Wind news | 144 comments (144 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

More renewables power (4.00 / 6)

Third-quarter numbers are out about electricity production in Germany (data based on EEX numbers so it may be short of 100% coverage). Instead of translating the news report, I do a table:

Generation mode	Q1-Q3 2012	Q1-Q3 2011	Change
Wind	32.6 TWh	29.5 TWh	+10%
Solar	25.0 TWh	16.0 TWh	+56%
Wind + solar	57.6 TWh	45.5 TWh	+21%

The article mentions the seasonal natural balancing between wind and solar; numbers for the last two months:

Generation mode	August 2012	September 2012
Wind	2.16 TWh	3.02 TWh
Solar	3.88 TWh	2.91 TWh
Wind + solar	6.04 TWh	5.93 TWh

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Thu Oct 4th, 2012 at 05:20:42 AM EST

Re: More renewables power (none / 0)

> the seasonal natural balancing between wind and solar

Yep, this is important as storage of energy over seasonal time scales is hard. One can match and mix wind and solar to follow the annual load cycle.

...but not just the seasonal cycle: wind and sun anti-correlate also on the synoptic time scale, with high pressures being sunny and low pressures windy.

by mustakissa on Fri Oct 5th, 2012 at 09:01:38 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: More renewables power (none / 0)

Big dams are your friend. :)

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

by Starvid on Fri Oct 5th, 2012 at 09:11:33 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: More renewables power (none / 0)

Unless you live downstream from this one.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue
- Queen Elizabeth II}

by eurogreen on Fri Oct 5th, 2012 at 10:46:42 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: More renewables power (none / 1)

Certainly, but they also have their limitations. And you only find them in certain countries...

You can, e.g., store quite huge amounts of energy in the Norwegian mountains. But getting it out quickly enough when you need it may be a problem. Even after installing all the necessary extra turbines and high-voltage lines -- where do you put all the water downstream of the dam?

by mustakissa on Fri Oct 5th, 2012 at 12:12:31 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: More renewables power (none / 1)

In the river, where it is collected by the next dam.

There is also the option of pumped hydro, which would become far more attractive with access to sovereign credit.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

by Starvid on Fri Oct 5th, 2012 at 05:44:15 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: More renewables power (none / 1)

In the river, where it is collected by the next dam.

Eh, I'm talking GW, not TWh. Where do you put a huge amount of water all at once in a small river, with picturesque, small Norwegian villages lining the shores?

by mustakissa on Sat Oct 6th, 2012 at 04:53:18 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: More renewables power (none / 1)

Naturally there are limits. In Sweden it is regulated in Vattendomar that sets highs and lows and a ton of other things. Regulated rivers are precisely that from a legal standpoint.

Have no idea what the order of maximum effect is with relation to water flows. Should not be much lower then total maximum effect though, not much point in installing more effect then the Vattendom allows water flow, though there is probably an effect on each others maximum allowed flow in the case of rivers running together. Total installed hydro capacity in Sweden is about 16 GW in Sweden.

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se

by A swedish kind of death on Sat Oct 6th, 2012 at 05:29:21 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: More renewables power (none / 0)

Yep, and in Norway 29 GW. And that's the rub. Read the title of the article: 100 GW wind installed and growing. And total consumption in Europe somewhere in the 400 GW range, and that should grow too, if we want to electrify our other energy uses, like transport, space heating, process industry, metallurgy. Electrifying those is the only way to get around the lousy Carnot efficiency of burning stuff...

So, currently Scandinavian hydro can produce only a tenth or so of total electric power consumed in Europe. If it is to serve as intermittency back-up, it should be much larger than that. As it is, it may serve Scandinavia, Scotland, the North of Germany, and that's about it. And that will require substantial investment, in HVDC lines and turbines. So, it's part of a solution at best. Alpine hydro will be another part.

Whether a hydro plant can be upgraded will depend on what's downstream: another big reservoir, a fjord, or the sea: good. And no, you don't actually need pumped hydro if the reservoir is big enough: you can "store" energy by holding back the flow, for a while at least. And the good news is that the reservoirs are lowest towards spring, when in winter there are good winds over Northern Europe.

Some reading stuff from Norway here:

http://www.cedren.no/Publications.aspx

esp. the first article.

by mustakissa on Sun Oct 7th, 2012 at 07:48:47 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: More renewables power (4.00 / 4)

You're neglecting scheduled load-following. If all the wind in Europe is offline at the same time, we will know about it at least a day in advance. Dedicated peakers only need to cover the forecast errors and unexpected plant shutdowns.

Suppose you have a sustainable grid in which the baseload is wind, solar, and run-of-river hydro (and wave and tidal); scheduled load-following power is wood pellet, biochar, and large industrial consumers being paid to shift energy-intensive production around to other parts of the day/week; and peak load is hydro, pumped hydro and biogas.

Suppose further that European total consumption is on the order of 1 TW at the daily and seasonal peak, and 0.65 TW at the trough. If the largest single point of failure is 10 GW, with an 0.3 % probability of failing during any given day, and the largest forecast error for consumption in any given day has a standard deviation on the order of 20 GW, or about 2 % of peak power.

Now assume that we want to have enough peaker capacity to make blackouts only happen once every 1800 days (approximately five years) on average, and keep enough peaker power online at all time that we only need to bleed off scheduled power about once a year. That means you need about six or seven standard deviations plus the largest single point of failure. Call it 150 GW of dedicated peaker power. For all of Europe, in a fully sustainable grid. So 50 GW of peaker power from Scandinavia alone is very definitely in the right ballpark.

The real challenge is going to be coming up with sustainable scheduled load-following.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Sun Oct 7th, 2012 at 09:07:07 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: More renewables power (none / 1)

Being able to predict it doesn't absolve you from having to provide it! As you said it,

The real challenge is going to be coming up with sustainable scheduled load-following.

I think you misread me: I'm not implying that the mechanics of load following would be a problem of consequence even at ~100% renewable penetration. That meme is nonsense. But we do need load-following power above and beyond hydro.

I don't think using bio-fuels for this is a good idea: they are limited in availability, and it would be better to reserve them, e.g., for transport, where they are hard to replace completely. One solution on the longer run would be hydrogen fuel, generated by electrolysis from peak wind/solar. This is already being studied. Besides being burned in power plants, hydrogen has some direct uses, e.g., in steel making (one example of a user that could switch off on request and use stored fuel).

This would require the installed capacity of renewables to be more than 100% of average electric power load, e.g., 150%. A tall order, but the North Sea is large enough for a big chunk of that.

by mustakissa on Sun Oct 7th, 2012 at 10:03:04 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: More renewables power (none / 0)

"...implying that the mechanics of load following would be a problem of consequence even at ~100% renewable penetration. That meme is nonsense."

I would not bet the farm on that.

by asdf on Mon Oct 8th, 2012 at 12:11:33 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: More renewables power (none / 0)

The economic characteristics of the market interact with the physical characteristics of the power system, and the two must be considered as a whole...not so easy to do...

http://arxiv.org/abs/1106.1401

by asdf on Mon Oct 8th, 2012 at 12:43:43 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: More renewables power (none / 0)

Yep, there are folks that study this for a living. Still, no show-stopper...

by mustakissa on Mon Oct 8th, 2012 at 06:39:50 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: More renewables power (none / 0)

In a new article, IWR also discusses prices, which I'm gonna paraphrase only.

EEX released numbers for September which show the average price of baseload electricity dropping to 4.47 c/kWh (from 5.26 c/kWh in September 2011), and that of peak load to 5.47 c/kWh (from 6.24 c/kWh), a development IWR is fully justified to credit to the increase in renewables (as discussed several times this year on ET). However, IWR attacked EEX for calculating the average for peak load solely on the basis of trade for workday and holiday peak load, and said the real average (including trade for Saturdays and Sundays) was just 4.92 c/kWh.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Fri Oct 5th, 2012 at 02:15:23 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: More renewables power (none / 0)

I must say that I don't understand the IWR criticism. You should count only the peaks that matter, and weekend peaks do not test the envelope.

by mustakissa on Sat Oct 6th, 2012 at 05:36:29 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: More renewables power (none / 0)

I don't understand your argument. If power is traded as peak power, then it should count as peak power, no?

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Sat Oct 6th, 2012 at 11:41:11 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: More renewables power (none / 1)

What I mean is this. This is about the price of electricity, not the volume sold. Two prices are used to represent the whole price structure: baseload price and peak price. If you choose this representation, you want those two data points to be maximally separated. You achieve this by choosing for peak load the highest peaks only: working-day peaks, when power companies have to throw in their most expensive, rarely used resources.

Now the interesting thing in this comparison is not the prices themselves but their development over time (in response to the spread of renewables). Then it doesn't matter precisely how you define peak load, as long as you do it consistently over time. Then the IWR method is just as good -- just a different convention. What I don't buy is their claim that it is better.

by mustakissa on Sun Oct 7th, 2012 at 02:21:46 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: More renewables power (none / 1)

Two prices are used to represent the whole price structure: baseload price and peak price. If you choose this representation, you want those two data points to be maximally separated.

In what way maximally separated, beyond price? The way I see it, if there is separation in trading, anything above is artificial. Any way I look at it, EEX's number is not average peak load, it's average weekday peak load, and doesn't represent the whole price structure. If one wants to know how high prices can get, then standard deviation could be calculated.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Sun Oct 7th, 2012 at 03:55:47 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: More renewables power (none / 0)

The only way to represent the whole price structure exactly is to give all the raw data. If you are allowed to give only two numbers, the best way to characterize it is IMO the one I outlined above. But there are various almost-best alternatives, and if all you're interested in is evolution over time, it doesn't matter too much which one you choose as long as you're consistent. Meaning, IWR's critique has no merit.

by mustakissa on Mon Oct 8th, 2012 at 06:37:04 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: More renewables power (none / 1)

If you are allowed to give only two numbers, the best way to characterize it is IMO the one I outlined above.

Best, for what purpose? It is certainly not fit for a complete representation. Regarding IWR, they aren't interested in the time evolution only; the context of this criticism is public perception of price levels.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Mon Oct 8th, 2012 at 06:42:20 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: More renewables power (none / 0)

the context of this criticism is public perception of price levels

Then I think they are over-sensitive. Come on, there is more to life than spin :-)

by mustakissa on Mon Oct 8th, 2012 at 11:09:29 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: More renewables power (none / 1)

Spin can kill real energy policy. Price levels are the focus of the energy debate in Germany at present, with conservatives and liberals and traditional Big Energy claiming renewables cause high prices and need to be curbed.

But, you still haven't answered my question regarding for what purpose you (and EEX) consider the sans-weekend average of peak power the best measure. You obviously have something in mind when you say weekday peak power is typically more expensive, but I honestly don't know what and I'd like it spelled out.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Mon Oct 8th, 2012 at 03:58:43 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: More renewables power (none / 1)

On second thought, let me be more explicit. You did write this much about the speciality of workday peak power:

working-day peaks, when power companies have to throw in their most expensive, rarely used resources

However, the situation when power companies have to throw in their most expensive, rarely used resources is not average peak load, nor average weekday peak load, but peak loads higher than that. Such peaks can appear at any time in the week when caused by a baseload plant shutdown. With the spread of intermittent renewables, these peaks can appear at any time of the day or week. Hence my earlier contention that using the standard deviation would be a good measure of price extremes. With that background, I can imagine two possibilities: either I'm not aware of something special about the usefulness of the weekday measure, or that usefulness is dated (reflecting the pre-renewables, pre-deregulation structure of the power market).

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Mon Oct 8th, 2012 at 04:21:33 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: More renewables power (none / 0)

Best practice would in any case be to use the full sample and then test for weekday effects. It's not that hard - we expect undergraduate economists to understand how to do it.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Tue Oct 9th, 2012 at 04:29:07 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: More renewables power (none / 0)

Nothing special really. Just the highest peaks that are still somewhat common. But yes, it will always be a rough-and-ready measure. Like standard deviation for what is likely a highly non-normal distribution.

by mustakissa on Tue Oct 9th, 2012 at 05:59:30 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: More renewables power (none / 1)

if all you're interested in is evolution over time, it doesn't matter too much which one you choose as long as you're consistent

This is an interesting question on its own. Is the renewables-induced price reduction uniform on different days of the week?

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Mon Oct 8th, 2012 at 06:49:19 AM EST
[ Parent ]

That might be an interesting paper to write (n/t) (none / 0)

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Mon Oct 8th, 2012 at 08:01:12 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Wind news | 144 comments (144 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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