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A comment on U.K. offshore wind park may generate power cheaper than by burning coal. Parent comment

Re:U.K. offshore wind park may generate power cheaper than b... by belorn on Friday September 20, 2019 @10:33AM (#21027084)
aggregate figures look like they are moving towards 100% renewable, but look when renewable is at is bottom 12% (bottom level for the last 24hrs). That is when the so called "backup" gas grid burn brightest.

30% of the power usage or 30% of the capacity? A nation that has three times the capacity compared to power usage could produce 100% of the energy on gas and still claim a 33% capacity being based on gas.

2030 sounds good, but the average expected life time of a natural gas power plant is 50 years. I would hazard a guess that the most common type of new power plants being built in the UK (in terms of costs) is natural gas power plants. Is the expectation here that all that investment currently being poured into natural gas will just have to give it up in 10 years?

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Re:U.K. offshore wind park may generate power cheaper than b... by Reason077 on Friday September 20, 2019 @11:08AM (#21027527)
> "I would hazard a guess that the most common type of new power plants being built in the UK (in terms of costs) is natural gas power plants."

Absolutely not. There have been almost no new gas power plants built in the UK since 2010 (the only new one is Carrington in 2016, a CCGT which replaced a closed coal plant and which had been under construction since 2008). Since several old gas power plants have closed, there has been a net decrease in gas capacity. And as far as I know, there are currently no gas power plants actively under construction anywhere in the UK.

All new capacity in the UK is coming from:

- Renewables

- Nuclear (although this will probably be a net decrease, as old plants will close. Currently only Hinkley C is under construction, with several other projects on hold or cancelled)

- Inter-connectors

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Re:U.K. offshore wind park may generate power cheaper than b... by belorn on Friday September 20, 2019 @03:08PM (#21030134)
That is good news. Looking at Germany, Poland, and US there is a lot of investment into natural gas power plants, and based on the real time data, I made my guess that similar process was ongoing in the UK.

Just a random google gave this: https://www.smart-energy.com/industry-sectors/business-finan...

But I have no numbers to compare £700 million (possible times 3) with wind/solar investment for 2019.

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Re:U.K. offshore wind park may generate power cheaper than b... by Reason077 on Saturday September 21, 2019 @11:34AM (#21035934)
Further information: this particular project (Tees CCPP) is actually a replacement for a former CCGT that was on the same site.

"Historically the Site accommodated a 1,875 MW Combined Cycle Gas Turbine power station (the former Teesside Power Station) with the ability to generate steam for utilisation within the wider Wilton International site. The Teesside Power Station ceased generation in 2013 and was demolished between 2013 and 2015."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teesside_power_station

https://www.tccpp.co.uk/pdfs/changeConsultationDocuments/NMC...

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Re:U.K. offshore wind park may generate power cheaper than b... by Reason077 on Saturday September 21, 2019 @10:58AM (#21035729)
> https://www.smart-energy.com/industry-sectors/business-finan...

Yeah, that's disappointing. But development consent approval doesn't necessarily mean they will be built. There are some other CCGT projects that have been approved for a number of years, but construction hasn't started because the economics don't stack up right now.

With the cancellation of several nuclear plants, others being retired over the next 5-15 years, and the ban on coal by 2025, there may indeed be a future deficit of gas generation capacity. It may be that these projects are being developed speculatively in anticipation of that.

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Re:U.K. offshore wind park may generate power cheaper than b... by OJFord on Friday September 20, 2019 @12:35PM (#21028556)
> - Inter-connectors

What's that? Supply from a grid overseas?

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Re:U.K. offshore wind park may generate power cheaper than b... by isostatic on Friday September 20, 2019 @01:05PM (#21028922)
Yes. Sometimes GB exports power to mainland europe and/or ireland, sometimes it's the other way round.

On average GB imports more from europe than exports. It exports more to Ireland than imports.

Doesn't really help with the troughs in wind - when it's calm in the north sea for the UK, it is calm for Denmark too.

Maybe if europe puts a lot of production in Biscay and the Med it will smooth things out - but there's only so much capacity on the interconnects (2GW from France, 1GW from Netherlands, 1GW from Belgium, 500MW to Northern Ireland, 500MW to ROI)

That said, planned interconnects bring it up to 10GW from mainland, 1.5GW to Ireland

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Re:U.K. offshore wind park may generate power cheaper than b... by pjc50 on Friday September 20, 2019 @10:52AM (#21027326)
Essentially all the thermal plants are gas or "biomass" renewables. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Engl... (note England only)

It looks like they're all hoping for CCS to become a reality. You're right that it looks infeasible to just turn them all off by 2030. Currently the CCS is getting nowhere either. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-201374...

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Re:U.K. offshore wind park may generate power cheaper than b... by Brakenshire on Friday September 20, 2019 @11:09AM (#21027531)
30% in terms of power usage, electricity output, not capacity. I can’t remember the exact figure, but it’s plus or minus 5% from there. The 50% current figure for renewables and nuclear is also output.
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