Energy infrastructure

Banana Republic 1

millb wrote: »

Interesting and one sided - but the horse industry is significant outside of Dublin. Re the local reporting: they need to be positive to off-shore Wind and speed-up landing the much needed Celtic Interconnector into that same E Cork / W Waterford area.

I guess pylons wouldn't spook horses. But NIBY works. That is our planning process and in fairness there is a good bit of WF curtailment so grid not performing...

And who benefits from the horse industry and how? $£ from TV, on-line gambling, arab-oil money, horse-meat all facilitated by power / technology / investment.

This group have set up a go fund me page who knows what will happen to those moneys if they get caught in the wind :rolleyes:

millb

Just looking at the curtailment and "dispatch down" of wind energy I see that this is increasing every year of late.

In other words generated wind power is not used due to "grid and other" transmission / planning / distribution / interconnect etc reasons.

https://www.eirgridgroup.com/site-files/library/EirGrid/2020-Qtrly-Wind-Dispatch-Down-Report.pdf

It appears since 2016 we have had 3%, then 4%, 6% (2018), 7.7% in 2019 and a massive 12% last year.

This is a wake-up call. No point in having windfarms if we are unable to use or export the energy.

Time for the pricing models to address supply and demand as well.

loyatemu

load of information here in a virtual exhibition about the Codling Bank wind project off Wicklow:
https://tours.innovision.ie/v/R81y7R2GjAd

tom1ie

millb wrote: »

Just looking at the curtailment and "dispatch down" of wind energy I see that this is increasing every year of late.

In other words generated wind power is not used due to "grid and other" transmission / planning / distribution / interconnect etc reasons.

https://www.eirgridgroup.com/site-files/library/EirGrid/2020-Qtrly-Wind-Dispatch-Down-Report.pdf

It appears since 2016 we have had 3%, then 4%, 6% (2018), 7.7% in 2019 and a massive 12% last year.

This is a wake-up call. No point in having windfarms if we are unable to use or export the energy.

Time for the pricing models to address supply and demand as well.

This is interesting and something I’d like to understand more.
Is that saying 12% of wind energy last year was generated but not used?
If so why?
Was it down to the grid not having the capacity to transmit peak wind from the west to the large load centres on the east coast?
Was the wind priced too high to find a buyer via the interconnectors?
Or was it a combination, ie both interconnectors are on the east side of the country so you have to transmit the electricity via the transmission grid to the interconnectors, so did we have a lack of capacity here and where we charging too much for it?
Interesting stuff.

ted1

tom1ie wrote: »

This is interesting and something I’d like to understand more.
Is that saying 12% of wind energy last year was generated but not used?
If so why?
Was it down to the grid not having the capacity to transmit peak wind from the west to the large load centres on the east coast?
Was the wind priced too high to find a buyer via the interconnectors?
Or was it a combination, ie both interconnectors are on the east side of the country so you have to transmit the electricity via the transmission grid to the interconnectors, so did we have a lack of capacity here and where we charging too much for it?
Interesting stuff.

Lots of reasons, generally it’s to do with the SNSP. Wind doesn’t have the same. Characteristics as thermal plant. Which is needed to keep the Frequency and Voltage at the set limits as such it needs to be curtailed when it reaches a set penetration limit.

Then there’s also n+1 capacity level, the lines need to be able the carry the load of another line goes down. So maintenance and outages would cause some curtailment

ted1

Apogee wrote: »

Norwegian energy giant spurned €1.5bn Irish pumped hydro power plan
https://www.independent.ie/business/irish/norwegian-energy-giant-spurned-15bn-irish-pumped-hydro-power-plan-36925962.html

Environmentalists would never allow it to happen

ted1

I always thought this would be good for Sandymount

tom1ie

ted1 wrote: »

Lots of reasons, generally it’s to do with the SNSP. Wind doesn’t have the same. Characteristics as thermal plant. Which is needed to keep the Frequency and Voltage at the set limits as such it needs to be curtailed when it reaches a set penetration limit.

Then there’s also n+1 capacity level, the lines need to be able the carry the load of another line goes down. So maintenance and outages would cause some curtailment

So yeah from your first paragraph are you saying due to wind generating more than the grid can handle it gets dumped yeah?
I understand fossil fuels are obv generated at 50hz but wing is obv erratic.

Which leads me to another question, what does the wind feed into to match the 50hz of the grid?
I presume an auto transformer to match voltage and some sort of large scale UPS that matches 50hz? Otherwise we’d end up with huge spikes and troughs getting pushed into the grid.

From the second paragraph where you mention n+1, would you imagine the reason more wind is getting dumped is because we have more wind being generated that the grid simply can’t handle due to the likes of the n+1 etc.

specialbyte

Please forgive my naive question. I (mostly) understand why they are curtailing wind power. We can't push too much power onto the grid if that would outstrip demand.

It just seems odd to me that is the preferred option. Most people who talk about getting to a net zero electricity grid talk a lot about energy storage. I know all of the energy storage mechanisms we have right now are kind of poor but why don't wind plants do local(-ish) energy storage via lithium ion batteries or hydrogen? It seems weird to turn the wind turbines off instead of doing something (anything) useful with the power that they would produce. Why are wind energy producers not opting to do something like hydrogen and then feed back into the grid later when they aren't being curtailed?

tom1ie

specialbyte wrote: »

Please forgive my naive question. I (mostly) understand why they are curtailing wind power. We can't push too much power onto the grid if that would outstrip demand.

It just seems odd to me that is the preferred option. Most people who talk about getting to a net zero electricity grid talk a lot about energy storage. I know all of the energy storage mechanisms we have right now are kind of poor but why don't wind plants do local(-ish) energy storage via lithium ion batteries or hydrogen? It seems weird to turn the wind turbines off instead of doing something (anything) useful with the power that they would produce. Why are wind energy producers not opting to do something like hydrogen and then feed back into the grid later when they aren't being curtailed?

More battery storage is coming on stream but it’s still way too low capacity.
Hydrogen should be looked at but I don’t think there’s much talk about it in the circles where there needs to be talk about it.

millb

tom1ie wrote: »

This is interesting and something I’d like to understand more.
Is that saying 12% of wind energy last year was generated but not used?
If so why?
Was it down to the grid not having the capacity to transmit peak wind from the west to the large load centres on the east coast?
Was the wind priced too high to find a buyer via the interconnectors?
Or was it a combination, ie both interconnectors are on the east side of the country so you have to transmit the electricity via the transmission grid to the interconnectors, so did we have a lack of capacity here and where we charging too much for it?
Interesting stuff.

I'm not an expert on this (and Eirgrid don't really give opinions being well paid to keep their heads down etc) but if you look to Feb wind when there was a good few 3 GW to 5GW max wind potential (eg daily predicted) you can see that when wind was in or around 4GW it dropped off (Curtailed) and never got near the peak prediction. At the same time both interconnectors were exporting close to full capacity (say 0.9 GW) and basically power is always fairly cheap (base price) when there is >2.5 GW wind being generated (ie no imports / usually interconnector exports). Note Power gets v expensive at 4 / 5 or 6pm when there is no wind.

The interconnectors seem to be doing their job much better in the past ~12 months (since the trading was tweaked) and you can see how they import / export to reflect daily supply / demand (balance).

Bottom line is that we need 2 or 3 more Interconnectors all switching to balance European / UK dynamics. IE exporting that surplus (wasted) 1 GW of wind which will be 2GW next year and that 12% waste will rise to 15 or 20% unless we build batteries & change the market - as it takes ~10 yrs to build an interconnector ..

millb

tom1ie wrote: »

More battery storage is coming on stream but it’s still way too low capacity.
Hydrogen should be looked at but I don’t think there’s much talk about it in the circles where there needs to be talk about it.

Is hydrogen ESB or Gas Networks? Only kidding it will come into the Nat Gas networks - the point I'm making is that there is a fear of developing too fast and we won't do anything (like take a risk and be ambitious) until Germany shows us the way..

Battery storage has started but small scale eg 100 MW - the Chinese may show us how to do bigger battery storage (in the midlands).

The Silvermines Hydro storage should have been built by now but 10 or 12 years on it's still just a sketch .......

ted1

tom1ie wrote: »

So yeah from your first paragraph are you saying due to wind generating more than the grid can handle it gets dumped yeah?
I understand fossil fuels are obv generated at 50hz but wing is obv erratic.

Which leads me to another question, what does the wind feed into to match the 50hz of the grid?
I presume an auto transformer to match voltage and some sort of large scale UPS that matches 50hz? Otherwise we’d end up with huge spikes and troughs getting pushed into the grid.

From the second paragraph where you mention n+1, would you imagine the reason more wind is getting dumped is because we have more wind being generated that the grid simply can’t handle due to the likes of the n+1 etc.

All electricity on the power system has to at the synchronised to the same frequency as its alternating Currebtbas oppose to DC.

n+1 is just one of the reasons. If we are moving 200 MW from Mayo to Dublin then we need 2 200MW line so that if one fails the other may take over and ensure security of supply. One of those lines could be out for maintenance or with a fault and constraints get applied

tom1ie

millb wrote: »

I'm not an expert on this (and Eirgrid don't really give opinions being well paid to keep their heads down etc) but if you look to Feb wind when there was a good few 3 GW to 5GW max wind potential (eg daily predicted) you can see that when wind was in or around 4GW it dropped off (Curtailed) and never got near the peak prediction. At the same time both interconnectors were exporting close to full capacity (say 0.9 GW) and basically power is always fairly cheap (base price) when there is >2.5 GW wind being generated (ie no imports / usually interconnector exports). Note Power gets v expensive at 4 / 5 or 6pm when there is no wind.

The interconnectors seem to be doing their job much better in the past ~12 months (since the trading was tweaked) and you can see how they import / export to reflect daily supply / demand (balance).

Bottom line is that we need 2 or 3 more Interconnectors all switching to balance European / UK dynamics. IE exporting that surplus (wasted) 1 GW of wind which will be 2GW next year and that 12% waste will rise to 15 or 20% unless we build batteries & change the market - as it takes ~10 yrs to build an interconnector ..

Yep this is basically my understanding also.

ted1

Two interconnecters in the works.
Green link = Wales and Ireland
Celtic interconnector= France and Ireland

Banana Republic 1

millb wrote: »

I'm not an expert on this (and Eirgrid don't really give opinions being well paid to keep their heads down etc) but if you look to Feb wind when there was a good few 3 GW to 5GW max wind potential (eg daily predicted) you can see that when wind was in or around 4GW it dropped off (Curtailed) and never got near the peak prediction. At the same time both interconnectors were exporting close to full capacity (say 0.9 GW) and basically power is always fairly cheap (base price) when there is >2.5 GW wind being generated (ie no imports / usually interconnector exports). Note Power gets v expensive at 4 / 5 or 6pm when there is no wind.

The interconnectors seem to be doing their job much better in the past ~12 months (since the trading was tweaked) and you can see how they import / export to reflect daily supply / demand (balance).

Bottom line is that we need 2 or 3 more Interconnectors all switching to balance European / UK dynamics. IE exporting that surplus (wasted) 1 GW of wind which will be 2GW next year and that 12% waste will rise to 15 or 20% unless we build batteries & change the market - as it takes ~10 yrs to build an interconnector ..

I reckon the forecast will bring heavy showers of NIMBY-ism followed by many politicians being struck down with cases NIMTO.

tom1ie

ted1 wrote: »

Two interconnecters in the works.
Green link = Wales and Ireland
Celtic interconnector= France and Ireland

Yeah Celtic interconnector is badly needed as a direct link to the Eu market. We probably need more connections to the Eu market also.

gjim

specialbyte wrote: »

Please forgive my naive question. I (mostly) understand why they are curtailing wind power. We can't push too much power onto the grid if that would outstrip demand.

It just seems odd to me that is the preferred option. Most people who talk about getting to a net zero electricity grid talk a lot about energy storage. I know all of the energy storage mechanisms we have right now are kind of poor but why don't wind plants do local(-ish) energy storage via lithium ion batteries or hydrogen? It seems weird to turn the wind turbines off instead of doing something (anything) useful with the power that they would produce. Why are wind energy producers not opting to do something like hydrogen and then feed back into the grid later when they aren't being curtailed?

There was a discussion here on derating a few weeks ago.

Wind turbines depreciate only when generating electricity. So it makes sense to turn them off when there is no/little demand for the generated electricity and prices are very low. A single turbine effectively has a finite generating life and it makes sense to use when demand is there.

Storage is preferable but only if costs are low enough. Otherwise just idling the turbines when their capacity is not needed isn't a bad option. Don't think about it like wasting fossil fuels - if you don't use the wind today, there's always going to be more of it in the near future.

It's actually inevitable that this will grow as more and more wind comes online. It's not a bad thing - wind is so cheap you can overprovision and the return on investment is not damaged by restricting generation when demand is low. And it results in a more stable grid. Until storage becomes super cheap and capacity grows enormously, this is the best we have at the moment.

tom1ie

gjim wrote: »

There was a discussion here on derating a few weeks ago.

Wind turbines depreciate only when generating electricity. So it makes sense to turn them off when there is no/little demand for the generated electricity and prices are very low. A single turbine effectively has a finite generating life and it makes sense to use when demand is there.

Storage is preferable but only if costs are low enough. Otherwise just idling the turbines when their capacity is not needed isn't a bad option. Don't think about it like wasting fossil fuels - if you don't use the wind today, there's always going to be more of it in the near future.

It's actually inevitable that this will grow as more and more wind comes online. It's not a bad thing - wind is so cheap you can overprovision and the return on investment is not damaged by restricting generation when demand is low. And it results in a more stable grid. Until storage becomes super cheap and capacity grows enormously, this is the best we have at the moment.

Imagine when storage actually becomes a thing!
Ireland will be very well placed indeed. (Provided we build all the capacity +storage+interconnectors)

Banana Republic 1

tom1ie wrote: »

Imagine when storage actually becomes a thing!
Ireland will be very well placed indeed. (Provided we build all the capacity +storage+interconnectors)

The two amigos NIMBY and NIMTO will need to be over come be that happens

https://avondhupress.ie/hundreds-of-submissions-sent-in-opposition-to-lyrenacarriga-wind-farm/

antoinolachtnai

tom1ie wrote: »

Imagine when storage actually becomes a thing!
Ireland will be very well placed indeed. (Provided we build all the capacity +storage+interconnectors)

If storage were straightforward we wouldn’t really need anything like the amount of transmission or interconnection. The problem is that storage is unlikely to be straightforward even with technological advances. There will be high losses and high up-front costs.

Sam Russell

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

If storage were straightforward we wouldn’t really need anything like the amount of transmission or interconnection. The problem is that storage is unlikely to be straightforward even with technological advances. There will be high losses and high up-front costs.

Storage in the shape of EV cars will be a possibility, as the use of smart feed-in tariffs would make it possible for EV owners to feed back into the grid and who might, for a financial benefit, be prepared to give up some flexibility of range. If 100,000 EV owners gave up 10 kwh of power to the grid, that is 1 GWh.

antoinolachtnai

Sam Russell wrote: »

Storage in the shape of EV cars will be a possibility, as the use of smart feed-in tariffs would make it possible for EV owners to feed back into the grid and who might, for a financial benefit, be prepared to give up some flexibility of range. If 100,000 EV owners gave up 10 kwh of power to the grid, that is 1 GWh.

That sounds great. But 1GWh is 330 MW for three hours. It’s very little in the overall context of the grid.

Sam Russell

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

That sounds great. But 1GWh is 330 MW for three hours. It’s very little in the overall context of the grid.

It would be small, but could shift a problem to when it is not a problem. Also, it would be three hours in twenty four hours. How long would Turlough Hill provide 330 GW for?

antoinolachtnai

Sam Russell wrote: »

It would be small, but could shift a problem to when it is not a problem. Also, it would be three hours in twenty four hours. How long would Turlough Hill provide 330 GW for?

Not long. But what are we trying to achieve here? If there is a week long lull in wind energy it won’t be much help for instance. If we just need some power to cover us between the wind and solar falling off and a gas (or coal) plant coming up to speed, then it will help, certainly.

antoinolachtnai

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

Not long. But what are we trying to achieve here? If there is a week long lull in wind energy it won’t be much help for instance.

Curios, has there ever been a week long period where there has been a lull in wind energy?

RandomViewer

Sam Russell wrote: »

Storage in the shape of EV cars will be a possibility, as the use of smart feed-in tariffs would make it possible for EV owners to feed back into the grid and who might, for a financial benefit, be prepared to give up some flexibility of range. If 100,000 EV owners gave up 10 kwh of power to the grid, that is 1 GWh.

The replacement of ICE for electric leaves a huge tax hole to be filled, expect EVs to be taxed to limit once they hit 25-30% of the car pool

antoinolachtnai

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Curios, has there ever been a week long period where there has been a lull in wind energy?

The last week has been quiet enough just to take a current example. I believe there have been more extreme lulls where generation stayed below 5 percent for up to 5 days. See fig 25.4 here. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.115.8634&rep=rep1&type=pdf

ted1

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Curios, has there ever been a week long period where there has been a lull in wind energy?

Lots in July and August

tom1ie

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

Not long. But what are we trying to achieve here? If there is a week long lull in wind energy it won’t be much help for instance. If we just need some power to cover us between the wind and solar falling off and a gas (or coal) plant coming up to speed, then it will help, certainly.

I’ve asked this before and didn’t get an answer, but at 300ft out at sea when there is a wind lull, what is the lowest potential energy that can be generated?