UK Renewable Energy Firms are Being Paid Huge Sums to Not Provide Power (bbc.com)
- Reference: 0177970669
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/06/09/0121203/uk-renewable-energy-firms-are-being-paid-huge-sums-to-not-provide-power
- Source link: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdedjnw8e85o
"And this has major consequences."
> The way the system currently works means a company like Ocean Winds gets what are effectively compensation payments if the system can't take the power its wind turbines are generating and it has to turn down its output. It means Ocean winds was paid £72,000 [nearly $100,000 USD] not to generate power from its wind farms in the Moray Firth during a half-hour period on 3 June because the system was overloaded — one of a number of occasions output was restricted that day. At the same time, 44 miles (70km) east of London, the Grain gas-fired power station on the Thames Estuary was paid £43,000 to provide more electricity.
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> Payments like that happen virtually every day. Seagreen, Scotland's largest wind farm, was paid £65 million last year to restrict its output 71% of the time, according to analysis by Octopus Energy. Balancing the grid in this way has already cost the country more than £500 million this year alone, the company's analysis shows. The total could reach almost £8bn a year by 2030, warns the National Electricity System Operator (NESO), the body in charge of the electricity network. It's pushing up all our energy bills and calling into question the government's promise that net zero would end up delivering cheaper electricity... the potential for renewables to deliver lower costs just isn't coming through to consumers.
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> Renewables now generate more than half the country's electricity, but because of the limits to how much electricity can be moved around the system, even on windy days some gas generation is almost always needed to top the system up. And because gas tends to be more expensive, it sets the wholesale price.
The UK government is now considering smaller regional markets, so wind companies "would have to sell that spare power to local people instead of into a national market. The theory is prices would fall dramatically — on some days Scottish customers might even get their electricity for free...
"Supporters argue that it would attract energy-intensive businesses such as data centres, chemical companies and other manufacturing industries."
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdedjnw8e85o
Stationary Grid Battery (Score:3)
The fastest solution is to build a few batteries and not NMC; use LFP or sodium. Someone could turn a profit doing that. Don't they have power engineers in the UK?
Re: (Score:1)
Lots of gravity battery options, including dams.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, excess energy that the grid can't accept should be [1]stored [interestin...eering.com] for later use when possible, or perhaps used to generate hydrogen (or synthesize gasoline or whatever fuel is most appropriate) for resale.
[1] https://interestingengineering.com/energy/inside-fraunhofers-stensea-project
Re: Stationary Grid Battery (Score:2)
No, just magical nannies and chimney sweepers.
Multiple problems combining (Score:2)
There is a few problems combining to cause this issue. The first is that in order to get Wind farms to be made capital owners are requiring a minimum price for a MWH to ensure their costs will be covered. That isn't unreasonable given government wants them built but one of the reasons is because the grid isn't actually available yet with sufficient capacity to take their power but government still wants the farm built. So a compensation deal is agreed. The various grid companies across the country are ridi
Failure of their payment structure (Score:2)
Clearly their payment structure is badly screwed up. They shouldn't be paying for power they can't receive.
Re: (Score:2)
> They shouldn't be paying for power they can't receive.
This would give the grid operator the ability to choke companies that they don't like and effectively put them out of business.