Energy infrastructure

tom1ie · 26-06-2021 7:16pm

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

Well you have to invest to make a transition. There is just no way around it.

A loan could be structured to have low repayments and to be recouped in full when the house is sold.

What if you don't plan on selling the house?

26-06-2021 8:03pm

tom1ie wrote: »

What if you don't plan on selling the house?

This is where carbon taxes come into play

You make the desired option as attractive as possible and the undesirable option you tax the hell out of it

antoinolachtnai · 26-06-2021 8:22pm

tom1ie wrote: »

What if you don't plan on selling the house?

The house will eventually change hands. On average a house charges hands every 25 years.

27-06-2021 1:28pm

Yellow_Fern wrote: »

Nuclear is the way to go.

From 1 page previous

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Nuclear will never be built in Ireland.

What locality do you put it in without insane objections?

What is the long term (multi-millennia) plan for the storage of the waste?

Where will the waste storage location be?

How will the waste be transported and what route will it take where that route won't be blocked by objectors not wanting the material to pass through their area?

Same as above for the unspent fuel.

How do you justify the spend on it when it's LCOE is way worse than alternatives?

Not much more to say other than it dies in the attempt to answer the questions above

liamog · 27-06-2021 2:47pm

tom1ie wrote: »

Again any savings made by having an EV are wiped out by the cost of monthly repayments on getting a loan for the EV.

What happens on month 37 when you own the vehicle?
Our first EV ended up being cost neutral for the first 36 months compared to the car it replaced, 18 months later and all those savings are straight into our pocket.

cnocbui · 27-06-2021 3:40pm

liamog wrote: »

What happens on month 37 when you own the vehicle?
Our first EV ended up being cost neutral for the first 36 months compared to the car it replaced, 18 months later and all those savings are straight into our pocket.

What were the two vehicles?

gjim · 28-06-2021 3:16pm

Yellow_Fern wrote: »

Nuclear is the way to go.

On the basis of what exactly?

Except for rooftop domestic PV (and I'm not a fan of it either), it's the most expensive way to generate electricity these days. Its glory days are well over - and in decline for the last 3 or 4 decades - until the 1980s, it was the cheapest. These days, it's not even in the ballpark of NG, never mind wind.

It is one of the least flexible of the "dispatchable" generation methods - nuclear works best producing a constant output so it presents a different problem of load matching than intermittants like wind but a problem nonetheless. If you want dispatchable, then a natural gas plant can be operational in a couple of years and is far more flexible.

It takes at least a decade, and regularly twice that, to construct a single nuclear power station. It's not unusual that the time between the initial idea and and actually generating power can be three decades. Wind, solar, hamster-power, anything takes a fraction of the time to build.

You have to build BIG because of the expense - typically more than 1GWe - which means you can't build just one. You need at least two (three ideally) so that you can do maintenance work, deal with unscheduled downtime, etc. without imposing nationwide blackouts.

Handling the fuel and spent fuel requires military levels of security and high engineering.

It's extremely unpopular among the public. While I prefer sticking to pure technical reasons, but this isn't an irrelevance. Even if it had some advantages, you'd be crazy to make nuclear a core part of a national energy strategy because wtf are you proposing to build the 2 stations? It completely ignores the political landscape.

All I see are negatives, the only positive is the lack of CO2 emissions. Nuclear is trounced by cheaper, simpler to construct alternatives in every other regard. And if CO2 is the concern, then it's a pressing concern - a solution that takes 10 to 30 years is just not at the races at all.

So could you list the advantages of nuclear? I just can't see any these days and I was fairly pro-nuclear myself unto about 5 years ago.

cnocbui · 28-06-2021 3:57pm

Nuclear is pretty close to carbon neutral. It means you don't need renewables.

Renewable generated electricity is usually referred to as low cost - but is that cost including the cost of having to provide dispatchable backup power in such a quantity it can meet the entire countries needs when Dunkelflaute strikes? I'll bet it doesn't, but it should.

dubhthach · 28-06-2021 5:32pm

Interesting blog post about a Frequency issue that hit the grid back in May. The two recently comissioned battery storage facilities responded in 180ms to help mitigate the issue:

https://www.current-news.co.uk/blogs/grid-services-support-battery-projects-stepping-up-and-supporting-the-grid

In May this year the Irish grid dropped below normal operating range (49.9Hz- 50.1Hz) for about 14 minutes. According to our data, it was the longest under-frequency event seen in years. Statkraft’s Kilathmoy and Kelwin-2 battery storage projects immediately stepped up to support the electricity grid, with data showing they provided an initial response to the event in just 180 milliseconds.

https://www.energy-storage.news/news/battery-storage-moved-to-protect-irelands-grid-in-the-blink-of-an-eye-as-fr

When the frequency of Ireland’s electricity grid dropped below normal operating range in May, two large-scale battery storage projects stepped in to help within 180 milliseconds, injecting power to help support and stabilise the network.

The Kilathmoy 11MW system — the Republic of Ireland’s first-ever grid-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) project — and the 26MW Kelwin-2 system, both built by Norwegian power company Statkraft, responded to the longest under-frequency event seen in the country in years as the grid went out of bounds of 49.9Hz - 50.1Hz for more than 14 minute

Capt'n Midnight · 28-06-2021 6:27pm

cnocbui wrote: »

Nuclear is pretty close to carbon neutral. It means you don't need renewables.

Renewable generated electricity is usually referred to as low cost - but is that cost including the cost of having to provide dispatchable backup power in such a quantity it can meet the entire countries needs when Dunkelflaute strikes? I'll bet it doesn't, but it should.

How many years does it take nuclear to become carbon neutral , from mine to waste repository ?
Please include the overhead of cancelled plants in your answer.

I'm still not convinced that nuclear isn't a fossil fuel powered battery for years and years given how much energy goes into things like concrete and isotope separation which don't show up in emissions. And there is the suspicion that some countries use nuclear to allow more coal to be burnt.

Here in Ireland minimum demand at night is half that during the day.
Nuclear needs to be backed up and load balanced by dispatchable plant, on top of that there is the need for spinning reserve matched to the largest generator on the grid.

Look at how France has oodles of hydro, load balances with Germany and most apartments use electrical heating to provide demand at night for nuclear. ( The UK also uses low rates at night to 'subsidise' nuclear )

Turlough Hill was built for Nuclear, but can now store renewable energy. The Silvermines project is of a similar size. We now have interconnectors to the North and to GB and probably soon enough to France.

bk · 28-06-2021 7:10pm

tom1ie wrote: »

The loan is an extra monthly repayment that you wouldn't have had before and the savings would have to cover the cost of the loan which unfortunately won't happen due to costs of materials going up etc.

Again any savings made by having an EV are wiped out by the cost of monthly repayments on getting a loan for the EV.

Well EV's are expected to hit price parity with ICE by 2025, which is less then 4 years away.

EV's already have a much lower total cost of ownership, due to lower running costs, but they become a complete no brainer when they cost the same upfront as an ICE car and have much lower running costs too.

As for homes, carbon pricing will make it well worth your while to insulate your home to save money with a cheap loan.

tom1ie · 28-06-2021 7:16pm

bk wrote: »

Well EV's are expected to hit price parity with ICE by 2025, which is less then 4 years away.

EV's already have a much lower total cost of ownership, due to lower running costs, but they become a complete no brainer when they cost the same upfront as an ICE car and have much lower running costs too.

As for homes, carbon pricing will make it well worth your while to insulate your home to save money with a cheap loan.

Agree with all this.
The problem is an ice car with no loan attached to it vs an EV (with decent range and fast charging) that you can’t buy without getting a loan.

EVS absolutely make sense if it’s new ICE vs new EV.

bk · 28-06-2021 8:21pm

tom1ie wrote: »

Agree with all this.
The problem is an ice car with no loan attached to it vs an EV (with decent range and fast charging) that you can’t buy without getting a loan.

EVS absolutely make sense if it’s new ICE vs new EV.

But that isn't really comparing like with like. If you go buy a brand new ICE car as many people do, that comes with a loan too, for most people.

If you mean you already have a paid off ICE car, sure no one is saying that you need to immediately chuck your old car, keep using it until it is naturally time to get a new car and when you do, get an EV then.

Though depending on your mileage, it can be worth moving sooner. Many folks over on the EV forum with long commutes have found the fuel savings have paid for themselves even with a loan, after just 3 years or so. And they get a brand new car, with all the modern bells and whistles and the nicer to drive experience of EV into the deal. Pretty sweet if you have a commute that suits this.

antoinolachtnai · 28-06-2021 8:39pm

All this renewable stuff requires new plant and lots of financing. From nuclear power stations to wind farms to EVs, the thing with the new technologies is that you have to pay the big nut up-front.

As opposed to a gas turbine or an ICE where you pay most of the cost over the life of the asset as you fill with petrol.

Capt'n Midnight · 28-06-2021 8:43pm

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

All this renewable stuff requires new plant and lots of financing. From nuclear power stations to wind farms to EVs, the thing with the new technologies is that you have to pay the big nut up-front.

As opposed to a gas turbine or an ICE where you pay most of the cost over the life of the asset as you fill with petrol.

Or you use finance.

For wind and solar it's fairly easy

Hydro and nuclear is trickier due to the timescales involved.

But gas is undercutting other fossil fuels and nuclear.

gjim · 28-06-2021 9:25pm

cnocbui wrote: »

Renewable generated electricity is usually referred to as low cost - but is that cost including the cost of having to provide dispatchable backup power in such a quantity it can meet the entire countries needs when Dunkelflaute strikes? I'll bet it doesn't, but it should.

To be fair, you do have a point there that simple cost per MWh which LCOE measures doesn't paint a full picture of the nature of the economics of electricity generation.

Unfortunately, trying to boil all the factors down to a single metric is impossible as the "value" provided by additional/new generation capacity depends heavily on local conditions including the existing generation mix, patterns of demand, storage capacities, etc. I tried to study it and came across this paper - https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf - the interesting numbers are on page 12 in the "Average value-cost ratio" column.

But even here "advanced nuclear" still scores poorly - I guess that because it can't be ramped up/down quickly, much of the electricity it generates is when demand/prices are low so the average "value" it provides is low. Of course intermittants have the same problem but because the cost of generation is so low, it isn't punished to the same extent.

Still, it's an interesting paper. The tldr conclusions are that there is little or no economic case to be made (subject to the caveats above wrt local conditions) for: coal, nuclear, biomass or offshore wind. I'm not surprised by biomass which I always thought was a bad idea but am a little that offshore wind is in the non-hoper group. I knew it was quite a bit more expensive than onshore but didn't realise the extent of how uncompetitive it is compared to the options. Then again, onshore wind only became super competitive in the last 10 years so maybe there's hope for offshore yet.

cnocbui · 28-06-2021 9:39pm

I think traditional big nuclear as per the UK's barmy Hinkley point contract is no longer the best option but think smaller scale modular factory volume built units as proposed by Rolls Royce are the way forward. They are estimating £50 per Mwh energu costs, and that they will rival renewables directly on a cost basis.

Should these actually be built and deployed at the proposed costs, the conversation will become more interesting. https://nuclear-news.net/2021/05/18/rolls-royce-plans-fleets-of-small-nuclear-reactors-at-approx-2billion-per-reactor-thats-approx-2-8billion-how-much-will-each-fleet-cost/

bk · 28-06-2021 9:57pm

cnocbui wrote: »

I think traditional big nuclear as per the UK's barmy Hinkley point contract is no longer the best option but think smaller scale modular factory volume built units as proposed by Rolls Royce are the way forward. They are estimating £50 per Mwh energu costs, and that they will rival renewables directly on a cost basis.

Should these actually be built and deployed at the proposed costs, the conversation will become more interesting. https://nuclear-news.net/2021/05/18/rolls-royce-plans-fleets-of-small-nuclear-reactors-at-approx-2billion-per-reactor-thats-approx-2-8billion-how-much-will-each-fleet-cost/

Lots of talk, little in the way of real world action.

I do hope it happens, but I wouldn't be putting any faith in it until someone actually starts up a real production line and starts building them at scale and starts installing a bunch of them.

I wouldn't go basing Irelands future energy needs on such untested ideas. If they ever do come to fruition, I'd expect a lot of them to pop up in somewhere like China first.

For now, I'd say it is a hope, along with Nuclear Fusion for the distant future.

Capt'n Midnight · 28-06-2021 10:09pm

cnocbui wrote: »

I think traditional big nuclear as per the UK's barmy Hinkley point contract is no longer the best option but think smaller scale modular factory volume built units as proposed by Rolls Royce are the way forward. They are estimating £50 per Mwh energu costs, and that they will rival renewables directly on a cost basis.

Should these actually be built and deployed at the proposed costs, the conversation will become more interesting. https://nuclear-news.net/2021/05/18/rolls-royce-plans-fleets-of-small-nuclear-reactors-at-approx-2billion-per-reactor-thats-approx-2-8billion-how-much-will-each-fleet-cost/

So why are they paying TWICE that for Hinkley C ?

If the £50 per Mwh is true they could run the old James Watt scheme of providing the steam engines free and just charge a % of the savings on the previous running costs.

Seriously they could save the remaining costs of construction AND another thirty billion.

https://www.ft.com/content/2c8e516a-d604-3129-a244-0a23f7206441

if we assume the current wholesale price (£50/MWh) is the average over the lifetime of the deal (35 years), then the cash cost for consumers is about twice (£15.5bn*2 =£31bn) the building cost given by EDF

Note : these numbers date from when it cost £16Bn to build , not the £23Bn it's now costing - nearly 50% more when inflation has only gone up 20%

bk · 28-06-2021 10:10pm

gjim wrote: »

Unfortunately, trying to boil all the factors down to a single metric is impossible as the "value" provided by additional/new generation capacity depends heavily on local conditions including the existing generation mix, patterns of demand, storage capacities, etc. I tried to study it and came across this paper - https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf - the interesting numbers are on page 12 in the "Average value-cost ratio" column.

It is an interesting paper, but worth noting that the EIA have been previously WAY off on the estimates of renewables, so I'd take it with a pinch of salt. Back in 2009 they predicted little growth in onshore wind and solar, as they predicted prices would stay high and not fall, obviously they were laughably wrong about that.

So hopefully they will be wrong about offshore wind too (obviously it will still be more expensive then onshore).

https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/article/government-estimates-on-renewables-are-way-off

28-06-2021 10:43pm

gjim wrote: »

I'm not surprised by biomass which I always thought was a bad idea but am a little that offshore wind is in the non-hoper group. I knew it was quite a bit more expensive than onshore but didn't realise the extent of how uncompetitive it is compared to the options. Then again, onshore wind only became super competitive in the last 10 years so maybe there's hope for offshore yet.

WRT off-shore, it is only just starting to get looked at with any real money behind it as loads of the viable onshore locations have been used. Granted there's still a some onshore capacity, but it is getting swallowed up rapidly.

Off-shore is going to accelerate rapidly over the next few years and will have a far more attractive LCOE within a few years as grants and tax exemptions switch to off-shore. Even in terms of Ireland alone, off-shore will far outnumber onshore by 2035

cnocbui · 28-06-2021 10:50pm

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

So why are they paying TWICE that for Hinkley C ?

If the £50 per Mwh is true they could run the old James Watt scheme of providing the steam engines free and just charge a % of the savings on the previous running costs.

Seriously they could save the remaining costs of construction AND another thirty billion.

https://www.ft.com/content/2c8e516a-d604-3129-a244-0a23f7206441Note : these numbers date from when it cost £16Bn to build , not the £23Bn it's now costing - nearly 50% more when inflation has only gone up 20%

The Hinkley contract and proposal is utter and complete madness. I am generally pro-nuclear, but I am adamantly against Hinkley.

Not only is it risible in terms of costs, but awarding the contract to the f*n Chinese amounts to stupidity bordering on treason, given the west will be engaged in hopefully limited military conflict with them inside of 20 years.

Why give China the money when you could be giving it to one and several of your own, in RR? The brits are barking mad.

antoinolachtnai · 28-06-2021 10:56pm

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Or you use finance.

For wind and solar it's fairly easy

Hydro and nuclear is trickier due to the timescales involved.

But gas is undercutting other fossil fuels and nuclear.

It’s only possible to finance wind, solar, hydro or nuclear with a price guarantee from the government.

All these sources require large scale government intervention and guarantees in order to obtain financing.

Carbon pricing (ETS) is driving everything other than gas out of business.

To go back to cars, every EV sold needs all this investment in renewables in the background in order to make the car’s emissions low.

antoinolachtnai · 28-06-2021 11:02pm

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

So why are they paying TWICE that for Hinkley C ?

If the £50 per Mwh is true they could run the old James Watt scheme of providing the steam engines free and just charge a % of the savings on the previous running costs.

Seriously they could save the remaining costs of construction AND another thirty billion.

https://www.ft.com/content/2c8e516a-d604-3129-a244-0a23f7206441Note : these numbers date from when it cost £16Bn to build , not the £23Bn it's now costing - nearly 50% more when inflation has only gone up 20%

These SMRs are a great idea in principle. The main problem with them is that no one has successfully designed and built a fleet of them (that is anything like economic for a national electricity market).

Hinkley is what is perceived can be built with technology that is available today. The UK needs new energy sources PDQ. Their judgement is that this is the best thing they can get. You can fault it certainly but it isn’t completely off the wall.

Capt'n Midnight · 28-06-2021 11:22pm

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

These SMRs are a great idea in principle. The main problem with them is that no one has successfully designed and built a fleet of them (that is anything like economic for a national electricity market).

Whole fleet of decommissioned SMR's. The technology has existed since the 1950's but it's still not remotely close to current wholesale prices.

More info here

Hinkley is what is perceived can be built with technology that is available today. The UK needs new energy sources PDQ. Their judgement is that this is the best thing they can get. You can fault it certainly but it isn’t completely off the wall.

100% the UK need new power sources. Most of the existing reactors are close to end of life.

But the plans were for six new power plants. Nuclear isn't quick to roll out. Nuclear isn't the answer for the UK's short term needs , it's too little , too late.

Capt'n Midnight · 28-06-2021 11:29pm

cnocbui wrote: »

Not only is it risible in terms of costs, but awarding the contract to the f*n Chinese amounts to stupidity bordering on treason, given the west will be engaged in hopefully limited military conflict with them inside of 20 years.

Why give China the money when you could be giving it to one and several of your own, in RR? The brits are barking mad.

China now own the steel plant that makes the UK railway tracks, and may be involved in H2S funding. So more chickens may be coming back to roost.

30-06-2021 9:12am

Deleted User wrote: »

WRT off-shore, it is only just starting to get looked at with any real money behind it as loads of the viable onshore locations have been used. Granted there's still a some onshore capacity, but it is getting swallowed up rapidly.

Off-shore is going to accelerate rapidly over the next few years and will have a far more attractive LCOE within a few years as grants and tax exemptions switch to off-shore. Even in terms of Ireland alone, off-shore will far outnumber onshore by 2035

Ahh, come on. Would hardly describe 5.5k offshore turbines over ~120 windfarms already installed and >€26 Billion in new investment in Europe last year alone as "just starting to get looked at with any real money behind it"

Subsidies are on the way out, Offshore wind achieved its goal of being cheaper than "new" CCGT generation a few years ago. When almost everywhere else is cutting or removing subsidies completely, we have increases in the PSO levy to support what are now essentially mature generation technology's, great little country we have.

Apogee · 01-07-2021 1:01pm

Meanwhile, in Ireland...

RTE News wrote:

The Government is working legislation through the Oireachtas to provide emergency electricity generation for Dublin in the event of a supply shortage.

The Department of the Environment said amendments to the Planning & Development Act have been approved, "which are currently being considered by the Oireachtas, to ensure temporary generation could be permitted in a timely manner if required".

It also warned that electricity generation capacity "compared to demand is reducing due to decreased levels of availability of some power stations, high-emission power stations closing, a limited amount of replacement dispatchable generation capacity being constructed and growing electricity demand".

It is understood that the ESB plans to install temporary generators on a brownfield site at North Wall in Dublin.

The move to ensure a back-up temporary electricity supply comes as two key gas-fired power stations in Dublin and Cork are out of operation and are not due to be back online until the October or November.

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2021/0701/1232426-electricity-supply/

dubhthach · 01-07-2021 4:49pm

Given the faults in Whitegate and Huntstown there's something like 840MW of gas powered capacity offline, in case of Whitegate worse case scenario is early 2022 before it comes back online.

liamog · 01-07-2021 4:54pm

Seems like a sensible strategy, in the event that a major power provider is taken out it makes sense for planning regs to allow temporary power generation to be quickly added to the grid.

The Department of the Environment said amendments to the Planning & Development Act have been approved, "which are currently being considered by the Oireachtas, to ensure temporary generation could be permitted in a timely manner if required".

Energy infrastructure

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