Generation capacity and power storage requirements, based on actual 2020 and 2021 data. I am not in the modelling business; I prefer to stick close to reality.
Thanks for your interesting & insightful analysis.
"If we are going to replace gas heating with electrically driven heat pumps, we are going to increase electrical power demand. If we are going to ban fossil-fuelled vehicles and go fully electric ...."
Whilst EVs' energy demands are relatively uniform throughout the year, space-heating demand is only over the heating season - *roughly* 6 months. So even if switching gas demand to electricity demand only doubles (non-gas generated) electricity demand over the year, it 'probably/possibly' quadruples (non-gas generated) electricity demand for the heating season which is *already* the time of peak electricity demand.
Space-heating demand is challenging to time-shift.
The *prime* advantage of the (heating) energy source that is expected to be shifted to electricity is that Britain has ~30,000,000MWh of natural gas storage, plus approx 4,000MWh of natural gas in Linepack. (The latter vs NetZero storage of energy in electricity cables.)
My premise is Net Zero. Zero fossil energy to be used. So natural gas storage (mainly as LNG I believe after 'we' (UK Gov) shut down the Rough gas facility is a no-no.
This is a thought experiment for my own amusement: I was half-expecting the numbers to be as big as they are, but as I say in the piece I do NOT think the extreme 'solution' I have arrived at is remotely economic or optimum.
I included in the piece that the amount of energy storage is equivalent to "232 million Tesla Model 3s @ 82 kWh each". Not to mention the possibility that EV owners might want to drive them, not find their batteries have been drained.
I also talked about reducing demand in the piece - big societal changes require democratic consent in my view. That was not explicitly in place at the end of 2021.
Not to mention it will be balls-to-the-walls battery production in order to supply enough batteries just for replacing ICE vehicles with BEV's over the next 40yrs. With severe supply constraints of Manganese, Nickel & Cobalt.
Feb 14, 2022·edited Feb 14, 2022Liked by Chris Bond
Hi Chris
I haven't read your article in detail yet, but just want to enquire if you're familiar with Sustainable Energy Without The Hot Air by the late David MacKay (online at withouthotair.com) or the works of the (also late) Roger Andrews on Euan Mearns' 'Energy Matters' blog? You seem to be following in the same honourable path as those folks in preferring arithmetic to rhetoric and trying to make energy issues comprehensible to the lay person.
It did jump out at me that your figure of 20GWh storage is very much lower than MacKay's estimate of 1,200GWh for a wind-powered UK, which itself was on the optimistic side compared to the Energy Research Partnership UK's 2015 "Managing Flexibility Whilst Decarbonising
John S, having done some more reading including of more of "Sustainable Energy - without the hot air" - I realise that just because I had *heard* of Dinorwig that meant it was the *only* significant pumped storage site in the UK.
I am semi-familiar with [Sustainable Energy - without the hot air v3.5.2 03Nov'08.pdf] but at 380 pages I found it hard to wade my way through to the end, sorry.
I certainly have tried to make the issues meaningful to non-tech readers.
I have also made a very deliberate decision to stay with the recorded actual data from the very recent past. My crystal ball is not functioning: I have no idea how energy demand will develop next week, let alone over next year / next decades. So I've confined myself to the question: "what would we have needed at the end of 2021 to have decarbonised the electrical energy we actually used through 2021. Ditto for 2020 to illustrate the uncertainty of weather-dependent power generation even in just our little smidgeon of the globe.
Feb 14, 2022·edited Feb 15, 2022Liked by Chris Bond
I used to work at Nature, so the idea for Gridwatch was a natural progression, making complex data easy to present and understand. BM Reports site had all the data but was split so you had to scroll and scroll from chart to chart and couldn't compare energy generation at a glance. Sent the link to my husband on 9/02/2009. And we took it from there. "Make it look like a car dashboard".
Later on we met Dr MacKay and heard his lecture. We had a Cambridge publisher friend and he published his book. 'Sustainable Energy - without the hot air' which should be on every A level syllabus.
Thank you. In our little bedroom office and I was furious about some plans for a wind farm nearby (which was stopped). Instead of a car my husband made it look like a plane dashboard for extra cool. A while later we were asked to publish a tiny pie chart in The Scotsman which was autogenerated twice a week. That was fun. Fiddly but fun and better than a boring table.
In 2012 Hughes noted how load factors declined rapidly over time with wind turbines so the R&M needed would also be immense. Another factor to consider is the location of wind farms. Your first farm is in the best possible location the next less less optimal and so on. Not all farms are created equal. So intermittency likely will increase. Battery storage degrades over time, pump storage does not. If anything I think your rather optimistic. I'd be interested to know your thoughts on carbon capture. Removing 1ppm of CO2 every year, fighting new emissions and Daltons Law.
I've seen reference to load factor decline of wind turbines of maybe a percent or two a year. But I don't understand the mechanism for that, so don't know how credible it is. Is it magnetic field weakening? If it was friction loss, a few % of a few MW is a heck of a lot of heat to dissipate so I can't see that being it.
Anyway, the ONS has handy reports at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/energy-trends-section-6-renewables including installed capacities and load factors for the onshore and offshore fleets of wind turbines. Onshore fleet capacity is 14,474 MW, offshore is 11.256 MW, as of the end of 2021. Load factors are up and down like yoyos quarter by quarter, but overall are:
"LOAD FACTORS (%) [note 10]"; 2020; 2021
Onshore Wind; 28.1; 23.2
Offshore Wind; 45.7; 37.4
I don't think there was much cherry-picking of prime locations, my impression is that there was such a flood of subsidies up for grabs that land-owners stampeded for permissions. It was only after the farms had been built that some of their load factors turned out to be abysmal but the lovely subsidies flowed anyway.
Also there's this for offshore, which gives more interactive info:
I think the biggest advantage of batteries is that they can be located (almost) anywhere. Distributed generation and storage mean that moderate-capacity grid connections can (mostly) cope. Of course eventually large parts of the grid will have to be beefed up because if McKinsey is right there will be about 56% more electrical power flowing around by 2035.
The biggest disadvantages of pumped storage are the ~10 years' construction, and they are only practicable in mountainous areas which people are loath to see flooded. And those mountainous areas are a long way from the main power-consumers so the grid connections to/from them are long. And if you have a very large power pumped storage facility the grid connection has to be very beefy indeed. I think. I'm not a power engineer but that's my understanding.
As for carbon capture, this NOT SUITABLE FOR WORK clip summarises my opinion on industrial CCS.
This is a useful methodology, but we will not end up relying on wind and battery storage alone. A more plausible generation mix is:
* More nuclear for base load demand - net zero is not until 2050, so plenty of time to increase capacity.
* Pump storage and batteries for daily demand fluctuations only. As proved here it makes no sense to use these to store and release energy longer term.
* Balance long term supply and demand changes, by capturing hydrogen using electrolysis when there is over supply. Burn this alongside biomass when the wind is not blowing.
Chris thank you for a very logical, brief but also devastating analysis !
I wouldn't want to add too much detail to the piece, because that would detract from its impact.
Perhaps a footnote about the efficiency of battery storage. In the article you assume 100% efficiency, whereas I suspect when transmission loss (8%) and charging loss (converting from AC to DC then back again on discharge), you are looking at loosing about 20-30% of the energy. This significantly increases the amount to be generated and the amount of storage capacity needed.
Yes, I deliberately kept it simple. I mentioned that if you take batteries from 0% to 100% to 0% charge they will not last very long so the gross energy storage capacity would not in reality be available. Ditto I used Tesla Model 3 claimed gross battery capacities to keep it simple. I avoided getting into the weeds with depth of discharge or round-trip efficiency adjustments. Which battery efficiency to use? DC efficiency, AC efficiency, storage system efficiency taking the energy boundary at the grid connections (which will be location-specific). And so on.
One of my bugbears with renewables tech is that the numbers cited are always the gross capacities. If it's a windfarm it is the total installed generator capacity = capacity each (MW) times number installed. If it's a PV array it's gross generation (MW) on the sunniest of sunny days. If it's a battery it's maximum instantaneous despatch rate (MW), and only if you're lucky do you also get told the total gross energy storage (MWh). Whatever happened to performance guarantees?
Hi Chris. I'd be interested in your reactions to this new Aurora Energy report on the role of storage in GB electricity. It's a bit difficult to compare because you focused on MWh and they talk more in terms of MW capacity, but I *think* that they foresee a lower need for storage than you did. Here's a link to an Aurora's tweet thread about the report: https://twitter.com/UKenergywonk/status/1494377493821853697
Aurora's paper has too many "it is assumed..." for my liking.
Take a look at my thoughts."
Aurora in their 'about us' blurb say they were founded by professors and economists. Not to downplay their expertise, but I think some practical engineering input from experienced industry professionals would have been of benefit. That's one of my hobby-horse issues: most of the people with the time to perform these studies are academics. It's only now I am retired that I have the time.
Thanks Chris. You may well be right in terms of the kind of expertise. From my perspective the problem is primarily one of politicisation in context of the climate (and specifically net zero) debate. The answers matter too much to too many people and we end up with opposing sides talking (or rather shouting) past each other while those of us who are laypeople and just want to understand simply can't. Incidentally, if you don't already follow you might be interested in Dieter Helm, who, like you, often emphasises some of the challenges, with e.g. some cross-over with your blog article here: https://soundcloud.com/user-649259350/dont-bank-on-energy-prices-falling-any-time-soon?
Re: Prof. Dieter Helm, I think he talks a lot of sense, e.g. "Better to tell the truth, so that we all know what is in store in this radical transition, than delude people that the £200 is going to be easy to pay back. Get ready for permanently higher costs to come." I started reading his October 2017 "Cost of Energy Review" and got so dispirited that I stopped at p166. It appears the UK has not had a coherent energy policy for maybe 2 decades.
And yes, people in their own ideological silos only hearing and reinforcing their groupthink - on whichever 'side' that may be - is not a healthy way to run a country. I just fear that the Net Zero silo just won't engage with 'wrongthink' such as mine... and we end up with another massive "dieselgate" policy error.
I see you mention import/export but I think it needs more consideration. Currently Norway buy our wind power and turn off their hydro power to let the reservoirs refill, and then reverse the flow of electricity when there is no wind. Economics drive this as wind power is very cheap when it’s generating in excess. Also, as a thought experiment could you combine this with an increase in nuclear base load, I.e if we had another 3000MW of nuclear. And finally what about getting most of the way there? Say 80% carbon free? I imagine these scenarios would make the problem far more tractable.
The analysis includes actual cable interconnector energy flows as-were in 2020 and 2021.
So, consistent with my thought experiment, I did not assume massive increases in those interconnector flows to address UK plc shortages of renewables as of the end of 2021.
I'll think about your and others' suggestions for a follow-up post.
Squinting at the 3x wind chart I’d guess that you would need 30,00MW of gas to manage peak demand, but only around 5000MW on average, which is about 20% of UKs total power consumption? That’s with no extra storage. Basically I think getting to 100% green energy is going to be tough and take a long time, but the old 80:20 rule (get 80% of the way there with 20% of the effort) holds true.
It would be great to see if the real world data matches up to my guesstimate.
From the 2021 data-set the arithmetic average of CCGT is 12,256 MW.
The CCGT data-set includes 0 (Excel minimum) and I already know from detailed analysis of the demand numbers that demand includes a few spurious zeros, so I suspect a few duff zeroes for CCGT also.
Why 'decarbonise' anyway? CO2 is a harmless trace gas essential for all life on Earth. Everyone is getting their knickers in a twist over a non problem. But it's a non problem govts can tax.
Thanks Chris - a nice analysis and you've succeeded in keeping it easy-to-follow.
It seems likely that the path to decarbonisation will also involve significant electrification of transport, space heating and industry. It would be interesting to know how the result of that affects the seasonality of demand. I suspect for the UK winter space heating is a huge seasonal demand and will make long term storage needs look more challenging still.
Perhaps a more practical solution for the UK may turn-out to be fossil power with CCS running seasonally, with storage more just for short term fluctuations in wind and sun. There is probably a lot more ability to use modulation of demand to deal with short term fluctuations (e.g. slowing-down people's home electric car charging for the peak power demand whilst folk cook dinner).
I look forward to your analyses delving into these aspects!
I don't expect seasonality of demand would change. I expect UK winters to continue to be cold leading to high demand for space heating, and I absolutely know that UK winter nights will continue to be long and dark. So I expect electricity demand overall to increase.
There certainly seems a lot to learn to make CCS more efficient and more reliable. I don't think anything fundamental prevents high reliability. Of course there will always be an energy cost for the separation.
My parents have an electric car and have consented to have their car battery run down over tea time (when they choose to have it plugged-in over tea time). They get paid for doing this, so are very happy with the arrangement. That kind of demand management would seem likely to be relatively uncontroversial.
I think we already have a good handle on costs for new nuclear from the two EPR nuclear reactors at Hinkley Point - ballpark £25 billion (round numbers) for 2 x 1,600 MW reactors commissioning (maybe) in 2025 or 2026. But I think there are plans to close some ageing nuclear capacity in the UK in that kind of timescale. We also know for new large nuclear that from plan to commissioning can be decades rather than years. Small modular reactors are novel with all the technology risks that will involve.
But I am not an expert on nuclear so I will go no further than that.
The UK was forced by the EU to build the worst choice French EPR. Britain could have done like Finland did, fed up with the expensive French EPR, they opted for the Russian VVER-1200 with a guaranteed price of GBP44.5 or 50 Euros per MWh, quite a bit cheaper than offshore wind in a Apples (nuclear) to Rotten Oranges (wind) comparison. And the Korean APR-1400 at half the price of the EPR is now approved for Europe. The UAE completed 5.6GWe of APR-1400's in 8yrs @ $24B, far cheaper than wind or solar even neglecting the terrible problems with intermittent, unreliable, seasonal wind/solar.
And even EPR costs would shrink dramatically if publicly financed at <1% interest instead being forced by an EU Decree to be privately financed at ~10% interest. Funny the EU unelected dictatorship has no problem financing bombs & missiles to kill poor Libyans, Syrians, Iranians, Afghani's, Iraqis and Yemenis @ <1% interest but demands NPP's are privately financed. Yep, they care about climate change.
The super-safe, meltdown proof Moltex molten salt reactor was developed in Britain. Platt's Energy, did the full cost projection analysis for electricity from the Moltex reactors and determined it would be the cheapest electricity source in Britain, cheaper than gas, conventional coal, wind or solar. While being a 24/7, night/day, summer/winter, windy/calm electricity source. And can provide electricity storage for $50/kwe by adding an extra molten salt loop & tank running a standard off-the-shelf CCGT steam turbine. That's cheaper and more environmentally friendly than any form of storage tech currently available. And with a capability to burn nuclear waste supplying all of Britain's energy needs for hundreds of years, with zero emissions. The British gov't refused to allow them to be built in Britain, forcing them to move to Canada.
My view is the best reactor being developed is the Elysium Molten Chloride Fast Reactor. Check it out on gordonmcdowell's Youtube site, it's designed to run on spent nuclear fuel, which the UK claims it wants to get rid of. It could supply all of Britain's energy needs for the next 75yrs just running on Britain's current store of spent nuclear fuel. With a 600-1000degC operating temperature, it can supply high grade process heat as well as electricity. And molten salt heat storage to cover the peak daily electricity demand. High level waste from that reactor, that is not valuable isotopes, would amount to about 0.1 oz per person in Britain over their entire 75yr lifespan. Easy to dispose of that in a borehole.
Hello SmithFS, thank you, as I say I am not an expert on nuclear so I can only accept what you say.
(At the time I graduated I went to a BNFL interview at Sellafield as it was then - I'm afraid the civil service-style panel interview put me right off, together with my then dim but firm understanding that UK nuclear was too dependent on which way the political winds were blowing to be an attractive career. I believe I was right in that assessment.)
With the bugs of previous AGR projects finally worked out, Torness and Heysham 2 came in on time (8 years) and on budget (£750 million = £2.5 bn in 2021 money). They've been boringly reliable for 34 years and will probably last another six.
I'm at a loss to understand why we don't just replicate them and avoid the risks of starting all over again.
Throw in the Costs of converting to EV's + Heat Pump acquisition and heating costs + Industrial Heat... + Aviation (for which there is no electrically generated synthetic liquid fuel in the pipeline) and the "Renewable" energy requirements increase 8 to 10 fold.
Why only give these huge factors a terse nod?
They blow a bad plan CLEAR OUT OF THE WATER.
You also gave Capacity for Peak Demand coverage little notice. Peaks require ~ Double the Average Demand requirements.
Go back and finish the job. I thought you were an engineer.
Thanks for your interesting & insightful analysis.
"If we are going to replace gas heating with electrically driven heat pumps, we are going to increase electrical power demand. If we are going to ban fossil-fuelled vehicles and go fully electric ...."
Whilst EVs' energy demands are relatively uniform throughout the year, space-heating demand is only over the heating season - *roughly* 6 months. So even if switching gas demand to electricity demand only doubles (non-gas generated) electricity demand over the year, it 'probably/possibly' quadruples (non-gas generated) electricity demand for the heating season which is *already* the time of peak electricity demand.
Space-heating demand is challenging to time-shift.
The *prime* advantage of the (heating) energy source that is expected to be shifted to electricity is that Britain has ~30,000,000MWh of natural gas storage, plus approx 4,000MWh of natural gas in Linepack. (The latter vs NetZero storage of energy in electricity cables.)
https://mip-prd-web.azurewebsites.net/DailySummaryReport
https://mip-prd-web.azurewebsites.net
Thank you Ron.
My premise is Net Zero. Zero fossil energy to be used. So natural gas storage (mainly as LNG I believe after 'we' (UK Gov) shut down the Rough gas facility is a no-no.
This is a thought experiment for my own amusement: I was half-expecting the numbers to be as big as they are, but as I say in the piece I do NOT think the extreme 'solution' I have arrived at is remotely economic or optimum.
What about integrating car battery storage into the grid as a buffer, and also reducing load peaks where this is possible - freezers etc.
Thank you Dr Donal.
I included in the piece that the amount of energy storage is equivalent to "232 million Tesla Model 3s @ 82 kWh each". Not to mention the possibility that EV owners might want to drive them, not find their batteries have been drained.
I also talked about reducing demand in the piece - big societal changes require democratic consent in my view. That was not explicitly in place at the end of 2021.
Not to mention it will be balls-to-the-walls battery production in order to supply enough batteries just for replacing ICE vehicles with BEV's over the next 40yrs. With severe supply constraints of Manganese, Nickel & Cobalt.
By an amazing coincidence Ed Conway posted about graphite yesterday:
https://www.edmundconway.com/jelly-rolls-and-coking-drums-a-bottom-up-look-at-batteries/
Lithium & Cobalt may not be the only materials in short supply.
Thanks for the heads up.
Hi Chris
I haven't read your article in detail yet, but just want to enquire if you're familiar with Sustainable Energy Without The Hot Air by the late David MacKay (online at withouthotair.com) or the works of the (also late) Roger Andrews on Euan Mearns' 'Energy Matters' blog? You seem to be following in the same honourable path as those folks in preferring arithmetic to rhetoric and trying to make energy issues comprehensible to the lay person.
It did jump out at me that your figure of 20GWh storage is very much lower than MacKay's estimate of 1,200GWh for a wind-powered UK, which itself was on the optimistic side compared to the Energy Research Partnership UK's 2015 "Managing Flexibility Whilst Decarbonising
the GB Electricity System" https://erpuk.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/ERP-FlexMan-Exec-Summary.pdf which I think found a need for up to 8,000 GWh of storage.
But of course to achieve even your estimate would be ludicrous with batteries, as you indicate.
John S, having done some more reading including of more of "Sustainable Energy - without the hot air" - I realise that just because I had *heard* of Dinorwig that meant it was the *only* significant pumped storage site in the UK.
The complete list of 4 is:
station power head volume energy stored
(GW) (m) (million m3) (GWh)
Ffestiniog 0.36 320–295 1.7 1.3
Cruachan 0.40 365–334 11.3 10 **16h x 440MW = 7,040 MWh
Foyers 0.30 178–172 13.6 6.3
Dinorwig 1.80 542–494 6.7 9.1 ok
where
** is from the https://www.drax.com/about-us/our-sites-and-businesses/cruachan-power-station/ website: "Cruachan can reach full load in 30 seconds and can maintain its maximum power production for more than 16 hours if necessary."
Every day is a school-day!
And my figure for 2021 storage required of 20,000,000 MWh is 20,000 GWh, i.e. *much* higher than MacKay's estimate of 1,200GWh.
John S, thank you for your comments.
I am semi-familiar with [Sustainable Energy - without the hot air v3.5.2 03Nov'08.pdf] but at 380 pages I found it hard to wade my way through to the end, sorry.
I certainly have tried to make the issues meaningful to non-tech readers.
I have also made a very deliberate decision to stay with the recorded actual data from the very recent past. My crystal ball is not functioning: I have no idea how energy demand will develop next week, let alone over next year / next decades. So I've confined myself to the question: "what would we have needed at the end of 2021 to have decarbonised the electrical energy we actually used through 2021. Ditto for 2020 to illustrate the uncertainty of weather-dependent power generation even in just our little smidgeon of the globe.
I used to work at Nature, so the idea for Gridwatch was a natural progression, making complex data easy to present and understand. BM Reports site had all the data but was split so you had to scroll and scroll from chart to chart and couldn't compare energy generation at a glance. Sent the link to my husband on 9/02/2009. And we took it from there. "Make it look like a car dashboard".
Later on we met Dr MacKay and heard his lecture. We had a Cambridge publisher friend and he published his book. 'Sustainable Energy - without the hot air' which should be on every A level syllabus.
OMG, MontyDog, can I just have a massive fan-boy moment here?? You were actually part of setting up GridWatch? Wow!
I can't remember when I first discovered it but I immediately made it a bookmark in my browser. It is SO informative and massively useful, thank you!
Thank you. In our little bedroom office and I was furious about some plans for a wind farm nearby (which was stopped). Instead of a car my husband made it look like a plane dashboard for extra cool. A while later we were asked to publish a tiny pie chart in The Scotsman which was autogenerated twice a week. That was fun. Fiddly but fun and better than a boring table.
Euan posted an excellent piece "The Loch Ness Monster of Energy Storage" back in 2015.
The 127 comments are also illuminating.
http://euanmearns.com/the-loch-ness-monster-of-energy-storage/
Ron, thank you for that, I've saved it for future reference :)
In 2012 Hughes noted how load factors declined rapidly over time with wind turbines so the R&M needed would also be immense. Another factor to consider is the location of wind farms. Your first farm is in the best possible location the next less less optimal and so on. Not all farms are created equal. So intermittency likely will increase. Battery storage degrades over time, pump storage does not. If anything I think your rather optimistic. I'd be interested to know your thoughts on carbon capture. Removing 1ppm of CO2 every year, fighting new emissions and Daltons Law.
Hello Edward, thank you for your comments.
I've seen reference to load factor decline of wind turbines of maybe a percent or two a year. But I don't understand the mechanism for that, so don't know how credible it is. Is it magnetic field weakening? If it was friction loss, a few % of a few MW is a heck of a lot of heat to dissipate so I can't see that being it.
Anyway, the ONS has handy reports at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/energy-trends-section-6-renewables including installed capacities and load factors for the onshore and offshore fleets of wind turbines. Onshore fleet capacity is 14,474 MW, offshore is 11.256 MW, as of the end of 2021. Load factors are up and down like yoyos quarter by quarter, but overall are:
"LOAD FACTORS (%) [note 10]"; 2020; 2021
Onshore Wind; 28.1; 23.2
Offshore Wind; 45.7; 37.4
I don't think there was much cherry-picking of prime locations, my impression is that there was such a flood of subsidies up for grabs that land-owners stampeded for permissions. It was only after the farms had been built that some of their load factors turned out to be abysmal but the lovely subsidies flowed anyway.
Also there's this for offshore, which gives more interactive info:
Andrew ZP Smith, ORCID: 0000-0003-3289-2237; "UK offshore wind capacity factors". Retrieved from https://energynumbers.info/uk-offshore-wind-capacity-factors on 2022-06-08 20:06 GMT
I think the biggest advantage of batteries is that they can be located (almost) anywhere. Distributed generation and storage mean that moderate-capacity grid connections can (mostly) cope. Of course eventually large parts of the grid will have to be beefed up because if McKinsey is right there will be about 56% more electrical power flowing around by 2035.
The biggest disadvantages of pumped storage are the ~10 years' construction, and they are only practicable in mountainous areas which people are loath to see flooded. And those mountainous areas are a long way from the main power-consumers so the grid connections to/from them are long. And if you have a very large power pumped storage facility the grid connection has to be very beefy indeed. I think. I'm not a power engineer but that's my understanding.
As for carbon capture, this NOT SUITABLE FOR WORK clip summarises my opinion on industrial CCS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSZgoFyuHC8
Direct air capture (DAC) of CO2 is, I believe, a complete non-starter:
https://www.rechargenews.com/energy-transition/the-amount-of-energy-required-by-direct-air-carbon-capture-proves-it-is-an-exercise-in-futility/2-1-1067588
This is a useful methodology, but we will not end up relying on wind and battery storage alone. A more plausible generation mix is:
* More nuclear for base load demand - net zero is not until 2050, so plenty of time to increase capacity.
* Pump storage and batteries for daily demand fluctuations only. As proved here it makes no sense to use these to store and release energy longer term.
* Balance long term supply and demand changes, by capturing hydrogen using electrolysis when there is over supply. Burn this alongside biomass when the wind is not blowing.
Chris thank you for a very logical, brief but also devastating analysis !
I wouldn't want to add too much detail to the piece, because that would detract from its impact.
Perhaps a footnote about the efficiency of battery storage. In the article you assume 100% efficiency, whereas I suspect when transmission loss (8%) and charging loss (converting from AC to DC then back again on discharge), you are looking at loosing about 20-30% of the energy. This significantly increases the amount to be generated and the amount of storage capacity needed.
Hello KB, thank you for your comments.
Yes, I deliberately kept it simple. I mentioned that if you take batteries from 0% to 100% to 0% charge they will not last very long so the gross energy storage capacity would not in reality be available. Ditto I used Tesla Model 3 claimed gross battery capacities to keep it simple. I avoided getting into the weeds with depth of discharge or round-trip efficiency adjustments. Which battery efficiency to use? DC efficiency, AC efficiency, storage system efficiency taking the energy boundary at the grid connections (which will be location-specific). And so on.
One of my bugbears with renewables tech is that the numbers cited are always the gross capacities. If it's a windfarm it is the total installed generator capacity = capacity each (MW) times number installed. If it's a PV array it's gross generation (MW) on the sunniest of sunny days. If it's a battery it's maximum instantaneous despatch rate (MW), and only if you're lucky do you also get told the total gross energy storage (MWh). Whatever happened to performance guarantees?
Ok, rant over.
Hi Chris. I'd be interested in your reactions to this new Aurora Energy report on the role of storage in GB electricity. It's a bit difficult to compare because you focused on MWh and they talk more in terms of MW capacity, but I *think* that they foresee a lower need for storage than you did. Here's a link to an Aurora's tweet thread about the report: https://twitter.com/UKenergywonk/status/1494377493821853697
Thank you.
Good day Nick,
Thank you for alerting me to that paper, I've downloaded it and looked through it.
I just sent the following via Twatter:
"Replying to @UKenergywonk and @AuroraER_Oxford
Mon 14 Feb I published my analysis of energy storage needs for UK plc based on actual 2020 and 2021 energy demand/generation flows. https://chrisbond.substack.com/p/uk-plc-power-decarbonisation?utm_source=url
Aurora's paper has too many "it is assumed..." for my liking.
Take a look at my thoughts."
Aurora in their 'about us' blurb say they were founded by professors and economists. Not to downplay their expertise, but I think some practical engineering input from experienced industry professionals would have been of benefit. That's one of my hobby-horse issues: most of the people with the time to perform these studies are academics. It's only now I am retired that I have the time.
Thanks Chris. You may well be right in terms of the kind of expertise. From my perspective the problem is primarily one of politicisation in context of the climate (and specifically net zero) debate. The answers matter too much to too many people and we end up with opposing sides talking (or rather shouting) past each other while those of us who are laypeople and just want to understand simply can't. Incidentally, if you don't already follow you might be interested in Dieter Helm, who, like you, often emphasises some of the challenges, with e.g. some cross-over with your blog article here: https://soundcloud.com/user-649259350/dont-bank-on-energy-prices-falling-any-time-soon?
Thank you Nick.
Re: Prof. Dieter Helm, I think he talks a lot of sense, e.g. "Better to tell the truth, so that we all know what is in store in this radical transition, than delude people that the £200 is going to be easy to pay back. Get ready for permanently higher costs to come." I started reading his October 2017 "Cost of Energy Review" and got so dispirited that I stopped at p166. It appears the UK has not had a coherent energy policy for maybe 2 decades.
And yes, people in their own ideological silos only hearing and reinforcing their groupthink - on whichever 'side' that may be - is not a healthy way to run a country. I just fear that the Net Zero silo just won't engage with 'wrongthink' such as mine... and we end up with another massive "dieselgate" policy error.
I see you mention import/export but I think it needs more consideration. Currently Norway buy our wind power and turn off their hydro power to let the reservoirs refill, and then reverse the flow of electricity when there is no wind. Economics drive this as wind power is very cheap when it’s generating in excess. Also, as a thought experiment could you combine this with an increase in nuclear base load, I.e if we had another 3000MW of nuclear. And finally what about getting most of the way there? Say 80% carbon free? I imagine these scenarios would make the problem far more tractable.
Thank you for your comments Alastair.
The analysis includes actual cable interconnector energy flows as-were in 2020 and 2021.
So, consistent with my thought experiment, I did not assume massive increases in those interconnector flows to address UK plc shortages of renewables as of the end of 2021.
I'll think about your and others' suggestions for a follow-up post.
Squinting at the 3x wind chart I’d guess that you would need 30,00MW of gas to manage peak demand, but only around 5000MW on average, which is about 20% of UKs total power consumption? That’s with no extra storage. Basically I think getting to 100% green energy is going to be tough and take a long time, but the old 80:20 rule (get 80% of the way there with 20% of the effort) holds true.
It would be great to see if the real world data matches up to my guesstimate.
From the 2021 data-set the arithmetic average of CCGT is 12,256 MW.
The CCGT data-set includes 0 (Excel minimum) and I already know from detailed analysis of the demand numbers that demand includes a few spurious zeros, so I suspect a few duff zeroes for CCGT also.
But not enough to invalidate that average number.
Why 'decarbonise' anyway? CO2 is a harmless trace gas essential for all life on Earth. Everyone is getting their knickers in a twist over a non problem. But it's a non problem govts can tax.
Thanks Chris - a nice analysis and you've succeeded in keeping it easy-to-follow.
It seems likely that the path to decarbonisation will also involve significant electrification of transport, space heating and industry. It would be interesting to know how the result of that affects the seasonality of demand. I suspect for the UK winter space heating is a huge seasonal demand and will make long term storage needs look more challenging still.
Perhaps a more practical solution for the UK may turn-out to be fossil power with CCS running seasonally, with storage more just for short term fluctuations in wind and sun. There is probably a lot more ability to use modulation of demand to deal with short term fluctuations (e.g. slowing-down people's home electric car charging for the peak power demand whilst folk cook dinner).
I look forward to your analyses delving into these aspects!
Richard
Good day Richard, and thank you.
I don't expect seasonality of demand would change. I expect UK winters to continue to be cold leading to high demand for space heating, and I absolutely know that UK winter nights will continue to be long and dark. So I expect electricity demand overall to increase.
My premise is Net Zero = zero fossil energy. I personally have near-zero confidence in carbon capture and storage (CCS) because of both the technical difficulties in making it work consistently e.g. https://www.globalenergyworld.com/news/traditional-energy/2021/07/19/chevron-concedes-ccs-failures-at-gorgon-seeks-deal-with-wa-regulators - see from 5th para - and also the cost and energy drain to run CCS from capture through to reservoir storage.
Demand management is where I think the debate with the population needs to be transparent and democratic consent received.
There certainly seems a lot to learn to make CCS more efficient and more reliable. I don't think anything fundamental prevents high reliability. Of course there will always be an energy cost for the separation.
My parents have an electric car and have consented to have their car battery run down over tea time (when they choose to have it plugged-in over tea time). They get paid for doing this, so are very happy with the arrangement. That kind of demand management would seem likely to be relatively uncontroversial.
Excellent. Any chance you could do a supplemental article that compares costs of wind + storage against nuclear?
John, thank you.
I think we already have a good handle on costs for new nuclear from the two EPR nuclear reactors at Hinkley Point - ballpark £25 billion (round numbers) for 2 x 1,600 MW reactors commissioning (maybe) in 2025 or 2026. But I think there are plans to close some ageing nuclear capacity in the UK in that kind of timescale. We also know for new large nuclear that from plan to commissioning can be decades rather than years. Small modular reactors are novel with all the technology risks that will involve.
But I am not an expert on nuclear so I will go no further than that.
The UK was forced by the EU to build the worst choice French EPR. Britain could have done like Finland did, fed up with the expensive French EPR, they opted for the Russian VVER-1200 with a guaranteed price of GBP44.5 or 50 Euros per MWh, quite a bit cheaper than offshore wind in a Apples (nuclear) to Rotten Oranges (wind) comparison. And the Korean APR-1400 at half the price of the EPR is now approved for Europe. The UAE completed 5.6GWe of APR-1400's in 8yrs @ $24B, far cheaper than wind or solar even neglecting the terrible problems with intermittent, unreliable, seasonal wind/solar.
And even EPR costs would shrink dramatically if publicly financed at <1% interest instead being forced by an EU Decree to be privately financed at ~10% interest. Funny the EU unelected dictatorship has no problem financing bombs & missiles to kill poor Libyans, Syrians, Iranians, Afghani's, Iraqis and Yemenis @ <1% interest but demands NPP's are privately financed. Yep, they care about climate change.
The super-safe, meltdown proof Moltex molten salt reactor was developed in Britain. Platt's Energy, did the full cost projection analysis for electricity from the Moltex reactors and determined it would be the cheapest electricity source in Britain, cheaper than gas, conventional coal, wind or solar. While being a 24/7, night/day, summer/winter, windy/calm electricity source. And can provide electricity storage for $50/kwe by adding an extra molten salt loop & tank running a standard off-the-shelf CCGT steam turbine. That's cheaper and more environmentally friendly than any form of storage tech currently available. And with a capability to burn nuclear waste supplying all of Britain's energy needs for hundreds of years, with zero emissions. The British gov't refused to allow them to be built in Britain, forcing them to move to Canada.
My view is the best reactor being developed is the Elysium Molten Chloride Fast Reactor. Check it out on gordonmcdowell's Youtube site, it's designed to run on spent nuclear fuel, which the UK claims it wants to get rid of. It could supply all of Britain's energy needs for the next 75yrs just running on Britain's current store of spent nuclear fuel. With a 600-1000degC operating temperature, it can supply high grade process heat as well as electricity. And molten salt heat storage to cover the peak daily electricity demand. High level waste from that reactor, that is not valuable isotopes, would amount to about 0.1 oz per person in Britain over their entire 75yr lifespan. Easy to dispose of that in a borehole.
Hello SmithFS, thank you, as I say I am not an expert on nuclear so I can only accept what you say.
(At the time I graduated I went to a BNFL interview at Sellafield as it was then - I'm afraid the civil service-style panel interview put me right off, together with my then dim but firm understanding that UK nuclear was too dependent on which way the political winds were blowing to be an attractive career. I believe I was right in that assessment.)
With the bugs of previous AGR projects finally worked out, Torness and Heysham 2 came in on time (8 years) and on budget (£750 million = £2.5 bn in 2021 money). They've been boringly reliable for 34 years and will probably last another six.
I'm at a loss to understand why we don't just replicate them and avoid the risks of starting all over again.
Throw in the Costs of converting to EV's + Heat Pump acquisition and heating costs + Industrial Heat... + Aviation (for which there is no electrically generated synthetic liquid fuel in the pipeline) and the "Renewable" energy requirements increase 8 to 10 fold.
Why only give these huge factors a terse nod?
They blow a bad plan CLEAR OUT OF THE WATER.
You also gave Capacity for Peak Demand coverage little notice. Peaks require ~ Double the Average Demand requirements.
Go back and finish the job. I thought you were an engineer.
First sentence of my Summary:
"To decarbonise our electricity grid for current demand and recent (2020 and 2021) actual generation patterns"
Is there something about "current demand" that you find difficult to comprehend?
Please keep comments polite.