Over 50% from renewables

[sphexx]

I'd say joint custody TBH, Rats need 3 things to survive, Water, Food and Harbourage.
Seems your neighbour is providing the harbourage, but you must be providing at least one other, or they wouldn't bother dropping by

There's plenty of water locally (ponds), they come for food (I have free ranging bantams and Runner Ducks) and I have sheds and housing they keep trying to take up residence under. It's a constant battle, as you know but I don't have any in residence at present. I call them the neighbour's rats because they have a "compost" heap that they just add to so that's a lovely spot for rodents.

 

[Cobra]

I call them the neighbour's rats because they have a "compost" heap that they just add to so that's a lovely spot for rodents.

They love a good compost heap

The sheds would be quite attractive too, if it wasn't for that damned terrier chasing them at every opportunity

 

[Meeten]

Government incentives? Like more subsidies? Yes, take more taxes off working people, All for something that has not been proved to be a problem.

You already pay for National Grid intervention in the form of BSUoS - Balancing services use of system charges - this is when NG has to intervene to balance the system at 50Hz.
The increase in renewables has led to more intervention and at extremes, this cost has gone more volatile.
This is a charge that all electricity companies are subject to - and one that is passed on to customers.

Having a soak for the excess energy (batteries) would alleviate this somewhat and smooth out the supply / demand.

You could use a system like electric mountain in wales. Use renewables to pump to water back up for on demand use when it's needed. At present I believes they buy back electricity when its cheap to pump the water back up.

This is correct. Dinorwig (Electric Mountain) and Ffestiniog (Wales), Cruachans and Foyers (Scotland) do pump water to the top reservoir (normally, but not exclusively) at night wen prices are lower, but there are huge losses associated with this - and the mechanics, whilst fast, are not instantaneous which can lead to frequency deviations and additional cost borne by NG (read customer)......

 

[StewartR]

The UK' s 3 largest turbines (don't think there are any larger ones yet) reliably provide 100% power to Ford's Dagenham engine plant and have done so for quite a few years now.

No they don't. You're an engineer, so think about it. When there's no wind, they generate no power.

The total amount of electricity these turbines generate in a year is in excess of what the Dagenham plant needs. That's well documented. But that's averaged over a year. The wind turbines themselves aren't enough to power the plant 24/7.

 

[kry10]

Robert Llewellyn is a very strong advocate of renewable energy, there was a tv program where he attempted to make his own village have renewable energy, but, it was much tougher than you'd think, one major drawback is that you can't earn a revenue from excess energy production, because energy flows in one direction and the cables couldn't take it from the village.

 

[StewartR]

one major drawback is that you can't earn a revenue from excess energy production, because energy flows in one direction and the cables couldn't take it from the village.

Eh? That doesn't make any sense at all. We earn money from the solar panels on our roof. Every kWh that we don't use ourselves (which, during the day in the summer, is most of them) is exported to the National Grid and we get paid for it. There is a perfectly routine mechanism for this and it covers all sorts of micro-generation schemes, not just solar. I don't know who this Robert Llewellyn chap is, but I think he was badly advised. (It might have made good TV though.)

 

[kry10]

Eh? That doesn't make any sense at all. We earn money from the solar panels on our roof. Every kWh that we don't use ourselves (which, during the day in the summer, is most of them) is exported to the National Grid and we get paid for it. There is a perfectly routine mechanism for this and it covers all sorts of micro-generation schemes, not just solar. I don't know who this Robert Llewellyn chap is, but I think he was badly advised. (It might have made good TV though.)

Robert Llewellyn is the celebrity from Red Dwarf and Scrap Heap Challenge as well as many other tv shows.

The village he lived in didn't have the high capacity cables capable of coping with traffic going both directions, he was informed by someone from the electricity company in his village that the infrastructure there just couldn't cope and would cause sparks and fires along the lines and it would cost a lot of money to upgrade it all.

It intrigued me that Las Vegas is using renewable energy as in solar panels on the roofs of the hotels and casinos.

 

[StewartR]

The village he lived in didn't have the high capacity cables capable of coping with traffic going both directions, he was informed by someone from the electricity company in his village that the infrastructure there just couldn't cope and would cause sparks and fires along the lines and it would cost a lot of money to upgrade it all.

OK, I guess that does make sense. Sorry for doubting you/him.

We can generate 4kW and put that into the grid quite comfortably. But we had to apply for permission to do it, because we were told that if there were too many solar panels already in our neighbourhood, the grid might not be able to cope with too much generated solar power all from the same location. I guess that's what happened to Robert Llewellyn. Obviously if you want to build a solar panel farm you can do it as long as you have the right connections, but that's easier and cheaper to arrange if the site isn't too remote.

 

[Mr Bump]

We need to try much harder and use more diverse technology for greener power, no longer can we make cave man like plans to burn stuff for electricty and heat.
wind, wave, water all these things and solar.
also cutting down on so much waste of energy.
still the amount of business's all lit up at nights and weekends.

 

[MrDrizz]

I wonder how much it would cost to upgrade the grid so it can take it both ways (ohhh errr) and could the money wasted on unclear be enough to cover that.

We also need decentralised production at present the NG is vulnerable to not only cyber attacks but CME from the sun pne big one and it'll fry the grid if it's not protected enough.

 

[nilagin]

No they don't. You're an engineer, so think about it. When there's no wind, they generate no power.

The total amount of electricity these turbines generate in a year is in excess of what the Dagenham plant needs. That's well documented. But that's averaged over a year. The wind turbines themselves aren't enough to power the plant 24/7.

Where they are situated, there is always wind, even a gentle breeze is enough to rotate them. The first two were installed in 2004 and there was never a day when at least one of them was rotating and generating electricity. The 3rd was commissioned in 2011 and there isn't a day that goes by when at least 2 of them is generating electricity, but usually all three will be rotating.

 

[viv1969]

Where they are situated, there is always wind, even a gentle breeze is enough to rotate them. The first two were installed in 2004 and there was never a day when at least one of them was rotating and generating electricity. The 3rd was commissioned in 2011 and there isn't a day that goes by when at least 2 of them is generating electricity, but usually all three will be rotating.

If the wind speed is too high, they are angled to not catch it and they don't generate.
Turbines have a rather finite operating range.

 

[Tringa]

I too can't understand why there isn't much more of a push from Government to install solar panels on all(or almost all) new builds. If there was a bigger market, there would be more investment in research to increase the efficiency of the panels and the costs would come down. If I was being a conspiracy theorist I could imagine pressure from the power generation companies. If new build solar panels and retro fitted ones decreased the power requirement by, say 5%, I don't think the power generating companies would be too happy.

There is the 'problem' of storing the power which is going to be produced when we probably don't need it a lot (for example mid afternoon in the middle of summer) but again if there was more solar generation which needed to address the issue of storage, then storage solutions would be found. As mentioned above the Tesla batteries look as if they might be a way forward.

The same applies to wind generated power, though it is probably windier during the months when power would be needed and storage might not be that important.

However, given an increasing world population with increasing power demands then we must use nuclear power. Even with tidal power, which is more constant and predictable, I can't see we can get enough power without using nuclear.

Unfortunately it is very expensive and we need to be willing to make the substantial investment in potentially safer nuclear options and the generation (and possibly the generation after that) which develops it is unlikely to see the rewards.


Dave

 

[nilagin]

If the wind speed is too high, they are angled to not catch it and they don't generate.
Turbines have a rather finite operating range.

60mph max wind speed which doesn't happen very often, at 35M long it doesn't take much wind speed to make them rotate and generate power, so they have quite a wide range really, if they do have to stop them because of high wind they can just reclaim some of their excess power they have sold to the NG in the power station next door.