in the UK choose to be fully exposed to price fluctuations, which would completely destroy you. You can choose to be partially exposed, it's very expensive right now, but can be cheaper in some periods. It's a risk, take only if you understand it, Octopus Energy are the people to talk to.
jacobp100 3y ago
The UK is doing surprisingly well for offshore wind, with 7/10 of the largest offshore wind installations in the world being here. We’re terrible for onshore though
- Pxtl 3y ago
  Considering UK is an island and offshore wind tends to be more consistent than onshore (although with higher cost to build) that doesn't sound like a problem?
  - tialaramex 3y ago
    It's certainly true that Britain has a lot of coastline, and that even allowing for the fact you can't put wind farms in the middle of a shipping lane (unless you don't mind constant collisions because nobody in a large boat can steer worth shit, the UK also has some big rocks, which like wind turbines are marked on charts and don't move yet idiots crash boats into those all the damn time) this works out to mean we could probably more than supply our energy needs from wind turbines + storage. On the other hand, onshore wind is cheaper and would have been viable all along, the Tories effectively banned it (technically they just made it very easy to block planning permission) for years because that wins over a certain kind of NIMBY voter. You couldn't build enough onshore wind to replace all the fossil fuels, but you could make a bigger dent than we did.
    - BoxOfRain 3y ago
      I'm not particularly well-versed in the technology but is there any reason the UK isn't utilising tidal power more? We have areas with some impressive tidal ranges including the Severn Estuary which has the second highest in the world. There was lots of talk about building a tidal lagoon in Swansea back when I lived in Wales but I've not heard anything about that since I moved away some years ago.
      - ben_w 3y ago
        I think the reason is that the water keeps surprising people by being really corrosive and otherwise damaging the equipment that's inside it; so it does work, it's just been more expensive to build and maintain than the other options so far.
lloydatkinson 3y ago
This is excellent news. Unfortunately I think the UK's public understanding of energy production as a whole (let alone clean energy) is far far worse than people online might realise. I'm from the UK. A few years ago I was on a train as it went past a wind farm within a very short distance. One person in a group of teenagers sat near me said something like "I can't believe they make the wind with them, how did they make wind before?". They were not joking. I can't remember how the rest of the group reacted but I think I remember none of them seemed particularly aware of what an absurd question that was.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  It may well have just been a deadpan joke full of deadpan teenagers, the first of whom to laugh is deemed the least cool.
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    I've had an Irish friend once ask me if the moon we were looking at in Australia was the same one you could see from Ireland. Sadly it was a genuine question. Education in those parts seems lacking indeed. Another example: The same Irish person had a nephew who they helped prepare for a presentation about dinosaurs, mentioning they lived millions of years ago. They were told off by the teacher for spreading such "controversial" information. Church involvement in education is really a no-no IMO. At least if you want to learn more than fairytales.
- vixen99 3y ago
  And don't move on to numbers. Prior to the pandemic which had a devastating effect on school students' numeracy skills in the UK, it's reported millions of adults lack basic numeracy skills, with half of those of working age having the maths ability expected of a primary school child. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7725495/Half-adults-UK-maths-ability-primary-school-child-new-study-shows.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7725495/Half-adults...
scythe 3y ago
For all we lament the ban on nuclear power in Germany, we could certainly do to grouse a little more about the ban on onshore wind power in England.
stuaxo 3y ago
Liz truss's oil company friends must be spinning.
- NeoTar 3y ago
  Can we hook them up to a generator?
ngcc_hk 3y ago
How much one can project to use car battery as one of the major energy storage, given most car is actually sit rather than move.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  I agree but storage isn't useful if you can't use it. And most people expect their car to be ready when they need it. So all it's good for is to store energy for the car's own use. Which is already exactly what's happening when you plug it in to charge it. If I had a car I wouldn't be happy if I suddenly decided to go somewhere and the car was empty because it had just been releasing its stored energy to the grid. The whole point of owning a car is having transportation at any time you need it.
bertil 3y ago
This is cause for celebration, but it shouldn’t hide the reality that with more than 8 tons per person per year, the UK is in the top 5 most carbon-emitting countries. The country has significant agriculture or industry can justify such a highly polluting regime. In truth, the UK has horrendous insulation and burns a staggering amount of gas to heat houses made of pasta stainers and wet cardboard; people drive their ICE cars everywhere… There are simple measures that should have been mandatory a decade ago. Instead, the government is too busy arresting the scientists who can help —for the crime of standing there, no less— and handing over subsidies to companies that are making record profits and opening more gas wells. Far too many Britons dismiss the idea that they’ll be direct victims of climate unsettling. Every model I have seen highlights dire possibilities.
- cbmuser 3y ago
  > This is cause for celebration, but it shouldn’t hide the reality that with more than 8 tons per person per year, the UK is in the top 5 most carbon-emitting countries. The country has significant agriculture or industry can justify such a highly polluting regime. France has been proving for years how to decarbonize fast: > https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-emissions-by-sector?time=latest&country=~FRA https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-emissions-by-sector?t... > https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-emissions-by-sector?yScale=log&time=latest&country=~GBR https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-emissions-by-sector?y... > https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-emissions-by-sector?yScale=log&time=latest&country=~DEU https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-emissions-by-sector?y...
  - ZeroGravitas 3y ago
    Possibly it's just on mobile, but the French graph seems to be on a completely different scale to the other two. Their agricultural emissions are higher than the UK for example, but at least for me that is far from obvious from the graphs.
- fabrika 3y ago
  > 8 tons per person per year, the UK is in the top 5 most carbon-emitting countries. Can you share your sources please? Here, for example, they claim that the UK produces 5.5 tons per person, not 8. Much less than, say, the US with 15 tons: https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-per-capita/ https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-pe...
KingOfCoders 3y ago
I like that interactive graph for power production in Germany: https://www.agora-energiewende.de/service/agorameter/chart/power_generation/08.05.2023/11.05.2023/today/ https://www.agora-energiewende.de/service/agorameter/chart/p...
andybak 3y ago
If only they could generate electricity from light drizzle.
- HPsquared 3y ago
  Hydroelectric!
PTOB 3y ago
This might be a first for electricity, but it's the second time for power.

192 points by ljf 3y ago

Not today though, sadly it's down at 1.77% right now: https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/ https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/ It's nearly 50% gas (cctg, combined-cycle gas turbine) at the moment. Nice to see solar at up at nearly 18%!

sph 3y ago
Linked are our French neighbours, with 71% nuclear vs UK's 10%. Also 14% hydroelectric. Impressive! https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/france/ https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/france/
- cbmuser 3y ago
  France is almost green here: > https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/FR https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/FR Yet, many people think that nuclear is not the way to go.
  - pydry 3y ago
    France got a 40 year head start. They werent even aiming to decarbonize their electricity, it was a side effect of chasing energy independence during the oil crisis. It was the way to go in 1970. People think nuclear isnt the way to go now because it's eye wateringly expensive. EDF's bankruptcy and the rapidly exploding costs and risks of dealing with France's aging plants confirms this. In spite of still spending hand over fist, the % of nuclear power is in decline in France (theyre officially hoping solar and wind can fill in the gaps).
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      'Force de Frappe' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_de_dissuasion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_de_dissuasion
    - vladvasiliu 3y ago
      It should also be noted that the French government went out of its way to gut the nuclear ecosystem for electoral reasons (F. Hollande hoping to get the Green vote some 15 years ago). Only recently did they realize that we don't have nearly enough renewables and that, yes, if you don't maintain your plants, they do tend to degrade rather quickly. And presenting the sector as a dead-end, of course they're now missing qualified people to do the maintenace and the design of new plants. This is in additation to the weird scheme forcing EDF to sell cheap energy to their competitors.
    - krupan 3y ago
      I always hear it's so expensive, but compared to what? Just continuing to burn fossil fuels? Costs I see to solar and wind that I rarely see anyone mention are: What happens when you cover large deaths of land with solar and windmills? What does that do to the micro climates of those areas and what affects will that have on the global climate? What does that do to the wildlife (both plant and animal) long term? What are the true costs of the mines and manufacturing and transportation needed to build and maintain all of that? I grew up near hydroelectric dams and when I was young they were hailed as free renewable energy. By the time I hit highschool they were demonized for forever changing the river's ecosystem and nearly driving certain fish species to extinction. How does wind and solar not end up the same?
      - otherme123 3y ago
        In fact, I've seen the "solar and wind cover lots of land" in every single post about energy that comes on HN or Reddit. The answer the "compared to what?" is everything. It is clean, continuous, it's compact and other benefits. But it's expensive. You need over 30 years (being optimist) to break even. You need government financial support because no bank would finance that. That's the reason only countries like France or China build them: the costs are partially hidden in the country budgets or public owned corporations balances. About hydro, that was a "unknown unknown" paraprhasing Rumsfeld. You can't avoid what currently seems our best bet to our current knowledge (wind and solar) because maybe there's an unknown unknown that could bit us hard in 40 years.
      - 7952 3y ago
        The science of understanding environmental impact has improved hugely. We can actually know pretty well the answer to those kind of questions. And often the impact will be less damaging to the environment than what it is replacing (such as farmland).
- flakeoil 3y ago
  But how many heat their homes with electricity? Many households in France (and the UK and elsewhere) are heating their homes with gas and the same goes for cooking. The share of electricity of the total energy consumption is also important to consider.
jesprenj 3y ago
Could it be possible that they are talking about energy production instead of energy use and conveniently writing "UK's electricity" to add ambiguity? https://www.bbc.com/news/business-63976805 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-63976805
ljf 3y ago
True - but solar is doing well today considering how grey is it: https://grid.iamkate.com/ https://grid.iamkate.com/ 17.7% right now, and 7.7% for the full 24 hours of yesterday. Good to see coal at zero, but sad to see the amount of gas we still require. Great progress though!
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  It's sunny here.
  - ljf 3y ago
    Maybe for you... https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/forecast/uk https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/forecast/uk Day of rain and flood alerts for much of the UK, with lower temperature than the previous 5 days.
trebligdivad 3y ago
That is the challenge; we often have a few weeks with low wind so need those fossil fuel generation to fill the hole. And adding more turbines doesn't help the bad cases much. (I tend to like https://grid.iamkate.com/ https://grid.iamkate.com/ now )
- samwillis 3y ago
  Yes grid.iamkate.com is brilliant, and it has good insights into costs. However, I just like the 90s skeuomorphic design of gridwatch.templar.co.uk, makes me think of simpler times.
- sh4rks 3y ago
  Wow that website loads surprisingly fast
  - samwillis 3y ago
    It's almost entirely static (or at least server rendered) even all the SVG graphs. I'm going to take punt and say it's a static pre-rendered flat file based on the response time.
- melx 3y ago
  "...we often have a few weeks with low wind..." Plenty of wind up North + Scotland - just no means to transport it over where the most demand is (the South).
  - tialaramex 3y ago
    Not always. Often, but not always, and that's the problem. This afternoon for example, even off the East Coast of Scotland the wind was about as brisk as a stroll with your elderly grandmother. If you've got 10GW of wind turbines, but they're running at 5% output, that's 500MW, which isn't nothing but it's not even enough for Scotland.
    - Gwypaas 3y ago

pixelbreaker 3y ago

Convenient of the BBC to publish this after https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/10/uk-tops-list-for-fossil-fuel-sites-in-nature-protected-areas https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/10/uk-tops-...

gumballindie 3y ago
I’d take any content from the guardian with a pinch of salt. I am certain that most countries ranked below the uk dont have as many protected areas, therefore dont have this issue. While damaging the environment is bad so is the misinformation the guardian loves to spread around.
- Symbiote 3y ago
  > I am certain Perhaps a cursory check is in order? The UK has 28% on-land protected areas: https://www.protectedplanet.net/en/country/GBR https://www.protectedplanet.net/en/country/GBR Venezuela 57%: https://www.protectedplanet.net/en/country/VEN https://www.protectedplanet.net/en/country/VEN Germany has 38%: https://www.protectedplanet.net/en/country/DEU https://www.protectedplanet.net/en/country/DEU
  - gumballindie 3y ago
    What about china, canada and nigeria? These protect at most half of what the uk does. Coincidentally germany is EU’s largest co2 emitter and a source of highly polluting cars. While it doesnt extract coal or other resources from its own territory it has no issue in using such resources from other countries. So while in absolute numbers it may appear better, overall it’s worse.
detritus 3y ago
It's the Guardian's raison d'etre to be critical of its country to the point of almost derogatory pessimism. I say this as a subscriber. Such analysis also fails to take into account the steps that are [necessarily] taken to mitigate the impact in protected areas and the fact that our land mass is pathetically small compared to other countries on that list.

reedf1 3y ago

100% of the renewable capacity is backed by the equivalent capacity for natural gas. This is fine it it is intended, and people understand that intermittent renewables are inexorably linked to natural gas. At least for the time being. The alternative is nuclear - which has no such requirement, and is consistent baseline capacity.

rosebay 3y ago
[dead]
konschubert 3y ago
You can make hydrogen and methane from electricity and use that to replenish the gas storage. Gas peaker plants are still required, yes. But they will need to run much less frequently than today.
- zabzonk 3y ago
  > You can make hydrogen and methane from electricity and use that to replenish the gas storage. so, sort of like perpetual motion?
  - signaturefish 3y ago
    No, but I see what you mean. Generating hydrogen and methane using electricity will probably never be that efficient, but if you have spare power then using it to get 60% of its energy back again in the form of future burnables may still be worth it (percentage guessed and probably optimistic).
  - dmbche 3y ago
    No - what is being explained is that you need constant electricity, and wind and solar are not constant, so you need a way to skim the "extra" energy when it's made, and to being it back in the system when there's no wind/sun - by for example using the extra energy to make hydrogen gas and bringing that back in the system at night

wepple 3y ago

This is a bit buried but important: > And electricity only accounts for 18% of the UK's total power needs. There are many demands for energy which electricity is not meeting, such as heating our homes, manufacturing and transport. Currently the majority of UK homes use gas for their heating Perhaps we should start talking about what % of “energy” comes from renewables? Probably far more difficult to calculate and we’ll never hit 100% I guess?

trebligdivad 3y ago
The UK does have live gas usage data which includes the amount used for electricity and that going to other uses; https://mip-prd-web.azurewebsites.net/ https://mip-prd-web.azurewebsites.net/ (I don't know of a friendlier URL)
ZeroGravitas 3y ago
One complication is that burning fuel is so much less efficient than electrical usage If you ignore that, then it radically changes the impression you get from these stats. The technical terms are "primary energy" (the amount of energy you put in as fuel) and "final energy" the actual useful stuff you want done. Cars moving to EV will reduce the need for "primary energy" by about 4x if the useful final energy remains flat. Similar for heat pumps for home heating.
- ThomPete 3y ago
  The problem with that argument is that wind and solar needs backup from fossil fuel.
  - dmbche 3y ago
    Or a buffer system with batteries - there are a few options that are being researched!
  - ericd 3y ago
    There’s always wood… those stoves have gotten surprisingly efficient, and no new carbon in the carbon cycle, it’s basically a solar battery.

spants 3y ago

....have a a 100% renewables tariff but my bills go up because of oil/gas prices. WTF. They also don't go down as quickly as they rise. The energy market is a giant con.

Paianni 3y ago
Your bills go up because of supplies of all sources of energy not meeting demand as well.
bryanlarsen 3y ago
Price is set at the margin. Take a look at this graph: https://www.economist.com/img/b/400/507/90/media-assets/image/20220917_WOC867.png https://www.economist.com/img/b/400/507/90/media-assets/imag... If demand decreases, the supply/demand intersection will switch to the next highest cost producer. Or the same thing could happen if the supply of cheap electricity increases.
tialaramex 3y ago
Everybody who shops around has a 100% renewables tariff. What that tells you is that most UK consumers don't shop around. This was more remarkable before prices spiked, because previous to that the actual price you paid was usually much lower if you shopped around, and yet they also threw in "100% renewable" because it costs basically nothing. Now the only price it makes sense to pay is the price the government guaranteed, so shopping around is pointless. Which is fair, that was the reality anyway, the companies "selling" electricity exist only on paper, they aren't laying cables, or building power stations [similar companies in the same corporate family might but it's not important here] they just have a spreadsheet basically. Anyway, the reason it's so cheap to give the few people who care 100% renewable electricity is that the people selling the electricity get effectively paper "It's renewable" tokens which they can sell separately from the electricity, they're called REGOs. So say I make 10GWh of wind energy today, I get 10GWh of REGOs. I sell my electricity for the same grid market price as the gas electricity or coal power†, or whatever, nobody cares electricity is fungible, and I also sell my REGOs for very little because they're almost worthless, to Very Green Energy Co. That huge industrial site near you which makes stuff (I know, they do exist in the UK they just don't employ many people any more). They consume 15GWh of electricity, they don't care where it comes from, maybe it's from me, maybe it isn't, electricity is fungible, who cares. They don't care about the REGOs, they just need electricity. People like you, in your house, consume 5GWh of electricity. Again, electricity is fungible, so who cares where it came from, maybe it's gas, but Very Green Energy Co. have 10GWh of REGOs, so they can assure you that you're all getting renewable energy. † Actually the Subsidy rules mean I might sort of sell for a different price, but we'll ignore that here, it doesn't clarify this situation at all. As a consumer you can't in the UK choose to be fully exposed to price fluctuations, which would completely destroy you. You can choose to be partially exposed, it's very expensive right now, but can be cheaper in some periods. It's a risk, take only if you understand it, Octopus Energy are the people to talk to.

jacobp100 3y ago

The UK is doing surprisingly well for offshore wind, with 7/10 of the largest offshore wind installations in the world being here. We’re terrible for onshore though

Pxtl 3y ago
Considering UK is an island and offshore wind tends to be more consistent than onshore (although with higher cost to build) that doesn't sound like a problem?
- tialaramex 3y ago
  It's certainly true that Britain has a lot of coastline, and that even allowing for the fact you can't put wind farms in the middle of a shipping lane (unless you don't mind constant collisions because nobody in a large boat can steer worth shit, the UK also has some big rocks, which like wind turbines are marked on charts and don't move yet idiots crash boats into those all the damn time) this works out to mean we could probably more than supply our energy needs from wind turbines + storage. On the other hand, onshore wind is cheaper and would have been viable all along, the Tories effectively banned it (technically they just made it very easy to block planning permission) for years because that wins over a certain kind of NIMBY voter. You couldn't build enough onshore wind to replace all the fossil fuels, but you could make a bigger dent than we did.
  - BoxOfRain 3y ago
    I'm not particularly well-versed in the technology but is there any reason the UK isn't utilising tidal power more? We have areas with some impressive tidal ranges including the Severn Estuary which has the second highest in the world. There was lots of talk about building a tidal lagoon in Swansea back when I lived in Wales but I've not heard anything about that since I moved away some years ago.
    - ben_w 3y ago
      I think the reason is that the water keeps surprising people by being really corrosive and otherwise damaging the equipment that's inside it; so it does work, it's just been more expensive to build and maintain than the other options so far.

lloydatkinson 3y ago

This is excellent news. Unfortunately I think the UK's public understanding of energy production as a whole (let alone clean energy) is far far worse than people online might realise. I'm from the UK. A few years ago I was on a train as it went past a wind farm within a very short distance. One person in a group of teenagers sat near me said something like "I can't believe they make the wind with them, how did they make wind before?". They were not joking. I can't remember how the rest of the group reacted but I think I remember none of them seemed particularly aware of what an absurd question that was.

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robertlagrant 3y ago
It may well have just been a deadpan joke full of deadpan teenagers, the first of whom to laugh is deemed the least cool.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  I've had an Irish friend once ask me if the moon we were looking at in Australia was the same one you could see from Ireland. Sadly it was a genuine question. Education in those parts seems lacking indeed. Another example: The same Irish person had a nephew who they helped prepare for a presentation about dinosaurs, mentioning they lived millions of years ago. They were told off by the teacher for spreading such "controversial" information. Church involvement in education is really a no-no IMO. At least if you want to learn more than fairytales.
vixen99 3y ago
And don't move on to numbers. Prior to the pandemic which had a devastating effect on school students' numeracy skills in the UK, it's reported millions of adults lack basic numeracy skills, with half of those of working age having the maths ability expected of a primary school child. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7725495/Half-adults-UK-maths-ability-primary-school-child-new-study-shows.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7725495/Half-adults...

scythe 3y ago

For all we lament the ban on nuclear power in Germany, we could certainly do to grouse a little more about the ban on onshore wind power in England.

stuaxo 3y ago

Liz truss's oil company friends must be spinning.

NeoTar 3y ago
Can we hook them up to a generator?

ngcc_hk 3y ago

How much one can project to use car battery as one of the major energy storage, given most car is actually sit rather than move.

wkat4242 3y ago
I agree but storage isn't useful if you can't use it. And most people expect their car to be ready when they need it. So all it's good for is to store energy for the car's own use. Which is already exactly what's happening when you plug it in to charge it. If I had a car I wouldn't be happy if I suddenly decided to go somewhere and the car was empty because it had just been releasing its stored energy to the grid. The whole point of owning a car is having transportation at any time you need it.

bertil 3y ago

This is cause for celebration, but it shouldn’t hide the reality that with more than 8 tons per person per year, the UK is in the top 5 most carbon-emitting countries. The country has significant agriculture or industry can justify such a highly polluting regime. In truth, the UK has horrendous insulation and burns a staggering amount of gas to heat houses made of pasta stainers and wet cardboard; people drive their ICE cars everywhere… There are simple measures that should have been mandatory a decade ago. Instead, the government is too busy arresting the scientists who can help —for the crime of standing there, no less— and handing over subsidies to companies that are making record profits and opening more gas wells. Far too many Britons dismiss the idea that they’ll be direct victims of climate unsettling. Every model I have seen highlights dire possibilities.

cbmuser 3y ago
> This is cause for celebration, but it shouldn’t hide the reality that with more than 8 tons per person per year, the UK is in the top 5 most carbon-emitting countries. The country has significant agriculture or industry can justify such a highly polluting regime. France has been proving for years how to decarbonize fast: > https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-emissions-by-sector?time=latest&country=~FRA https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-emissions-by-sector?t... > https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-emissions-by-sector?yScale=log&time=latest&country=~GBR https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-emissions-by-sector?y... > https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-emissions-by-sector?yScale=log&time=latest&country=~DEU https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-emissions-by-sector?y...
- ZeroGravitas 3y ago
  Possibly it's just on mobile, but the French graph seems to be on a completely different scale to the other two. Their agricultural emissions are higher than the UK for example, but at least for me that is far from obvious from the graphs.
fabrika 3y ago
> 8 tons per person per year, the UK is in the top 5 most carbon-emitting countries. Can you share your sources please? Here, for example, they claim that the UK produces 5.5 tons per person, not 8. Much less than, say, the US with 15 tons: https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-per-capita/ https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-pe...

KingOfCoders 3y ago

I like that interactive graph for power production in Germany: https://www.agora-energiewende.de/service/agorameter/chart/power_generation/08.05.2023/11.05.2023/today/ https://www.agora-energiewende.de/service/agorameter/chart/p...

andybak 3y ago

If only they could generate electricity from light drizzle.

HPsquared 3y ago
Hydroelectric!

PTOB 3y ago

This might be a first for electricity, but it's the second time for power.