It would also need a customer in Britain to buy our power when it's windy and a supplier to sell to us when it's not. I'm not an expert on the weather but I'd imagine that when it's windy here it's windy over there as well.Originally Posted by Watcher1
It would also need a customer in Britain to buy our power when it's windy and a supplier to sell to us when it's not. I'm not an expert on the weather but I'd imagine that when it's windy here it's windy over there as well.
Er, they have a need for a lot more power- and only 5% of their electricity is renewable.
Why dont we build lots of them and than sell the power to the British (or whoever else wants to buy). Just because they cant manage it doesnt mean that we should nt give it a go. The wind will always be free and will always be there. To the best of my knowledge all that is needed is the currently proposed interconnector to channel the power once turbines are up. Of course the lack of any concept of a "Grand Projet" in this country will probably sink any chance of this happening....
The problem is that electricity supply requires reliability. For wind (and other intermittent) power sources to be economic, there needs to be a way to match demand to supply (as supply cannot be controlled).
For example, when it isn't windy you might have an agreement with certain customers that they will go into low power mode. In exchange, you give them a reduction in their bill.
For home use, one possibility here would be things like dishwashers as their start time isn't critical, they could be set to wait for 1-2 hours before starting if the 'low-power' flag is sent from the grid. Once supply increases, they would then switch on. Things like kettles are another option (apparently they cause a spike around 6pm), they could have a low power mode where it takes twice as long to heat up, though that mightn't actually matter unless the heat up time is spread out over 30+ mins. Other things would be home heating.
This is basically like 'night-saver' electricity. However, instead, it would be a reduced rate when the wind is blowing, rather than a reduced rate at night. You could set your night-saver based equipment to only switch on when the 'wind-saver' signal is given.
The other option is energy storage. Currently the best way to do this is with water storage. We have one pumped storage system in Ireland. It allows balancing out of small mismatches between supply and demand. Water is pumped up to a high reservoir during the night when energy is cheap. However, it couldn't sustain the entire grid for very long (if at all).
A second way of doing it is to have lots of hydroelectric capacity. Hydro plants can be shut down when there is excess supply and brought back online quickly like pumped storage plants. They provide the same load balancing effects as pumped storage and when switched off the water isn't wasted, as they act like a dam.
Ardnacrusha isn't actually that great for this as it doesn't actually block the Shannon. If it doesn't use the water, it flows down the other path. However, that means that there is no need for a lake behind the generator.
There was talk of the Scandinavian countries being part of a major EU-wide electricity network. Their hydro electric plants could acts as the 'batteries' for Europe.
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I think we'll find that we'll be using 50% less electricity in a couple of years time. These analyses that consider the current level of consumption as the base line, and anticipate further increases, are way off the mark.
Conservation is going to be big thing - and indulgences like dishwashers are going to be history.
"Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest." Mark Twain
“When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes. Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain.” Napoléon Bonaparte
From my cold, dead hand..........
I would have thought that the best approach with wind would actually be micro rather than macro.
If you go with the macro approach you have a massive capital outlay and a long delay in getting the farm up and running. Under the macro model you then look to replace the existing fossil fuel generators with the shiny new (and very expensive) wind generator. At which point in the modelling exercise you get into a heap over the intermittent nature of wind - so we either keep (some or all of) the fossil fuel generators and sell the excess on windy days and buy the gap on still days.
I think a micro solution makes more sense. For example Individuals (or local areas) can be subsidised to install small individual wind turbines/solar panels. These can be incorporated into the grid on the smart metering system (any excess power is fed back into the grid and either used to reduce the users bill or to pay off the capital subsidy). This approach will tend to be more efficient - why?? because the user controls the usage levels in the house and they know that the more they can optimise their usage to be taken from their own generator the less they will pay. So rather than trying to manufacture country wide optimisation of usage you instead have a system which by its very nature incentivises people financially to use the tumble dryer, dishwasher whatever when the wind is blowing and or the sun shining. The solar panel on it's own can ensure that (for example) the immersion doesn't need to go on for about 7/8 months of the year.
I think that the government should be aiming for solar panels on every house and a small wind turbine on every house by 20something. Govt pays the installation cost. User gets the benefit of reduced bills. Any excess power is fed back into the grid - initially paying back the installation costs but subsequently further reducing the bill for the user.
Nice current spin off too in terms of employment - theres a couple of thousand men and women who are very much able and willing (and now available) to install the technology (it's not that it's complicated). The infrastructure is in place already to handle this.
I'm not pretending that the end result would be the panacea to all energy ills but this would :
1) reduce our fossil fuel energy consumption in the short and long term
2) reduce individuals electricity bills
3) help ease our construction unemployment problem (albeit temporarily)
4) be cost effective - government capital outlay which is then repaid back over time
Who would say no? OK other than the major power generators who don't want to see micro power - who else would say no? Why would it not work? OK urban centres probably wouldn't be that suitable and that's most households - I accept that. But given the huge number of rural housing (small estates and once off) I would think there would be enough to have a substantial impact.
These are the types of schemes or ideas I would have expected the Greens to be implementing in government.
Can ya ask yer fellas in the Green Party where the smart meter is please ? The micro element of renewables would get the most help from this in my view.
Also, storage heaters might play a role in capturing the excess from wind at night (reducing the need for fossil fuel burning) and it mightn't be a bad idea to give some incentives for this kind of local storage, like reduced tax on purchase because it could be classed as use of a locally-produced resource i.e. electricity from local wind. Or units produced from wind could be made slightly cheaper by night or something so people would have an incentive to avail of local storage. The emphasis should be away from fossil fuels and onto the likes of wind so the country can both earn and save money thus renewable infrastructure could be in part, self-financing.
We need those Smart Meters though ! I am sure it's just around the corner where we will have portable solar panels - yokes you unfold on your lawn (or unroll like a blanket ) and then plug into your Smart meter. Look at the days of sun we are having; this kind of weather mightn't last forever or come too regularly but over the long run - and the lifetime of renewable energy patterns has to be seen over a long period - such micro generation will have a significant effect (as the micro-use over time has had the adverse effect we're seeing now .. build up of CO2 ye're all screaming about)
And you have a fair point on contraction of use - is it possible we'll see some form of rationing in the near future ? Or prices increases over a certain level of use ? This might apply to petrol as well, perhaps in the intermediate.
The interconnector only has a capacity of about 200MW which would not come close to addressing the inherent variability of using wind power on a larger scale.
Have we? Last I heard this was still in testing and it was estimated that it would be 10 years before it was developed to a point where it was commercially viable. Similarly tidal power is at an early stage of testing and is looking at a similar timescale. As for cash being available, this should not be wasted on trying build generating capacity from technology which is simply not yet ready to staisfy our needs.
You're throwing out far too many generalities here. Renewable energy is not somehow exempt from the fiscal scrutiny that other sources of power are subject to.
Smart Meters are on the way. There are a number of technical issues to be overcome, but these are in hand.
Remember this phrase: Biomass CHP
Solar and Wind have a lot to offer, but Biomass CHP is the big opportunity. It is the elephant in the room.
It is cheap, efficient, indigenuous, and it isn't intermittent.
How come all we ever hear about is Wind, Wave and Solar (and the "problems" they may or may not bring)?
Biomass CHP!:mrgreen:
"Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest." Mark Twain
“When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes. Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain.” Napoléon Bonaparte
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