3 ms·

Imported power is interesting as when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine for us, it’s the same for other countries bordering the North Sea. So if t

Imported power is interesting as when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine for us, it’s the same for other countries bordering the North Sea. So if they’ve gone green we’re all looking for electricity on those days and it’s expensive. And the reverse. On the days when we have too much wind and too much electricity prices drop to zero because we can’t export it for the same reason.

jillesvangurp 2y ago
There's a mix of solar, hydro, wind, and battery connected by cables. Weather effects tend to be localized. Continental calm, cloudy conditions are not that common and globally not a thing at all. Certainly not for longer periods of time. And weather and seasonal variation is reasonably predictable so that could be an opportunity to fire up some gas plants as a last resort. On the solution side there are a few more tools that might be deployed in the UK: - Demand shaping and price incentives. E.g. when to plugin your car or when to start charging it. Octopus is a big energy provider that is very active on this front. They are also the largest energy provider in the UK and they license their solution to others. So, the UK is ready for this. And with millions of connected users, they could shift a few GW in demand simply by fiddling with e.g. car charging schedules, boiler heating schedule, etc. - Localized pricing. This is a topic that is a bit sensitive in the UK. But effectively prices in Scotland are high when there is demand in the South; even though they are generating lots of wind that cannot be exported south because there is no cable capacity. So you get high prices (because the gas used down south is expensive) for energy combined with overproduction. Localized pricing would stimulate using the power closer to where it is generated. And it would incentivize investing in power generation where it is needed instead of in random places on the map. - Virtual power plants. Octopus is getting into this as well. This would add many GW of battery to their mix. The nice thing with these three solutions is that it doesn't require a huge investment in infrastructure and improves utilization of existing infrastructure.

jillesvangurp 2y ago

There's a mix of solar, hydro, wind, and battery connected by cables. Weather effects tend to be localized. Continental calm, cloudy conditions are not that common and globally not a thing at all. Certainly not for longer periods of time. And weather and seasonal variation is reasonably predictable so that could be an opportunity to fire up some gas plants as a last resort. On the solution side there are a few more tools that might be deployed in the UK: - Demand shaping and price incentives. E.g. when to plugin your car or when to start charging it. Octopus is a big energy provider that is very active on this front. They are also the largest energy provider in the UK and they license their solution to others. So, the UK is ready for this. And with millions of connected users, they could shift a few GW in demand simply by fiddling with e.g. car charging schedules, boiler heating schedule, etc. - Localized pricing. This is a topic that is a bit sensitive in the UK. But effectively prices in Scotland are high when there is demand in the South; even though they are generating lots of wind that cannot be exported south because there is no cable capacity. So you get high prices (because the gas used down south is expensive) for energy combined with overproduction. Localized pricing would stimulate using the power closer to where it is generated. And it would incentivize investing in power generation where it is needed instead of in random places on the map. - Virtual power plants. Octopus is getting into this as well. This would add many GW of battery to their mix. The nice thing with these three solutions is that it doesn't require a huge investment in infrastructure and improves utilization of existing infrastructure.