Scots windfarms paid cash to stop producing energy

Piwoslaw · 05-01-11, 02:55 PM

Scots windfarms paid cash to stop producing energy - BBC News

Quote:

The National Grid said the network had overloaded because high winds and heavy rain in Scotland overnight on 5 and 6 April produced more wind energy than it could use.

[...]

Dr Lee Moroney, planning director for the REF, which has criticised subsidies to the renewable sector in the past, said: "The variability of wind power poses grid management problems for which there are no cheap solutions.

"However, throwing the energy away, and paying wind farms handsomely for doing so, is not only costly but obviously very wasteful.

"Government must rethink the scale and pace of wind power development before the costs of managing it become intolerable and the scale of the waste scandalous."

[...]

[Mr Larque] also confirmed that the National Grid spent £280m balancing supply and demand.

A spokesman for the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC), described the incident as "unusual" and said more electrical storage was needed.

He added: "In future we need greater electrical energy storage facilities and greater interconnection with our EU neighbours so that excess energy supplies can be sold or bought where required."

I wonder how much energy storage (in flywheels, for example) could be had for the a few hundred million pounds spent in one evening just to balance the grid's load?

05-01-11, 04:04 PM

Flywheel storage would be a good idea there.

Don't they have a dump load of some kind?

Ryland · 05-01-11, 04:55 PM

With large scale wind turbines you don't use dump loads, you tend to just shut them down, part of why they work so well for meeting the energy demand is that they can be shut down and started up very quickly, so it sounds like poor management.

strider3700 · 05-01-11, 07:28 PM

With enough energy you can do almost anything. They could make gold from nothing if they wanted to. I'm sure there must be something useful that the world needs that they could throw that excess energy at. Even if it's just sucking in air and removing CO2 from it it's better then turning them off and wasting that energy.

tasdbois · 05-01-11, 09:25 PM

That article raised a question in my mind. What is the most cost effective way to store and reclaim energy on a large scale? Let's say for a few hours, or a few months. I guess the answers could be different. Is the cheapest net financial option just to shut the turbines down?

Piwoslaw · 05-01-11, 11:50 PM

Pumped-storage hydroelectricity is 70%-85% efficient, compressed air 70%, flywheels up to 90%, but the latter is definately smaller scale than the first two.

The article stated that normally excess power is pumped into England's grid, but this time a malfunction of some sort didn't allow that.

NeilBlanchard · 05-04-11, 07:15 AM

TOO MUCH renewable power? Now there is a good kind of problem to have...

Xringer · 05-04-11, 07:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

TOO MUCH renewable power? Now there is a good kind of problem to have...

Reminds me of the guy that had a bunch of solar PV on his roof,
connected to a grid-tied inverter (which was illegal in his country),
and his electric meter was the new LCD type, that won't run back-wards!!

Any PV power above what he was burning, went out to the grid and he was billed for it!
(Like he had Used that power).

05-01-11, 11:50 PM	#6
Piwoslaw Super Moderator Join Date: May 2009 Location: Warsaw, Poland Posts: 961 Thanks: 188 Thanked 110 Times in 86 Posts	Pumped-storage hydroelectricity is 70%-85% efficient, compressed air 70%, flywheels up to 90%, but the latter is definately smaller scale than the first two. The article stated that normally excess power is pumped into England's grid, but this time a malfunction of some sort didn't allow that. __________________ Ecorenovation - the bottomless piggy bank that tries to tame the energy hog.

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05-01-11, 04:04 PM	#2
Angmaar Guest Posts: n/a	Flywheel storage would be a good idea there. Don't they have a dump load of some kind?

05-01-11, 04:55 PM	#3
Ryland Master EcoRenovator Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Western Wisconsin. Posts: 913 Thanks: 127 Thanked 82 Times in 71 Posts	With large scale wind turbines you don't use dump loads, you tend to just shut them down, part of why they work so well for meeting the energy demand is that they can be shut down and started up very quickly, so it sounds like poor management.

05-01-11, 07:28 PM	#4
strider3700 Master EcoRenovator Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Vancouver Island BC Posts: 745 Thanks: 23 Thanked 37 Times in 30 Posts	With enough energy you can do almost anything. They could make gold from nothing if they wanted to. I'm sure there must be something useful that the world needs that they could throw that excess energy at. Even if it's just sucking in air and removing CO2 from it it's better then turning them off and wasting that energy.

05-01-11, 09:25 PM	#5
tasdbois Lurking Renovator Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Mirabel, QC Posts: 28 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	That article raised a question in my mind. What is the most cost effective way to store and reclaim energy on a large scale? Let's say for a few hours, or a few months. I guess the answers could be different. Is the cheapest net financial option just to shut the turbines down?

05-04-11, 07:15 AM	#7
NeilBlanchard Journeyman EcoRenovator Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Maynard, MA Eaarth Posts: 383 Thanks: 78 Thanked 39 Times in 32 Posts	TOO MUCH renewable power? Now there is a good kind of problem to have...