Uk Electricity Generation, Should We Be Worried.

[Delbow]

Portugal is one of the leading countries in renewable energy generation - their charts are like an inversion of the UK, with 70% of electricity generated from renewable sources in 2023 https://www.apren.pt/en/renewable-energies/production

 

Is it reasonable to assume that this means they have more fossil fuel back up capacity than we do because they're less reliant on it for day to day power, or is that naive?

[Organgrinder]

1 hour ago, Delbow said:

Portugal is one of the leading countries in renewable energy generation - their charts are like an inversion of the UK, with 70% of electricity generated from renewable sources in 2023 https://www.apren.pt/en/renewable-energies/production

 

Is it reasonable to assume that this means they have more fossil fuel back up capacity than we do because they're less reliant on it for day to day power, or is that naive?

I would agree with that.   We did a fair bit in a short time but have slackened off since,  and our green efforts are all talk now.

Congrats to Portugal for showing how it should be done whilst our politicians play the pretend game.

 

[HallamGirl]

23 hours ago, Arthur Ritus said:

I look at those generation figures a lot winter time when there's no wind (sad perhaps, but i find it interesting) and I have never seen gas use that high, I didn't really believe we had that much.

For what it's worth, it looks like both Heysham 1 and Hartelpool nuclear power stations are unexpectedly offline for steam valve investigations, and not due to come back online for a few weeks yet, whilst one of the reactors at Heysham 2 is down for scheduled refuelling. So in total we're missing about half our nuclear capacity at the minute, or just short of 3GW, so it has to be made up for with gas I suppose, especially as solar (and wind as it happens) are in short supply at the minute with the short daylight hours,

Generating status - EDF nuclear power stations (edfenergy.com)

Edited January 12 by HallamGirl
Typo

[Delbow]

I was interested by how much hydro energy Portugal are producing, about 50% of their electricity production in December. Seems they using hydro as a form of battery storage for wind and solar - when wind and solar are producing excess, they use this to pump water back behind a dam, and then when wind and solar are under-producing, they let the water out from the dam through turbines to produce electricity https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/03/business/energy-environment/portugal-hydroelectric-power-renewable-energy.html

 

There were plans to use similar 'kinetic battery' solutions in the UK but instead of using water, the excess wind and solar on good days would wind a weight up a disused coal shaft and then drop it to produce electricity on low generation days. I don't know where this idea got to, looks like we might need to be generating more of our supply through renewables for this to make a big difference?

[HallamGirl]

4 minutes ago, Delbow said:

I was interested by how much hydro energy Portugal are producing, about 50% of their electricity production in December. Seems they using hydro as a form of battery storage for wind and solar - when wind and solar are producing excess, they use this to pump water back behind a dam, and then when wind and solar are under-producing, they let the water out from the dam through turbines to produce electricity https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/03/business/energy-environment/portugal-hydroelectric-power-renewable-energy.html

 

There were plans to use similar 'kinetic battery' solutions in the UK but instead of using water, the excess wind and solar on good days would wind a weight up a disused coal shaft and then drop it to produce electricity on low generation days. I don't know where this idea got to, looks like we might need to be generating more of our supply through renewables for this to make a big difference?

There is a pumped storage scheme in Wales at Dinorwig, which does exactly what you mentioned in your first paragraph (though typically it pumps back up overnight using surplus nuclear power rather than wind/solar). There is an exhibition called Electric Mountain which takes you inside the power station, which is built inside an old slate quarry - it's really fascinating, and interesting to note how quickly they can bring up to 1.8GW of power online from pretty much a flat start in a matter of seconds to cope with TV pickup (advert break in Corrie, half time in an England world cup game, that sort of thing !).

There are plans to build a smaller 50MW scheme in another disused slate mine, but I'm not sure where that's got to.

[Findlay]

I've had a weather station up for a few years now to monitor wind speed locally and it averages at 1-2 metres per second. To start turning over a wind turbine it needs 4m/s and optimal generation at 6m/s so no chance of it being sustainable for domestic premises. Lots of European countries use hydro electric where they have mountainous areas and not sure if we have many in place on our dams, reservoirs & rivers.

https://www.sheffieldrenewables.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Sheffield-Renewables-Weir-Survey-Energy-Modelling.pdf

It's a while since the hydro power research on the River Don etc but its still active.
 

 

Edited January 12 by Findlay

[Delbow]

39 minutes ago, HallamGirl said:

There is a pumped storage scheme in Wales at Dinorwig, which does exactly what you mentioned in your first paragraph (though typically it pumps back up overnight using surplus nuclear power rather than wind/solar). There is an exhibition called Electric Mountain which takes you inside the power station, which is built inside an old slate quarry - it's really fascinating, and interesting to note how quickly they can bring up to 1.8GW of power online from pretty much a flat start in a matter of seconds to cope with TV pickup (advert break in Corrie, half time in an England world cup game, that sort of thing !).

There are plans to build a smaller 50MW scheme in another disused slate mine, but I'm not sure where that's got to.

Thanks!

[El Cid]

I wonder if the energy from solar panels that is used directly by the home/work owner is calculated in the figures?

[Annie Bynnol]

42 minutes ago, HallamGirl said:

There is a pumped storage scheme in Wales at Dinorwig, which does exactly what you mentioned in your first paragraph (though typically it pumps back up overnight using surplus nuclear power rather than wind/solar). There is an exhibition called Electric Mountain which takes you inside the power station, which is built inside an old slate quarry - it's really fascinating, and interesting to note how quickly they can bring up to 1.8GW of power online from pretty much a flat start in a matter of seconds to cope with TV pickup (advert break in Corrie, half time in an England world cup game, that sort of thing !).

There are plans to build a smaller 50MW scheme in another disused slate mine, but I'm not sure where that's got to.

   Technically it cannot supply power at 1.8 GW for more than four minutes. 

   The function of Dinorwig and other pumped storage schemes in the UK is the much more important task to regulate frequency at exactly 50Hz. 

   The closure of its two feeder nuclear power stations at nearby Wylfa and Trawsfynydd, cost of transmission from very distant nuclear power stations has changed the economics drastically. Using and regulating wind power from the enormous wind farms in Liverpool Bay has become its primary function.

[HallamGirl]

3 hours ago, Annie Bynnol said:

   Technically it cannot supply power at 1.8 GW for more than four minutes. 

   The function of Dinorwig and other pumped storage schemes in the UK is the much more important task to regulate frequency at exactly 50Hz. 

   The closure of its two feeder nuclear power stations at nearby Wylfa and Trawsfynydd, cost of transmission from very distant nuclear power stations has changed the economics drastically. Using and regulating wind power from the enormous wind farms in Liverpool Bay has become its primary function.

You may be right (though I've not read about the 4 minute limit anywhere). The storage capacity is 9.5GWh, which suggests it can run at more or less full tilt for nearly 6 hours, though I remember from the tour they said it was used mainly to shore up the frequency during the 5-7pm peak. That said, it runs for something like 12 hours a day at varying levels of output now, having been originally designed back in the 70s for 2 to 4 hours per day, as you can see that from the graphs on the original linked webpage.