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The article does not provide any details about wind energy that was left "unharvested" (ie enough wind, but turbines intentionally braking) whenever it would no

by Rygian 2y ago

The article does not provide any details about wind energy that was left "unharvested" (ie enough wind, but turbines intentionally braking) whenever it would not be feasible to store it for later consumption. I do not know if that is a large issue in the context of Britain, considering the 5.6 GW of hydro storage capacity it has. https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/GB?lang=en https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/GB?lang=en

ragebol 2y ago
> 5.6 GW of hydro storage capacity The unit police issues you a warning! Storage is measured in watt-hours (or Joules), so 5.6 GWh in this case?
- benj111 2y ago
  But watts are defined as Joules/second so it should be (Giga)Joules/second/hour
  - otisv 2y ago
    A (Giga) Watt-hour is Watts multiplied by hours, not divided! Joules are the SI unit of energy, so you must multiply the wattage by an amount of time to get back an energy.
- Rygian 2y ago
  The unit police is technically correct (best kind of correct), but has no jurisdiction here. The synonym police is on duty here: the word "capacity" was a poor choice leading to ambiguity. A better choice would have been "ability to absorb up to 5.6 GW with the hydro storage infrastructure."
pxdm 2y ago
The vast majority of wind that is unharvested is curtailed due to constraints on the transmission network between Scotland (lots of wind) and England (lots of demand). There is a significant amount of pumped hydro (and battery storage) in Scotland to help in these instances but there are still enormous costs associated with curtailment (approx. £1 billion per year).
- sambeau 2y ago
  Pumped Hydro and battery storage are a drop in the ocean of the amount of storage needed to secure the grid, especially as people shift to electric cars.
  - Someone 2y ago
    Why “especially”? Demand for electricity will go up a lot, but people buy electric cars with much larger batteries than they need most of the time. So, many people would be able to postpone charging their cars. Steep variable pricing easily would make them do that.
    - sambeau 2y ago
      Especially, because most energy used is currently not electricity:it fossil fuels. We need 4x for a zero-carbon grid and to be secure we need over a week's stored electricity: 10s of TWh. The plan for the UK grid has 50 Two in it. Will people really postpone charging their car for a week if they hit a cold still week in January?
  - rjwilmsi 2y ago
    I take the opposite view - as more people have electric cars there are more batteries available. With some sort of dynamic pricing, and bearing in mind most commuter mileage needs only 1 full charge a week, you could encourage consumers to charge up when it's windy and/or hold off charging when it's not, so better matching demand to supply and reducing curtailment.
    - kwhitefoot 2y ago
      This is already a thing in some places. In Norway we have spot pricing of electricity, market price hour by hour. This means that it's possible to have a contract that lets you pay the market price at the time you use the electricity (timespotavtale). Even with the usual contract (spotprisavtale) where you pay the average price each day you can see that price (set by Nordpool) by looking on line or by subscribing to a service that notifies you when the price drops and decide whether or not to charge the car. The Nordpool price today in the region where I live is 0.80 NOK/kWh, that's 0.074 GBP/kWh or 0.056 USD/kWh. https://strøm.no/dagens-str%C3%B8mpris https://strøm.no/dagens-str%C3%B8mpris

by Rygian 2y ago

ragebol 2y ago

> 5.6 GW of hydro storage capacity The unit police issues you a warning! Storage is measured in watt-hours (or Joules), so 5.6 GWh in this case?

benj111 2y ago
But watts are defined as Joules/second so it should be (Giga)Joules/second/hour
- otisv 2y ago
  A (Giga) Watt-hour is Watts multiplied by hours, not divided! Joules are the SI unit of energy, so you must multiply the wattage by an amount of time to get back an energy.
Rygian 2y ago
The unit police is technically correct (best kind of correct), but has no jurisdiction here. The synonym police is on duty here: the word "capacity" was a poor choice leading to ambiguity. A better choice would have been "ability to absorb up to 5.6 GW with the hydro storage infrastructure."

pxdm 2y ago

The vast majority of wind that is unharvested is curtailed due to constraints on the transmission network between Scotland (lots of wind) and England (lots of demand). There is a significant amount of pumped hydro (and battery storage) in Scotland to help in these instances but there are still enormous costs associated with curtailment (approx. £1 billion per year).

sambeau 2y ago
Pumped Hydro and battery storage are a drop in the ocean of the amount of storage needed to secure the grid, especially as people shift to electric cars.
- Someone 2y ago
  Why “especially”? Demand for electricity will go up a lot, but people buy electric cars with much larger batteries than they need most of the time. So, many people would be able to postpone charging their cars. Steep variable pricing easily would make them do that.
  - sambeau 2y ago
    Especially, because most energy used is currently not electricity:it fossil fuels. We need 4x for a zero-carbon grid and to be secure we need over a week's stored electricity: 10s of TWh. The plan for the UK grid has 50 Two in it. Will people really postpone charging their car for a week if they hit a cold still week in January?
- rjwilmsi 2y ago
  I take the opposite view - as more people have electric cars there are more batteries available. With some sort of dynamic pricing, and bearing in mind most commuter mileage needs only 1 full charge a week, you could encourage consumers to charge up when it's windy and/or hold off charging when it's not, so better matching demand to supply and reducing curtailment.
  - kwhitefoot 2y ago
    This is already a thing in some places. In Norway we have spot pricing of electricity, market price hour by hour. This means that it's possible to have a contract that lets you pay the market price at the time you use the electricity (timespotavtale). Even with the usual contract (spotprisavtale) where you pay the average price each day you can see that price (set by Nordpool) by looking on line or by subscribing to a service that notifies you when the price drops and decide whether or not to charge the car. The Nordpool price today in the region where I live is 0.80 NOK/kWh, that's 0.074 GBP/kWh or 0.056 USD/kWh. https://strøm.no/dagens-str%C3%B8mpris https://strøm.no/dagens-str%C3%B8mpris