World's largest offshore windfarm starts generating
Discussion
In a bit of a counter to the flurry of EV negativity, great milestone passed yesterday with Dogger Bank; what will be the world's largest wind farm. It started generating power yesterday following the first turbine being hooked up.
https://doggerbank.com/news/
The scale of this project plus others in the near pipeline shows just how committed the UK is to a transition away from fossil fuels with the aim of a significant improvement to energy security and economic benefit. This is the real reason for the need to push the population away from fossil fuel reliance for the car fleet in the UK - it will be economically damaging to remain wedded to petrol and Diesel.
https://doggerbank.com/news/
The scale of this project plus others in the near pipeline shows just how committed the UK is to a transition away from fossil fuels with the aim of a significant improvement to energy security and economic benefit. This is the real reason for the need to push the population away from fossil fuel reliance for the car fleet in the UK - it will be economically damaging to remain wedded to petrol and Diesel.
Essarell said:
Do wind farms (renewables) ever manage to produce their installed capacity? On paper we should easily be energy self sufficient but that’s not the reality.
As an example we’re receiving more energy via the interconnection to France (2.8Gw) than we are generating from circa 12000 UK based wind turbines (2.2Gw), looks like it’s the French that are helping to keep prices down?
Currently (3:00am) demand is low (22Gw) but the spot price is £130 Mwh even though we have circa 45Gw of installed renewable capacity with 4.5 Gw of Nuclear available.
It looks like more wind just adds more unpredictability to the grid therefore the consumer pays a higher price for electricity.
That can’t be good for heavy users like manufacturing, they have a choice, expensive energy here in Europe or relocate to other parts of the world where electricity is far cheaper and the prices much less volatile.
It’s particularly still at the moment - 10th Jan this year we were running at 21.69GW from wind alone for a 30min period. Clearly you need excessive capacity to arrive at an average point which gives sufficient supply. This is when those interconnects come in handy providing us with net income. It’s quite common for net flow to be out of the UK to our neighbours. As an example we’re receiving more energy via the interconnection to France (2.8Gw) than we are generating from circa 12000 UK based wind turbines (2.2Gw), looks like it’s the French that are helping to keep prices down?
Currently (3:00am) demand is low (22Gw) but the spot price is £130 Mwh even though we have circa 45Gw of installed renewable capacity with 4.5 Gw of Nuclear available.
It looks like more wind just adds more unpredictability to the grid therefore the consumer pays a higher price for electricity.
That can’t be good for heavy users like manufacturing, they have a choice, expensive energy here in Europe or relocate to other parts of the world where electricity is far cheaper and the prices much less volatile.
Edited by Essarell on Thursday 12th October 03:46
I was just balancing out the low example with a high one (30min window as that’s how it’s recorded). It’s all about the averages though - over the last 12month period, over 30% of total UK electricity generation came from wind. That’s pretty useful and with the amount of offshore wind farm development in the pipeline that will only increase over the coming years and decades.
Essarell said:
plfrench said:
I was just balancing out the low example with a high one (30min window as that’s how it’s recorded). It’s all about the averages though - over the last 12month period, over 30% of total UK electricity generation came from wind. That’s pretty useful and with the amount of offshore wind farm development in the pipeline that will only increase over the coming years and decades.
True, but keep walking in completely wrong direction and you’ll get there eventually, just wasted a hell of a lot of effort and energy for nothing. Essarell said:
kambites said:
What's was the alternative? Solar is also unreliable, doesn't work at night, and difficult to install somewhere the NIMBYs wont complain; fossil fuels are out on environmental grounds; nuclear is stupendously expensive (more expensive than installing enough offshore wind and then relying on average wind production and using battery storage to match supply with demand)...
Unless we're willing to dedicate huge swathes of land to either solar or on-shore wind, offshore wind with storage is the best we have.
As we can see wind isn’t the solution, data supports that conclusion, storage? We’d be looking at many. Many Twh’s of it, at least 2-3 weeks worth of current UK which is expected to increase to circa 60Gwh if we go EV and GSH / ASH pumps. Unless we're willing to dedicate huge swathes of land to either solar or on-shore wind, offshore wind with storage is the best we have.
Alternatives? What’s the rest of the world using? Coal & Gas. Why not use those resources to perfect new technologies? The US sells millions of tons of coal to China, we could do the same and use the income to improve our balance of payments deficit and update our crumbling infrastructure, all off the back of the Yen. Instead we’ve got the cart right in front of the horse and ours and much of Europes economy is going to pay very dearly for it.
https://grid.iamkate.com/
Essarell said:
plfrench said:
Not sure how the data supports that conclusion? This year we're on track to equal fossil fuel electricity generation with renewable for the first time. This is from a near standing start in the space of 11 years shown on the graph below. Why on earth would we want to wed ourselves to an increasingly expensive and inefficiency commodity when we have this huge opportunity for wealth generation?
https://grid.iamkate.com/
National Grid have demand increasing thru to 2050, I’ll tweet them the good news that they needn’t worry. https://grid.iamkate.com/
Energy = money.
In the same way huge money is/ was generated through oil production, renewable generation will bring money to countries that can most effectively and efficiently produce in this next chapter.
We have a huge geographical advantage to sell energy to mainland Europe through the interconnects.
In the same way huge money is/ was generated through oil production, renewable generation will bring money to countries that can most effectively and efficiently produce in this next chapter.
We have a huge geographical advantage to sell energy to mainland Europe through the interconnects.
Essarell said:
That one crops up quite a bit and has been widely discredited The SNP referred to “The Saudi Arabia” of wind every time Blackford launched his tirades at PMQ, it comes from flawed research dating back to the 90’s but still trotted out.
To sell leftover energy we have to have some spare in the first place, so now not only are we going to have enough storage for the UK but also to sell all this lucrative electricity to the rest of Europe? Really? That’s fantasy economics.
I worked on my first wind farm 1997, West Coast of Scotland, same problem back then as it is now, the poor interconnectivity across these Isles wasn’t (and National Grid still acknowledges) in place. Sound familiar? That’s 26 years ago.
I believe (and apologies for bringing up this reference) that the cost of energy was one of the nails in HS2’s coffin, even some rail freight operators are ditching / off-loading their electric fleet and moving back to diesel. No worrying about CO2 emissions in that decision. Reality bites hard when the leccy bill hits the mat.
Running before we can walk and cashing our future generations cheques into unproven inefficient tech.
Ok, best do nothing then!To sell leftover energy we have to have some spare in the first place, so now not only are we going to have enough storage for the UK but also to sell all this lucrative electricity to the rest of Europe? Really? That’s fantasy economics.
I worked on my first wind farm 1997, West Coast of Scotland, same problem back then as it is now, the poor interconnectivity across these Isles wasn’t (and National Grid still acknowledges) in place. Sound familiar? That’s 26 years ago.
I believe (and apologies for bringing up this reference) that the cost of energy was one of the nails in HS2’s coffin, even some rail freight operators are ditching / off-loading their electric fleet and moving back to diesel. No worrying about CO2 emissions in that decision. Reality bites hard when the leccy bill hits the mat.
Running before we can walk and cashing our future generations cheques into unproven inefficient tech.
We already were a net exporter of electricity through the interconnects in 2022 to the tune of 0.5GW average over the year. That's 4.3TWh of energy sold. That year was a blip due to France having generation issues, but with the new interconnect to Germany underway it's bound to occur again in the next decade or so and become the norm longer term.
It's an interesting new chapter we're entering and we're very well placed as a nation to capitalise on it.
Essarell said:
i'm not sure this is correct but could there be an issue withe French Interconnector? showing we are importing only 110Mw? someone tripped a breaker perhaps,maintainance? bad timing with wind off the grid.
It's showing 550MW now and was 640MW about 10mins ago. When you say wind is off the grid, it's windier now than it was when you flagged our lack of generation in the early hours - currently showing 5.35GW so not that bad now albeit only just over half our average for the last 12months.Diderot said:
ChocolateFrog said:
Nearly 19GW of Gas currently, that must be a lot of gas, decent chunk of coal and that con biomass too.
That's my issue with a million wind turbines.
And indeed, when the wind doesn’t blow, can we remind ourselves of the 0 times tables? That's my issue with a million wind turbines.
The progress since 2012 at an annual level really shows the progress made to date in moving away from coal. Now that coal is pretty much finished (just one remaining coal fired plant now), the additional capacity from wind will continue to chip away at the amount of gas used.
2012:
2023:
Reduction in coal average annual generation from 15.63GW in 2012 down to 0.23GW in 2023 is pretty impressive in such a short time frame. Helped obviously by the reduction in demand, but also by a more then quadrupling of wind generation from 2.00 GW in 2012 to 8.26GW average in 2023.
When it's less windy we can fall back on gas to top up, but it makes sense to get as much average as possible from wind.
ChocolateFrog said:
Not really.
We're only usually exporting to Ireland. Quite to see any of the other interconnects negative whenever I look, which is most days.
Well if you've never seen it then it must be true We're only usually exporting to Ireland. Quite to see any of the other interconnects negative whenever I look, which is most days.
Handily, here's an example of a couple of other countries happening right now. We were exporting to Belgium earlier too.
tamore said:
every Briton has seen, experienced and completely understands post Covid……………..
seen and experienced? yes. completely understands? not by a long chalk, which is why it's still labelled as 'eco-lunacy' or some such murdoch barb.
This is something I really don't get - why is there not more communication to the UK population of the main reason for drive to electrification being that of energy security and therefore economic benefit - I'm sure people would get it and the whole transition would speed up... (ah, maybe that's the reason - we don't want there to be a clamour as if the change happened too quickly then there would be very real infrastructure problems...) I guess the ZEV Mandate forcing people along will be a better control mechanism than real market forces here.seen and experienced? yes. completely understands? not by a long chalk, which is why it's still labelled as 'eco-lunacy' or some such murdoch barb.
Essarell said:
Do wind farms (renewables) ever manage to produce their installed capacity? On paper we should easily be energy self sufficient but that’s not the reality.
As an example we’re receiving more energy via the interconnection to France (2.8Gw) than we are generating from circa 12000 UK based wind turbines (2.2Gw), looks like it’s the French that are helping to keep prices down?
Currently (3:00am) demand is low (22Gw) but the spot price is £130 Mwh even though we have circa 45Gw of installed renewable capacity with 4.5 Gw of Nuclear available.
It looks like more wind just adds more unpredictability to the grid therefore the consumer pays a higher price for electricity.
That can’t be good for heavy users like manufacturing, they have a choice, expensive energy here in Europe or relocate to other parts of the world where electricity is far cheaper and the prices much less volatile.
As a follow up to your 3am Thurs post when it was unusually calm - here's a snapshot from a more typical British day with wind generating more than 4 times the combined gas and coal efforts...As an example we’re receiving more energy via the interconnection to France (2.8Gw) than we are generating from circa 12000 UK based wind turbines (2.2Gw), looks like it’s the French that are helping to keep prices down?
Currently (3:00am) demand is low (22Gw) but the spot price is £130 Mwh even though we have circa 45Gw of installed renewable capacity with 4.5 Gw of Nuclear available.
It looks like more wind just adds more unpredictability to the grid therefore the consumer pays a higher price for electricity.
That can’t be good for heavy users like manufacturing, they have a choice, expensive energy here in Europe or relocate to other parts of the world where electricity is far cheaper and the prices much less volatile.
Edited by Essarell on Thursday 12th October 03:46
Essarell said:
Any ideas why the Coal is still running? Maybe some kind of stress test?
Yeah, odd isn’t it. There are four units at Ratcliffe each rated at 500MW so the max it can kick out is circa 2GW. It’s not really getting up to max capacity, maybe they’re just keeping it ticking over - but they went quite a number of weeks / months previously without burning any coal so they could turn off if they wanted to… most odd!Only 11months now till no more coal burning capacity at all.
Essarell said:
National grid live has 14.5Gw, today has to be a renewables showcase event, good strong constant wind and clear skies for solar, maybe a new low for gas today?
The performance today really isn’t going to be that unusual. You just need to study the average charts over the last year to get a feel for that. You really did stumble across an unusually quiet spell when you looked the other day - certainly the lowest wind generation I’ve seen over the last couple of years of having an interest in this area!
It’s quite common to get mid to high teens GW wind on days that aren’t what we’d think of as being unusually windy in the UK. With the offshore projects in the pipeline, I would expect low twenties GW will become the norm rather than the exception by the end of this decade too.
At that stage, as Donkey says, gas back up will become quite infrequently needed.
PushedDover said:
DB D won’t likely be here until 2030.
By which point adjacent to it Sofia will be ready too (2026) and the Doggerbank South West and Doggerbank South East will be also warmed up / ready (albeit different owners)
Great work PushedDover and the Doggerbank team By which point adjacent to it Sofia will be ready too (2026) and the Doggerbank South West and Doggerbank South East will be also warmed up / ready (albeit different owners)
Any idea why the mainstream media didn’t feature more about this great project?
Is there anywhere you can view Doggerbank generation statistics as a member of the public?
jk_88 said:
I did not once say it was a full dataset nor portray it as such? The underlying point being the 3 datapoint provided at that specific time showed minimal variance between all 3. That is the whole crux of my original point.
Currently reporting 3.7, 1.9, 3.7 m/s so another relatively consistent grouping of numbers - I.e not very windy.
Guess we are in another one of those “rare” periods where we are generating at less than 10% of installed capacity.
It is rare though - the average wind generation for the last 12 months is 8.9GW. Assuming a normal distribution of generation across the year sub 2GW and greater than 16 GW events are of about equal likelihood - feels about right.Currently reporting 3.7, 1.9, 3.7 m/s so another relatively consistent grouping of numbers - I.e not very windy.
Guess we are in another one of those “rare” periods where we are generating at less than 10% of installed capacity.
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