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What is your question about this? All the article says is that when there is no wind then other forms of generation are needed which cost more – that’s kind of obvious.
The fact that electricity prices will increase as more and more investment in renewables is to be expected.
It’s the storage of renewables produced electricity which is where a lot of research and investment is being done now.
I didn’t ask a question, alan1302. Actually you have raised a point by claiming that wind power is cheaper than other forms of generation.
I didn’t ask a question, alan1302. Actually you have raised a point by claiming that wind power is cheaper than other forms of generation.
What was point of the original post then if there was no question?
Generally wind power is one of the cheapest forms of electricity generation – based on shore. See here:
Can’t get cheaper than breaking wind imho
LOL Very true
Wind power is the cheapest way of generating electricity but storage is required to make the most of it. Wind tends to blow more through the night, when there is less demand, so battery storage will be required to make full use of this source of power.
Wide adaptation of V2G technology, when it is available, could be the answer to this conundrum and would save millions of pounds for the national grid.
The only person who got all his work done by Friday was Robinson Crusoe.
Anything i post over three lines long please assume it is an article lol.I posted the article for information, alan1302. I found it interesting reading.
It is unfortunately it shows the lack of joined up thinking in the government. There needs to be a push for renewables but backup generation, nuclear and storage options are all needed as well.
The title of your post was Cheap Wind Power – nothing in that article suggests that it is not cheap and neither does anything I can find about it.
The title was alluding to this statement in the article:
“On Thursday, with wind speeds even lower, prices for balancing during the evening peak shot up again, reaching £1,400. By Friday’s peak, that figure had risen to a record-breaking £4,000.”
I thought it obvious and didn’t need explaining.
The title was alluding to this statement in the article: “On Thursday, with wind speeds even lower, prices for balancing during the evening peak shot up again, reaching £1,400. By Friday’s peak, that figure had risen to a record-breaking £4,000.” I thought it obvious and didn’t need explaining.
Can I assume you are not keen on wind power being used as much?
You can assume what you like, alan1302 !
In general I object to my taxes being spent on speculative ventures of any sort. If wind power was so cheap, private investors would be queuing up to provide it and profit from it, without massive subsidies from the state.
You can assume what you like, alan1302 ! In general I object to my taxes being spent on speculative ventures of any sort. If wind power was so cheap, private investors would be queuing up to provide it and profit from it, without massive subsidies from the state.
£28 billion has been invested in wind farms in the first half of 2020 worldwide. Subsidies are very often needed to give people a shove in a certain direction.
Octopus Agile is certainly expensive at the moment, bouncing off the cap at 35p/kWh & has been doing this in the off peak daytime periods for quite a while now. Many are moving from Agile to Go tariffs, wheras some of us are awaiting next Tuesday’s stormy weather.
The interlink with the Netherlands has been down for months & no fix mentioned as yet, butthat wouldn’t help much as that just widens the wind catchment area.
Lots of nuke capacity is offline for maintenance.
Two more coal stations closed in 2020 which has also reduced baseline generation.
Then there’s a COVID effect, the effect that reduced electricity consumption during the first lockdown (when factories closed) is different to the current lockdown where factories are open, plus, many other people are at home needing winter heating, which has increased demand.
As Brydo mentions, V2G is potentially one solution but it’s not here yet. Some first adopters have their powerwalls & are buying cheaper electricity during the night & feeding it back into the grid gradually during the day at crazy prices (another feature of Octopus Agile), but these systems were for managing excess solar capacity (mid day to 4-7pm peak shifting) and are not large enough (typically 4-10kWh) to do much in the way of grid relief, although their owners are making a few pound back on their 1000s of pound outlay.
So, we patiently either wait it out, shifting as much usuage as possible into the night (my washing/drying machine ran midnight to 3:30am last night, & my 4kW home brew power pack was idle as it’s not finished yet, but fortunately my wheelchairs charged overnight too (all lithium powered)). Salad for lunch in the winter is weird but saves putting the oven on, lighting reduced in the daytime is weird but necessary, & thankfully I still have gas central heating so I’m toasty whilst I’m on a fixed rate for that.
I’ve already reduced my peak electricity usuge & shifted most things to run at night so 35p/kWh during the day is for running the fridge/freezer & the laptop computer so won’t bankrupt me anytime soon. My daily consumption is around 6kWh at the moment, mostly after midnight. I’m looking at running the coffee machine from a 2kW inverter from the spare wheelchair batteries…. how Scrooge am I?
As for the EV, the battery is clinging on to a combination of negative priced 27th Dec power plus a top-up from a Polar 50kW Rapid at 15p/kWh for 10kWh worth. If I feel particularly Scoogey I’ll park it down at the station for free & charge it up for free, & then pull a few free kWh into my wheelchairs from the car, saving maybe as much as £1….. or maybe I’m simply not quite that sad just yet.
A fascinating read, gothitjulie. What chance do you think the government has of keeping its commitment to phase out gas boilers?
A fascinating read, gothitjulie. What chance do you think the government has of keeping its commitment to phase out gas boilers?
Good point, I’ve looked into this little problem & determined that people with enough land (large garden etc) will use a ground source heat pump so it could get expensive to heat the house when there’s no wind (as at the current time) but overall it’s possible. For those with little or no land & renting, landlords will install the cheaper air source heat pumps & be crippled by the heating costs & no doubt many will die.
This is of course where the alternative to methane comes in, hydrogen, produced at massive plants powered by wind power (and probably some solar) & stored for when it’s needed.
The Government hints at the way forward but sometimes things take their own turn & provide an alternative pathway.
Regrettably, governments don’t hint at the way forward so much as drive the way forward using taxpayers money to promote their own political agenda. Nothing new there…
True enough, & currently you could connect a Briggs & Stratton methane powered 8kW generator to your mains gas supply & use it to sell power to the grid at around £1 per kWh, so that’s not going to last long either.
[based on fixed price mains gas at around 2.9p/kWh, a highly efficient Briggs & Stratton 8kW generator, & an outrageous export tariff of £1 kWh at the current peaks]
One problem currently with this enormous peak in electricity prices is that it’s being driven partly by a shortage of supply, but more by the actions of speculators who have come from the hopeless oil markets that they mercilessly exploited in the past.
Regrettably, governments don’t hint at the way forward so much as drive the way forward using taxpayers money to promote their own political agenda. Nothing new there…
If governments don’t do it then we would need to wait until individuals come along to try and turn the tide but that will take longer.
Individuals usually have less money/resources to invest than governments so takes longer. So wait longer to change from non-renewables to renewables – which is what we have been talking about.
Actually the thread was about wind power. There was never any suggestion that individuals would provide it.
You initial post is more about what generation is required when there is no wind power and the cost of it.
I’ve never said individuals would bring it either – I said you need government to push it but you said you don’t like governments being involved in things like that and I said why I think they are needed.
I seem to have lost track of what it is that you claim individuals have less resources/money to invest in. My only arguement is if wind power is such a good idea, it would not require millions of tax payers money to provide it. The private sector would see a profit and invest its own money.
I seem to have lost track of what it is that you claim individuals have less resources/money to invest in. My only arguement is if wind power is such a good idea, it would not require millions of tax payers money to provide it. The private sector would see a profit and invest its own money.
Less resources/money to invest in wind generation.
Wind generation is a long term investment – and long term investments often needs government money rather than waiting for a private company looking at long term gains. Also as far as wind generation goes a lot of private money is being spent on it.
Following the private sector we went down the oil route for fuel…which long term is not good environmentally so just looking for private investment does not always work well.
it is likely that, soon, wind farms will be paying back subsidies to the government.
we are blessed with plenty of wind in Scotland, and to a lesser extent in England and wales, so supply is pretty continuous. You will get the odd period when the wind doesn’t blow so back up is required, which form this back up takes is probably still to be agreed on. As Julie says hydrogen is likely to be the favourite but if we are going to heat houses using electricity and run millions of EV’s we will need many, many more wind farms than we have now.
I certainly wouldn’t discount the potential input from solar panels England and wales get more sun than Scotland but even up here it could play a major part in the green energy mix.
I’ve had solar panels for a number of years, a 4kw system, and it produces, year after year, 3,000kwh of energy. My system panels are 11% efficient, new panels, coming to the market this year, from a company in Oxford, have an efficiency of about 28% . if my system was powered by these panels I would produce about 7,000-8,000 kWh per year.
To give you an idea of what that means in the real world, I use about 5,000kwh a year to power my house, so these new panels would produce enough electricity to power my house with 2,000-3,000kwh left over so if this was replicated through the millions of suitable house roofs throughout the country, could go a major way to bringing excess green energy during about six months of the year to say make hydrogen for the winter months.
Ceres Power, another Oxford company I think, produce a fuel cell that converts natural gas into electricity with no dangerous by products. One of these cell produces 1kwh of energy, so 24kwh per day. We still have natural gas in this country and we have supplies from other European partners so maybe one of these in every house combined with solar , wind and V2G we could make this work.
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