Chris, have you looked at Australia. Would be interesting to see your analysis of a sun drenched, and largely uninhabited continent, bless with the resources to make solar/wind + storage the most feasible.
This guys says 5hrs storage to be a very high percentage renewable, which should be feasible.
I have not previously looked at Aus in any detail.
But I have now taken a look at David Osmond's Twatter feed you kindly pointed me to.
He has taken a similar approach to me, using real data with a resolution of 30 minutes (Gridwatch data resolution is 5 minutes. But that shouldn't invalidate the analysis.)
Down the comments he links to a summary from 03 Mar 2020 [linked ** below] based on 3 years' of real data from the National Electricity Market (NEM) Nov 2016-2019.
Aus total demand seemed to vary between ~20,000 and ~29,000 MW (his Figure 7, 1/11/2018 to 30/10/2019). So it's approx. two thirds the size of the UK's.
His modelling is based on:
– NEM Demand, no rescaling, same as Nov 2016-2019 [CB comment: ok]
– NEM wind increase from ~7 GW to 38 GW... [CB comment: i.e. 540% of current Aus wind]
... generating 62% of NEM demand [CB comment: on average]
– Utility PV increase from 2.7 GW to 16 GW... [CB comment: i.e. 590% of current Aus utility solar]
... generating 18% of NEM demand [CB comment: on average]
– Rooftop PV increase from ~9.5 GW to 35 GW... [CB comment: i.e. 370% of current Aus rooftop solar: up-take driver being levels of subsidies?]
... generating 23% of NEM demand [CB comment: on average]
"To help match supply and demand on a 30-minute basis for most days over the three-year period, it was found that 24GW / 81GWh of short-term storage was required."
[CB comment: ok, if that's what the analysis says... but remember all the above multiples of capacity are needed also.]
"For interconnectors, the following were assumed:
– Energy Connect interconnector from SA to NSW (800 MW);
– Marinus stage 1 (750 MW VIC-TAS);
– QNI Medium Upgrade (885/760 MW);
– Interconnectors upgraded with Stage 1 recommendations from ISP (moderate increase in NSW-QLD and VIC-SA transfer limits)."
[CB comment: ok, interconnectors between states in a Federal system may work. But distances across Aus are huge, so those interconnectors are not going to be cheap.]
Figure 3 makes clear that storage needs to be distributed throughout Aus:
- 3 million residential batteries 18,000 MW / 36,000 MWh [CB comment: 6kW / 12 kWh each on average... is that realistic? I don't know. Levels of subsidies again.]
- 10 million EVs x 10% = 50,000 MWh [CB comment: 5 kWh of each / 50 kWh of 10% of EVs made available to the NEM]
Yes, maybe it's feasible, but there is a looooong way to go with a *lot* of investment needed to get there. Would it be a better use of that money to build one or two or ... nuclear plants instead?
Chris, thanks so much for looking at this, it was your analysis of the UK situation that got me really interested in this topic in the Australian context. One would hope various experts in Government/regulators are all over this topic, but I have my doubts.
A smallish, not super sunny (but windy), would intuitively need immense storage to manage the long dark winters, even if enough PV/wind was installed.
Australia on the other hand, immense, sparse, sunny and windy, if it can't work here, surely it can't work anywhere. So its seems it can, and even the eye-watering cost is nothing compared to what we can blow (half a trillion on covid support for example).
Nuclear is ironically banned in Australia, and the argument is always that it is too late now to mitigate carbon by building it now, too expensive etc. The right time to build it was 20 year ago.
The debate is now raging in Australia, with the recently deposed Liberal party taking up the nuclear position after being in power for 9 years and ruling it out during that time. Disingenuous to take it up in opposition.
We have a recently elected group of independents passionate about climate, but also very anti-nuclear, taking the position that storage + solar/wind is the answer.
This is a very expensive and critical answer to an important question, and I'd really like our leadership to walk us through the various options without the ideology and politics, which seems to bring any debate to an early demise.
Thanks again for looking at the Aussie context. I just broad stroke it, and think tens of millions of long range EVs, green hydrogen (from massive power input), green steel and cement etc, and the massive energy requirements, and the abatement of our enormous agricultural/fertiliser industry, and that the obvious answer is - all of the above, including long term nuclear is needed.
I am always surprised that the truly passionate about climate are also anti-nuclear arguing too expensive and too slow, at any moment in time.
Re: "I'd really like our leadership to walk us through the various options without the ideology and politics".
That's what I kept waiting for before I began my substacking. Instead I kept seeing only lobby-driven unicorn-powered dreaming presented as policy.
Then I retired and once freed from the risk of Corporate disapproval of anything straying from the 'green is good' narrative, started crunching the numbers for myself.
yeah, we are possibly heading down the unicorn path, without even the potential for nuclear power as a possibility. It is a big thing to get this wrong, and the fact that no country so far is 100% renewable plus storage (without a base of Hydro/Nuclear) rings alarm bells for this engineer. I'm very underwhelmed by the people presenting this case, and it is rare to get detailed and rigorous analysis unattached to a desired outcome.
I can't help but admire German engineering and attention to detail, but even these smart people appear to have got it so wrong. I do not see any of this capability in Australia.
Chris, I've just noticed your excellent "Chart ‘21+E-1: 100% of current wind, 100% of current solar, for 2021+" is labelled "UKplc" whereas the data is 'GBplc' [Gridwatch (Elexon's) data doesn't cover NI]
Gridwatch does include the Moyle Interconnector to N Ireland but that's just me waffling to try to cover my error. Except I doubt it would change the analysis materially.
"Funding construction of new nuclear power plants as strategic national assets should also include transparent budgeting for decommissioning at the end of the ~60-year design life."
Funding of Hinkley C's decommissioning is explained in section 5.3 here:
A "like" for: "HM Gov should fully fund basic home improvements." This feels like a massive all-round win. (Of course, it way well be funded in an unfriendly way, e.g. increasing the electricity standing charge even more.)
I had a crazy idea. Imagine we all had electric cars. Government would suffer massive income loss due to fuel duty. It could replace it with duty on electricity. Sounds bad? But they could do so in a hugely progressive taxation way, like income tax. The first X amount of electricity is tax free, this should be enough for basic heating and lighting at home, the next is tax at a lower band, this would cover a medium sized house with an average commute in the car. Any further consumption is taxed at a higher rate.
The House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts report of 23Feb'22 says Gov is basically clueless as to 'how it will fund the transition to net zero, including how it will deliver policy on and replace income from taxes such as fuel duty'
Road pricing is being touted as a solution. The more you drive on the more popular / congested roads the more you pay.
Ultimately the Gov is very unlikely to shrink to accommodate the shrinking revenues. Instead it will think up new and depressingly-complex ways of taxing everyone.
Fuel duty is currently 57.95 pence per litre, plus 20% VAT is charged on the forecourt price. That's a lot Rishi will want to claw back one way or another.
My personal view: EVs will remain high-cost, only well-off people will be able to afford them.
I think taxpayer subsidies should first benefit the most needy in our population.
People in energy poverty won't be helped by Gov loans. They need insulation in the roof-spaces of their homes if it's not there already, and cavity wall insulation, paid for by us tax-payers.
And I completely agree, don't hammer them instead with higher 'green' levies on bills.
I like the analysis of how many MWhrs of fossil fuel are needed if there is no storage. I note 100million MWhrs with current wind and solar, but what would that figure be with x2 wind and x2 solar? I get that it won’t be zero, hence the negativity on netzero concept. But how far off would it actually be? The enemy of the good is the perfect after all. I.e, ditch netzero for now and go for say net20%, with gas storage being used to deal with the dips in renewable output whilst still cutting 80% of our carbon emissions.
My point was that wind current produced 35% of the electricity we consume over a year. So let’s double that and it may well be able to produce 50% over the year. The additional capacity is then either sold abroad, or waster, hardly any stored. Another 15% from nuclear, 15% from solar, biomass, hydro and imports, leaving fossil fuels to pick up a mere 20%. Yes it will be erratic, sometimes zero and sometimes maybe 50% but that doesn’t matter, gas is cheap to store and easy to wind up and down. This gets us 80% of the way to netzero with hardly any fuss at all. That final 20% is gonna be tough, as Chris points out, larger storage, much more renewables (with wasted output) more nuclear, smart grid and imports, all tough things to do.
Hello Alastair, I explored adding more and more wind in posts 1 / 2, and 4 times more solar in this post. I have not tried to 'model' to find an optimum because I cannot find believable cost info.
" I note 100million MWhrs with current wind and solar, but what would that figure be with x2 wind and x2 solar?"
During July 2021, Britain's then approx 25.6GW of wind capacity generated at ~10% Capacity Factor over the entire month. So 2x that capacity is unlikely to generate at significanty much more than 10%. ;-)
Chris, have you looked at Australia. Would be interesting to see your analysis of a sun drenched, and largely uninhabited continent, bless with the resources to make solar/wind + storage the most feasible.
This guys says 5hrs storage to be a very high percentage renewable, which should be feasible.
https://twitter.com/DavidOsmond8/status/1539458196187648001?s=20&t=C32SVYboUvz6VYjdKr-0iw
Hello Paul, thank you.
I have not previously looked at Aus in any detail.
But I have now taken a look at David Osmond's Twatter feed you kindly pointed me to.
He has taken a similar approach to me, using real data with a resolution of 30 minutes (Gridwatch data resolution is 5 minutes. But that shouldn't invalidate the analysis.)
Down the comments he links to a summary from 03 Mar 2020 [linked ** below] based on 3 years' of real data from the National Electricity Market (NEM) Nov 2016-2019.
Aus total demand seemed to vary between ~20,000 and ~29,000 MW (his Figure 7, 1/11/2018 to 30/10/2019). So it's approx. two thirds the size of the UK's.
His modelling is based on:
– NEM Demand, no rescaling, same as Nov 2016-2019 [CB comment: ok]
– NEM wind increase from ~7 GW to 38 GW... [CB comment: i.e. 540% of current Aus wind]
... generating 62% of NEM demand [CB comment: on average]
– Utility PV increase from 2.7 GW to 16 GW... [CB comment: i.e. 590% of current Aus utility solar]
... generating 18% of NEM demand [CB comment: on average]
– Rooftop PV increase from ~9.5 GW to 35 GW... [CB comment: i.e. 370% of current Aus rooftop solar: up-take driver being levels of subsidies?]
... generating 23% of NEM demand [CB comment: on average]
"To help match supply and demand on a 30-minute basis for most days over the three-year period, it was found that 24GW / 81GWh of short-term storage was required."
[CB comment: ok, if that's what the analysis says... but remember all the above multiples of capacity are needed also.]
"For interconnectors, the following were assumed:
– Energy Connect interconnector from SA to NSW (800 MW);
– Marinus stage 1 (750 MW VIC-TAS);
– QNI Medium Upgrade (885/760 MW);
– Interconnectors upgraded with Stage 1 recommendations from ISP (moderate increase in NSW-QLD and VIC-SA transfer limits)."
[CB comment: ok, interconnectors between states in a Federal system may work. But distances across Aus are huge, so those interconnectors are not going to be cheap.]
Figure 3 makes clear that storage needs to be distributed throughout Aus:
- existing pumped hydro storage 1,400 MW / 25,000 MWh
- 3 million residential batteries 18,000 MW / 36,000 MWh [CB comment: 6kW / 12 kWh each on average... is that realistic? I don't know. Levels of subsidies again.]
- 10 million EVs x 10% = 50,000 MWh [CB comment: 5 kWh of each / 50 kWh of 10% of EVs made available to the NEM]
Yes, maybe it's feasible, but there is a looooong way to go with a *lot* of investment needed to get there. Would it be a better use of that money to build one or two or ... nuclear plants instead?
** https://reneweconomy.com.au/how-to-run-the-national-electricity-market-on-96-per-cent-renewables-91522/
Chris, thanks so much for looking at this, it was your analysis of the UK situation that got me really interested in this topic in the Australian context. One would hope various experts in Government/regulators are all over this topic, but I have my doubts.
A smallish, not super sunny (but windy), would intuitively need immense storage to manage the long dark winters, even if enough PV/wind was installed.
Australia on the other hand, immense, sparse, sunny and windy, if it can't work here, surely it can't work anywhere. So its seems it can, and even the eye-watering cost is nothing compared to what we can blow (half a trillion on covid support for example).
Nuclear is ironically banned in Australia, and the argument is always that it is too late now to mitigate carbon by building it now, too expensive etc. The right time to build it was 20 year ago.
The debate is now raging in Australia, with the recently deposed Liberal party taking up the nuclear position after being in power for 9 years and ruling it out during that time. Disingenuous to take it up in opposition.
We have a recently elected group of independents passionate about climate, but also very anti-nuclear, taking the position that storage + solar/wind is the answer.
This is a very expensive and critical answer to an important question, and I'd really like our leadership to walk us through the various options without the ideology and politics, which seems to bring any debate to an early demise.
Thanks again for looking at the Aussie context. I just broad stroke it, and think tens of millions of long range EVs, green hydrogen (from massive power input), green steel and cement etc, and the massive energy requirements, and the abatement of our enormous agricultural/fertiliser industry, and that the obvious answer is - all of the above, including long term nuclear is needed.
I am always surprised that the truly passionate about climate are also anti-nuclear arguing too expensive and too slow, at any moment in time.
Thanks again, your analysis is excellent.
Thank you again, Paul.
Re: "I'd really like our leadership to walk us through the various options without the ideology and politics".
That's what I kept waiting for before I began my substacking. Instead I kept seeing only lobby-driven unicorn-powered dreaming presented as policy.
Then I retired and once freed from the risk of Corporate disapproval of anything straying from the 'green is good' narrative, started crunching the numbers for myself.
And here I am.
yeah, we are possibly heading down the unicorn path, without even the potential for nuclear power as a possibility. It is a big thing to get this wrong, and the fact that no country so far is 100% renewable plus storage (without a base of Hydro/Nuclear) rings alarm bells for this engineer. I'm very underwhelmed by the people presenting this case, and it is rare to get detailed and rigorous analysis unattached to a desired outcome.
I can't help but admire German engineering and attention to detail, but even these smart people appear to have got it so wrong. I do not see any of this capability in Australia.
Chris, I've just noticed your excellent "Chart ‘21+E-1: 100% of current wind, 100% of current solar, for 2021+" is labelled "UKplc" whereas the data is 'GBplc' [Gridwatch (Elexon's) data doesn't cover NI]
Hello Ron,
You're almost certainly correct.
Gridwatch does include the Moyle Interconnector to N Ireland but that's just me waffling to try to cover my error. Except I doubt it would change the analysis materially.
Hi Chris
"Gridwatch does include the Moyle Interconnector to N Ireland ..."
And French, Dutch, Belgian, Norwegian & the E-W Wales-NI interconnectors too! ;-)
https://www.bmreports.com/bmrs/?q=generation/fueltype/current
"This BMRS is the primary channel for providing operational data relating to the GB Electricity Balancing and Settlement arrangements."
https://www.bmreports.com/bmrs/?q=help/about-us
Thanks Chris for another interesting instalment.
"Funding construction of new nuclear power plants as strategic national assets should also include transparent budgeting for decommissioning at the end of the ~60-year design life."
Funding of Hinkley C's decommissioning is explained in section 5.3 here:
https://www.edfenergy.com/sites/default/files/V2%20C05%20Decommissioning%20of%20Hinkley%20Point%20C.pdf
Excellent, thank you.
A "like" for: "HM Gov should fully fund basic home improvements." This feels like a massive all-round win. (Of course, it way well be funded in an unfriendly way, e.g. increasing the electricity standing charge even more.)
I had a crazy idea. Imagine we all had electric cars. Government would suffer massive income loss due to fuel duty. It could replace it with duty on electricity. Sounds bad? But they could do so in a hugely progressive taxation way, like income tax. The first X amount of electricity is tax free, this should be enough for basic heating and lighting at home, the next is tax at a lower band, this would cover a medium sized house with an average commute in the car. Any further consumption is taxed at a higher rate.
The House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts report of 23Feb'22 says Gov is basically clueless as to 'how it will fund the transition to net zero, including how it will deliver policy on and replace income from taxes such as fuel duty'
Road pricing is being touted as a solution. The more you drive on the more popular / congested roads the more you pay.
Ultimately the Gov is very unlikely to shrink to accommodate the shrinking revenues. Instead it will think up new and depressingly-complex ways of taxing everyone.
Fuel duty is currently 57.95 pence per litre, plus 20% VAT is charged on the forecourt price. That's a lot Rishi will want to claw back one way or another.
My personal view: EVs will remain high-cost, only well-off people will be able to afford them.
Thank you Richard.
I think taxpayer subsidies should first benefit the most needy in our population.
People in energy poverty won't be helped by Gov loans. They need insulation in the roof-spaces of their homes if it's not there already, and cavity wall insulation, paid for by us tax-payers.
And I completely agree, don't hammer them instead with higher 'green' levies on bills.
I like the analysis of how many MWhrs of fossil fuel are needed if there is no storage. I note 100million MWhrs with current wind and solar, but what would that figure be with x2 wind and x2 solar? I get that it won’t be zero, hence the negativity on netzero concept. But how far off would it actually be? The enemy of the good is the perfect after all. I.e, ditch netzero for now and go for say net20%, with gas storage being used to deal with the dips in renewable output whilst still cutting 80% of our carbon emissions.
My point was that wind current produced 35% of the electricity we consume over a year. So let’s double that and it may well be able to produce 50% over the year. The additional capacity is then either sold abroad, or waster, hardly any stored. Another 15% from nuclear, 15% from solar, biomass, hydro and imports, leaving fossil fuels to pick up a mere 20%. Yes it will be erratic, sometimes zero and sometimes maybe 50% but that doesn’t matter, gas is cheap to store and easy to wind up and down. This gets us 80% of the way to netzero with hardly any fuss at all. That final 20% is gonna be tough, as Chris points out, larger storage, much more renewables (with wasted output) more nuclear, smart grid and imports, all tough things to do.
Hello Alastair, I explored adding more and more wind in posts 1 / 2, and 4 times more solar in this post. I have not tried to 'model' to find an optimum because I cannot find believable cost info.
" I note 100million MWhrs with current wind and solar, but what would that figure be with x2 wind and x2 solar?"
During July 2021, Britain's then approx 25.6GW of wind capacity generated at ~10% Capacity Factor over the entire month. So 2x that capacity is unlikely to generate at significanty much more than 10%. ;-)
https://twitter.com/UK_WindEnergy/status/1421778320975450113?s=20&t=sjH2t0vjxHpwekqv9KYXoA