An Expensive day in April.

The 30th April 2017 was a Bank Holiday Sunday in the UK and consequently the use of electricity was very low.

By chance it is also a Goldilocks day for wind and solar. Not too much wind but windy enough to provide a high output. The icing on the cake was that the wind speed was pretty constant across the day. Solar meanwhile has a nice day too with cloudless skies.

The day has been lauded far and wide as the day the UK was supplied with more power by renewables than by all other sources combined. When averaged over the day, the subsidised renewables (wind, solar and biomass) contributed 41% of the total energy used.

I wondered how much this Goldilocks day cost the UK taxpayer in subsidies.

The Electric insights website (Here) gives us a lot of information.

Here is a snapshot of the full day of generation from 30th April.

Knowing a few of the details of the subsidy regimes and the average generation per technology over the day we can get a rough idea of how much this golidlocks day cost, both for actual electricity generated and for wind, solar and biomass subsidies.

All of existing RE generation (bar the shouting) is subsidised by the Renewables Obligation (RO) or for smaller generators by the Feed In Tariff (FiT). CfD's (contracts for difference) are yet to apply to operational generators, but they are unlikely to reduce the total cost by much (if anything).

Bear in mind  RO and FiT subsidies are NOT the full price. The fullprice is (subsidy + selling price).

Currently one ROC is worth £45.58

Interestingly the RO for ground level solar (1.2 ROC/MWh) is almost the same as the latest total FiT price (generation + export) for small arrays.  Which means I will assume all solar gets the same subsidy of 1.2 ROCs/MWh (actually this is an significant underestimate of the subsidy due to a number of reasons - but I'll use this to err on the side of caution with this rough calculation)

Large scale wind has two separate ROC subsidies - one for onshore (0.9 ROCs/MWh) and one for offshore(1.8 ROCs/MWh). Offshore is far more productive per turbine than onshore while there are more onshore turbines than offshore. So a happy medium is to place the average ROC subsidy at 1.35 per MWh( (onshore + offshore)/2)

There is also some embedded wind which is subject to the FiT scheme. But per MWh this works out at approximately the same level of subsidy as our average for on-shore and off-shore.

Roughly working out the subsidy per technology for this single Goldilocks day:

Wind. 
The average power output over the day for wind was 8.8GW So the total energy generated was (8.8 x 24) just over 210GWh. Our subsidy  per MWh is (1.35 x £45.58) or £61.53 per MWh. So the subsidy on 210GWH amounts to £12,921930.

That is (as near as dammit) £13 million for the day

Solar.
Obviously solar only works during daylight so although there was a glut at midday of around 5GW, when averaged over the day the output was a more modest 1.5GW or 36GWh. The subsidy cost is 1.2 ROCs per MWh.

That comes out roughly £2 million for the day.

Biomass
Biomass power averaged 1.4GW over the day producing 33GWh of energy. Biomass gets one ROC per MWh.

The subsidy for this single day was just over £1.5 million.

So the total subsidy was £16.5 million.

How does this compare with the total generation cost?

Now the average payment (ex-subsidy) for all generators over the day was £32.43 per MWh and the average total power was 28.4GW.  So the total cost (ex subsidy) for all the electricity generated (28.4 x 24 x 32.43) was about £22 million

Bear in mind that my back-of-a-fag-packet subsidy calculation of £16.5 million uses the latest (and smallest) FiT rates.

It is pretty clear that when you include the hidden ROC and FiT subsidies this single day of 41% penetration by Wind, Solar and Biomass came close to doubling the wholesale price of electricity.

Yet on this sunny, windy, and expensive day in April, there was also an elephant in the room.

It is an elephant whose name environmentalists dare not speak. An elephant that is shunned, ignored or pilloried.

That elephant is the UK's existing nuclear power fleet.

One that April day it continuously provided about 25% of our power or 7.3GW. It does this day in day out 24/7. Not just when there is a Goldilocks day.

There were no emissions and for existing nuclear, there are no subsidies.

Navitus Bay: The End of the Line

For all the green lobby's whinging over the cancellation of Navitus Bay there is something we all need to be crystal clear about:

Navitus Bay Offshore Wind Park was recommended for rejection by the quasi-judicial Independent Planning Authority. Not the government.

The Planning Authority were influenced by objections from UNESCO, English Heritage, the local mainland councils and thousands upon thousands of local people who took the trouble to write in and object.

The government merely rubber-stamped the planning authorities decision.

Even EDF recognised this when yesterday they abandoned the last avenue for appeal – a Judicial revue.

Why did they abandon it?

Because they knew they would lose hands down. The Planning Authority decision was rock solid.

Even so Amber Rudd is getting it in the neck from the Green lobby for announcing the final veto. One can only assume that the Greens think the government should over-rule independent bodies if they arrive at decisions the Greens do not like.

The Greens never have been too keen on democracy and the rule of law – unless it has been in their favour.

Sadly though, for every offshore wind complex that is rejected there will be ten approvals.

These schemes will be equally as costly and useless as Navitus. But the coastlines they ruin just will be a little more ordinary than the Jurassic coast. A little more expendable. While their fatuous extravagance will be funded by the ever growing army of those in fuel poverty.

The appalling waste that is off-shore wind will go on.

Nuclear Power, Hinkley C and Sizewell B.

Today Europe is struggling to build two EPR reactors. To be fair, they are getting there. But progress has been slow and costly.

Today a third EPR reactor is planned for Hinkley Point in Somerset. To ensure Chinese and French backers stay with the project the government has given a £2 Billion guarantee against cancellation as well as guaranteeing a strike price of over £90 MWh

The mooted price for this one reactor is over £20 billion. Even at this eye watering price the government is desperate to see Hinkley C progress because it is the only viable 24/7 emissions free power generation available.

Even if they have to pay this ransom it is still cheaper than onshore wind and hugely cheaper than offshore wind, both of which need fossil fuel backup anyway. So the government has little choice but to pay.

But there is something wrong here.

The last UK nuclear power plant was commissioned only 20 years ago. Sizewell B cost £2 billion or about £4 billion in todays money.

Sizewell B came in under budget. The grid connection (planned in 1987) was for Christmas 1994. It actually happened barely one month late. The build took a mere 7 years. At the time it was lauded as a shining example of how to build large infrastructure projects. (See Independent article here)

But even so, Sizewell B is essentially a prototype. No commercial Light Water Reactor had been built in the UK before. So building to timescale and to budget is even more remarkable.

Eight "Sizewell B's" were planned. If they had been built the power supply outlook in the UK today would be entirely different. But due to extreme political fear mongering, opportunism and anti nuclear hysteria the other seven were canned.

The UK ended up relying on Gas backed up by the likes of DRAX and Longannet both burning vast quantities of imported coal for the next 20 years. The number of subsequent deaths and shortened lives from air pollution must be in the order of  50,000. I'll work it out properly in a future post.

(If you doubt this ball park figure of 50,000 dead read these two papers  by some of the worlds leading scientists and figure it out yourself. Karecha & Hansen and Markyanda & Wilson)

So I have to ask: Why is it that in a time scale of twenty years we have gone from  producing a nuclear power plant to budget and on time to a bloated massively expensive and chaotic shambles?

Don't forget the Sizewell B plant is an early example of Generation III reactor (See IMechE article here). As near as dammit Sizewell B it is as good as an EPR and at one fifth the price

I reckon we need to take a pause.

Instead of building horrendously complex and expensive EPR's maybe we should go back to the original plan and build a few more "Sizewell B" type PWR's. After all we still have the prototype - and it has been working for 20 years!

Then we can invest the money saved from not building the ludicrously expensive EPR's in Generation 4 nuclear prototyping and research.

This way within 10 years we can have a reliable cheap carbon free power supply from a proven designs and maybe working PRISM and/or LFTR prototype reactors coming
on line.

Well, its just an idea......

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Post posting note:

Thanks to @Davey1233 on twitter there are a few corrections I should add which, while not detracting from the achievement of Sizewell B do restore some of my faith in the EPR.

He correctly points out that Hinkley will be around 3 times the output capacity of Sizewell B and the true "todays" figure for Sizewell should be more like £5 billion not 4. Consequently comparing output power like for like the cost difference shrinks from a ratio of 1:5 to about 1:1.25

So maybe Hinkley C is not quite such a rip off - although I would still suggest the builders are being more than amply rewarded and have managed to secure this lucrative deal simply because the government is over a barrel.

In reality these decisions regarding the construction of nuclear power stations in the UK should have been taken 10 - 20 years ago. Instead the governments of the time simply kow-towed to the ignorance and hysteria of the Green lobby.

We desperately need nuclear power. Without it we could well end up slipping back into dependency on coal - just like they have in Germany. That is in nobodys interest.

Sendai Nuclear Reactor Restart

Both Sendai reactors (unit 1 and unit 2) have now been restarted. Sendai unit 1 has just started providing electricity to the grid. (August 14th)

So how will this affect Japans Carbon Dioxide emissions? And how would renewables (say wind) compare?

When nuclear was shut down in Japan it was replaced with an unholy mix of coal and gas (with about 7% oil) A rough estimate of the amount of Carbon Dioxide from the generation that replaced nuclear would be around 750Kg of Carbon Dioxide for every MegaWatt Hour of energy generated (750KG/MWh)

Sendai, during its last year of full operation generated just short of 13TWh of electricity (13000 GigaWatt Hours) So today, the first day of generation, Sendai unit one (half of the power plant) will have generated around 18GWh of energy. This will displace energy that would have otherwise been generated from the coal/gas/oil mix

So a rough estimate of the amount of Carbon Dioxide prevented from being dumped into the atmosphere by this single day of generation from half a nuclear power plant amounts to 18000 x 750 = 13.5 million Kg of Carbon Dioxide or 13500 Tonnes.

A single day of operation from half a nuclear power plant prevents the emission of 13500 Tonnes of carbon Dioxide.

Amazing isn't it?

How would a renewables option compare?

An 150m high 2MW wind turbine with a typical 25% capacity factor would intermittently produce 12MWh in a day. Or using same units as Sendai - 0.012GWh

So to match the single day output from half of Sendai nuclear power plant (and ignoring the problems of intermittency) would would need 1500 turbines.

Or to put it another way, for a single turbine to match a single days energy generation from half of Sendai nuclear power plant would take that turbine four years, one month and nine days.

Don't figures like that just knock you out?

The Trouble with Energy Storage

Energy Storage - The Holy Grail for intermittent electrical generators.

Reading the tweets and articles from the wind and solar industries (and their avid followers) you could be forgiven for thinking that large scale energy storage was a done deal. Something that just needed the bureaucrats in Westminster or Berlin or Washington to rubber stamp.

Sadly though, large scale wind/solar energy storage is not only not a done deal it is not even on the horizon. Even if it was it would still be very far from being a “solution” to intermittent and dilute electrical generation. But more on why that is in a later post.

First of all lets be clear about what I mean by energy storage.

In a way, all current thermal generation and hydro depend on “energy storage” The difference between energy storage at (say) a coal plant and a wind farm is that the coal plant stores its energy pre-generation (i.e. as raw fuel) whereas a wind turbine has to convert its energy into a non-electrical form after excessive generation in order to store it. So the wind turbine has to convert its excess energy into some form of fuel to be stored for later use. The coal plant simply does not use the fuel until it is needed.

(by the way I am using coal plant here because it is a good comparator – not because I am a fan of coal generation – I prefer nuclear)

Typically the front runners for renewable energy post generation fuel storage revolve around two technologies:

1. Pumped hydro (pumping water up hill into a reservoir)
2. Or as is the fashion - in some form of Battery.

Pumped Hydro.

Pumped hydro is an old and proven technology. It existed a long time before the current wind/solar obsessions. Originally pumped storage facilities ( like Dinorwig in Wales) were built to store energy when the price was low (typically at night) and then sell that stored energy at peak demand (when prices were high). Using this model, pumped hydro works very well. It is a profitable and very worthwhile addition to the Grid.

But things change when you try and use it to store excess solar and wind energy. You essentially break the pumped hydro economic model, especially with solar PV. (See Speigel Online article here )

You have to buy in energy when prices and demand is high while sacrificing your profitable market as well. Then you then have to sell on when prices and demand is low.

It does not work. Even if you created some subsidy regime to support this broken model, the number of potential pumped hydro sites are very limited anyway.

But at least, individual pumped hydro sites can store relatively large quantities of electricity.

Although UK pumped hydro could not deliver the energy quickly enough to actually take over the whole UK grid, they do hold enough energy to power the entire UK grid for about 1 hour. 

While that may not sound much, it is overwhelmingly better than any form of battery storage.

When we get to battery style storage the practicality and price viability of large scale energy storage falls off a very high cliff.

Batteries

The biggest battery in Europe is in Leighton Buzzard in the UK. It can store 10MWh of electricity. It could (say) store half the output from a single small 10MW wind farm running at maximum output for two hours. It cost £20 Million. An average UK demand is around 30GWh. So this single battery would power the entire UK grid for about 1.2 seconds.

OK, you may say – let us distribute/duplicate it and use a cheaper technology After all why not have a cheaper 10MWh battery for every (say) 5 wind turbines? You know - Spread it out a bit.

Lets look at the (arguably) most viable and cost effective large scale battery technology available today – Vanadium Redox flow batteries.

(Incidentally - this is VERY clever technology and has many potential applications – I am not knocking the technology – only the application) .

Flow batteries store the energy in the electrolyte. The consequence of this is that theoretically the only limitation to the their storage capacity is the amount of electrolyte you can to store. 

Currently Vanadium Redox batteries store about 20 Wh per litre of electrolyte. So for 10MWh you need to store around 500,000 litres of highly corrosive Sulphuric Acid based electrolyte.

Lets say technical innovation decreases that by a factor of 10. You would still need to pump/store/process 50,000 litres or nearly 100 tonnes of electrolyte. 

That is for 10 MWh. Or 1.2 seconds of nationwide supply.

So, why not just store more electrolyte? Simple eh?

But remember, this stuff is lethal. It is massively corrosive and is a liquid. Then remember this is one SMALL wind farm.

Multiply that by thousands of wind farms. Then avoid killing anyone or regularly risking massive environmental pollution. That really is a challenge!

Of course there are other technologies (Lithium-ion being the other main and more expensive player) but whatever you look at, the problems of large scale energy storage are immense. They are effectively intractable.

Remember, what I have discussed above is the LATEST and most promising technologies. On Twitter people often eulogize about lead-acid batteries or compressed air, but really their capabilities are far below pumped hydro or flow batteries.

But Tom Murphy on his appropriately named blog Do The Math has done a very good analysis of a theoretical (USA) National Lead Acid Battery and its practicalities On this Link

A very interesting post on the EROEI (Energy Returned On Energy Invested) on  storage with RE has been written by John Morgan  On This Link

Large scale post generation energy storage is not viable.

Bit even worse – not only is it not viable, it is also potentially very, very (and appallingly) dangerous.

But more on that in another post.

(Here I am not considering issues with charge/discharge rates, resource availability or lifetime cycle expectancy – they all just make things worse)

Navitus Bay Wind Park - Threat to Jurassic Coast : UNESCO

The Jurassic coast is the coastal section in England stretching from Studland Bay down through the Purbecks to Lime Bay and the East Devon coast. Immediately adjacent to the Eastern end of the Jurassic coast is the magnificent seven mile stretch of sandy beach around Bournemouth and Poole Harbour. As a natural environment it is unsurpassed in the UK. In Europe and the World it may have equals but nothing can trump the Jurassic Coast.

But the Jurassic coast is not just “pretty”. It is geologically and historically important.

Laid down during the Jurassic period (hence the name) the cliffs and stata are laden with fossils. The first fossils were identified here in the 19^th century. The whole area has a massive importance to the study of geology and pre-history. The cliffs and region provide a continuous record of life over a 185 million year period

The area is so important that UNESCO has designated the Jurassic Coast a “World Heritage Site” There are only four such sites, classed as “natural” in the UK with another 28 designated as “Cultural”

One would imagine, in a (supposedly) civilised and advanced nation that such items as having a World Heritage site would be a mark of pride and would call for extra special protection and care. One would hope such sites would be protected and cherished.

Well, dream on.

Immediately off this shore-line and in the face of massive public outrage, a Dutch/French corporate alliance plan to build an enormous Wind Park. The government is firmly in their pocket.

But others, other than greedy foreign corporations or a morally bankrupt supine governments have an interest in the Jurassic coast.

The prospect of the proposed Navitus Bay Wind Park of 196 huge industrial wind turbines being built immediately offshore the Jurassic coast has caused such alarm within UNESCO that they are discussing the potential removal of the special status that the Jurassic coast has. (See BBC Report on This LInk) 

UNESCO commissioned their own independent impact study into the wind park. Unsurprisingly (thats to the locals - but not apparently to EDF) this impact assessment differs considerably from the “independent” report commissioned (and paid for) by the Dutch/French consortium.

The UNESCO commissioned report would appear to have more in common with the views of the local population than the one commissioned by the money hungry foreign corporations. 

Now, isn't that a surprise? (not)

Here is a snippet of what UNESCPO said to the government

[quote]

"Any potential impacts on this natural property (the Jurassic Coast) are in contradiction to the overarching principle of the World Heritage Convention.

"The property will change from being located in a natural setting largely free from human-made structures to one dominated by human-made structures."

[unquote]

Are we really going to let greedy foreign corporations trash one of the worlds most important sites? Are we really going to let them get away with this?

Seriously, why the hell has this not been thrown out a long time before this?

How the hell has this potential travesty and rape of natural England been allowed to progress this far?

Wind Power Today in June

I haven't visited the excellent NETA-bmreports site for a while so I thought I'd have a quick look tonight just to see how much the wind power generation has improved by since my last visit.

I hit the enter key with a great deal of excitement, would it be wonderful?

Would it be, well, at least an improvement?

After all it couldn't get much worse than my last analysis during last winter (See Here)

I waited impatiently while Firefox fired up Java. The seconds ticked away then I watched as all those wonderful little applets burst into life.

My God! NETA is undoubted one of the best and most informative sites on the net!

Here is the one I was hoping to see an improvement in:

Sadly, I was disappointed (again).

Today the whole of the wind turbine fleet was running with a capacity factor of just under 8%. But tomorrow it goes up (wait for it) to 13.5% Woo Hoo!

So today that equates to 1/4 or a single average sized power station for the whole wind turbine fleet. Tomorrow that equates to 1/3 of a average sized power station.

Now I might have incurred the wrath of those who think that the odd snapshot like this is not really indicative of the true output.

To an extent that is true.

But I would like to point out that neither is the so-called capacity factor that windies like to quote. Often blindly quoted at 30% , last year it was 22%.

But whatever the value, Capacity factor is no more worthwhile than my single snapshot.

Because of the nature of wind energy, turbines will be running for most of the time well below their capacity factor,.

They only make up for it due to a few days of high wind.

Most of the time the output of a wind turbine will be less than 20%. For  30% of the time it is less than  10%.

What we need is the most likely output not some dodgy average of power generated from a cube law.

So, are we getting value for money out of these things? Is the irreparable damage done to the countryside and peoples lives worth this pitiful level of power generation?

I think not.

p.s. I must do another 3 or 6 month rolling appraisal again soon.

The Case against Coal

Both Coal and Nuclear provide excellent base load electrical generation. Both are in a league of their own for cost and reliability.

So why should we replace the coal plant with nuclear? Why not keep things diversified? Can we not use the coal as spinning reserve for wind?

Besides the CO2 emissions, there is another very good reason why we should build more nuclear and use it the retire coal fired plant. (which of course means we can then forget about the nightmare of wind and its intermittency)

It is in a table at DECC Here screenshot below.

Need I say more?