EV Charging

[MacolmParticipant @macolm]

Ah yes, silly us, we should have spotted that with the near negligible cost of wind generation, we should then be more than grateful to pay the eye watering Contract for Difference prices. The UK has just about the world’s highest electricity prices, but it shouldn’t be difficult to further excel in this!

 

[Martin of WickParticipant @martinofwick]

 …..renewables produce almost free electricity. 

Really?  I’m sure HM Treasury will be relieved to learn that. Best set out your ‘innovative’ appraisal method and send it to them.

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

I drove past the large windfarm on Frodsham marshes yesterday. Not one of the turbines was moving. The marginal cost of wind power might be low, but the capital cost has to be recouped, and that should include the cost of the backup generation required when it isn’t windy. Cavity wall and loft insulation have made a significant difference to my energy bills, double glazing had a smaller but still positive effect. Unfortunately, lots of Edwardian and earlier houses don’t have cavity walls, and if you live in a conservation area you are not allowed to fit double glazing.

[Macolm]

On Macolm Said:

Ah yes, silly us, we should have spotted that with the near negligible cost of wind generation, we should then be more than grateful to pay the eye watering Contract for Difference prices. The UK has just about the world’s highest electricity prices, but it shouldn’t be difficult to further excel in this!

 

You may not, or don’t appear to, know that the ‘contract for difference’ is a means of paying for the capital expenditure of the assets, along with some reasonable profit for the investors.  These contracts last 15 years.  After that the energy will be at open market prices.  Too much production, after the contract ends, and curtailment of those turbines will cost nothing.  The grid will be simply able to stop their power being supplied to the grid.

I somehow doubt that will be the case, mind, as the generators will be arranging deals long before the contracts end.  At that point, the wind energy will be free and the costs to the owners will be maintenance, replacement and likely rental of their site from the government.  They will be free to sell the output at market prices.

The single over-riding requirement is to stop burning fossils.  That is inevitably going to cost investment.  Get used to it, ‘cos there is no other current alternative to reach the 2050 climate target reductions of CO2 emissions to the atmosphere.

Many on here will not see 2050 (I won’t, for sure), so exactly how selfish are people prepared to be towards their children and grandchildren.  Seems like quite a few on here?

[MacolmParticipant @macolm]

I am well aware of the way contract for difference works. It is, though, a simple way to get a handle on current relative costs. After a generous 15 years, the contribution to capital costs ends. Most other similar but un-favoured assets such as gas fired power stations will have budgeted a much shorter payback.

I won’t be here in 2050 either, so I do hope that the rest of the world will have copied out shining example by then (assuming it proves feasible to achieve “net zero” by this route).

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

Michael, that is good news even if the lights are being hidden under some sort of bushel.

It seems that an awful lot of wind turbines are not rotating when we see them.

Either they are down for maintenance or repair ( So much for reliability and durability!) or are they not required, and so shut down.  Since wind produces only a small percentage of the load requirement, it seems strange.

The electricity produced may be free, but the obstacle is the capital cost of set up, and maintenance, in often unfriendly, or inaccessible environments. (Who wants to climb a wind turbine tower in the middle of a winter North Sa gale?)

To stop, or even better, reverse climate change we need to stop burning fossil fuels (But every living thing emits carbon dioxide, so maybe population (Animal as well as human) control should be considered.

But the world still needs oil, for lubrication, so we can’t stop drilling until an easily and economically available alternative is available. And without oil, we will have a lot less plastic from which to make things!

In Sweden, very many dwellings, where possible,have their own mini hydro electric plants, so perhaps that is another avenue that should be investigated in UK and any other country where the geography makes it possible.

We need to find as many as possible ways of generating emission free electricity, if only to charge our “Zero Emission” cars, and our increasingly electricity reliant life styles and businesses.

Maybe we should set an example by reverting to treadle powered machines for our hobby?

Howard

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Howard, I just looked at the Gridwatch site which shows electricity generation.

Wind is sitting just under 12 1/2 GW and the only fossil burning generation (gas) is less than 3GW. (biomass is the one type of fuel which I don’t consider as renewable – but is classed as renewable).  I expect it will likely be like that all night long.

 

[old foolParticipant @old-fool]

There is another aspect of nuclear no one seems to mention. Although making steam and hence electricity from atomic is totally carbon free building reactors isn’t. Concrete production is one of the most “carbon expensive” (if that’s the opposite of carbon free) prosses we have. And it dosen’t stop with the building of the plant, spent fuel rods are encased in tonns of the stuff, and then we have no idea what to do with them. Short of chucking them in a pond and hoping for the best

Bob

[FulmenParticipant @fulmen]

But we know what to do with them. Spent fuel can be reprocessed to produce more fuel, and the rest is just buried. It’s not hard to bury something so deep it doesn’t come back up again, they still haven’t found Jimmy Hoffa.

And we do have long term data for underground storage. About 2million years ago there was a natural reactor in Oklo, Gabon. Large deposits of uranium combined with natural water deposits to form a critical reactor that ran for a few hundred thousand years.

As for CO2 you’re right, but that applies to all power sources. Even hydroelectric uses some concrete, and in some cases a LOT. Hoover dam used some 8 million tons. And except for hydroelectric nuclear is the cleanest reliable power source we have.

[Dave HalfordParticipant @davehalford22513]

Wind farms not turning are just not connected, random single non turners are broken.

Apparently NG still can’t be assed to cable the connections.

[Robert Atkinson 2Participant @robertatkinson2]

A contract for change of 15 years is not that good when the average lifespane of a wind turbine is 20 years.
Thn there is the hydrocarbon derived plastics in the blades and the difficulty of disposing of them. They also use concrete in their foundations.

There is another issue with lots of electronically produced power like solar and wind. They reduce the stability of the network. The conventional rotating iron alternators running at line frequency are stablising because of their mechanical inertia. As well as soucing short term increases in power demand they can also absorb excess power from other generators if there is a sudden drop in demand. The inverters that solar and most wind generation use have insignificant capactity (pun intended) in this respect.
A sudden change in source – load balance could cause the whole network to shut down in a cascade of failures. Lots of modern consumers with constant power power supplies (switch-mode) which draw more power as the voltage drops make the stability worse.

We really need a good base supply of “rotating iron” for this and other reasons. For low emissions this means nuclear.

[FulmenParticipant @fulmen]

Exactly. I have nothing against wind and solar, far from it. But they do not deliver base load power, and without that you do not have a working grid.

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Hydroelectricity has more deaths per GW.hr than nuclear. I know it is counterintuitive, but dams burst and kill people. As for the idea we don’t know what to do with nuclear waste, poppycock. Deep repository is the preferred method, it’s only government timidity (all shades) that has prevented us having such a facility. There are thousands of tons of arsenic under Devon and Cornwall. I don’t hear of residents dying like flies.

[Robert Atkinson 2Participant @robertatkinson2]

Reprocessing is better than deep repository. “spent” fuel has a lot of energy left.
The levels for exposure from deep repositories are ludicrous. In the USA the annual limit outside Yucca mountain is 15 millirem a year (15 x 10^-3 Rem). To compare, the background in Washington DC varies between 2.9 and 7 microrem an hour (2.9 to 7 x 10^-6 Rem / h). That is from an aerial survey at 150ft. On the ground it was measured at more than twice that. If we take a conservative 4 microrem/h that is  35 millirem a year. More than twice the Yucca mountain limit. And the Washinton figure is outdoors and does not include contribution from Radon. If you are indoors in a granite building the levels are higher.

The Capitol building has been measured at 30 microrem/h, seventeen tmes higher than the people in it set for the wilderness outside Yucca mountain……..

[FulmenParticipant @fulmen]

And that arsenic will be just as toxic a hundred thousand years from now. Nuclear waste gets less dangerous over time.

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

Far to many people have NO IDEA as to the pros and cons of alternative power generation. A few years ago I was involved in a project that was measuring radiation, I was astounded at the background level ! One could live next to a nuclear power station and your exposure would be no worse.

The problem is one of grants, empire building, defending of castles,misinformation, lies and corruption. To this mix can be added a complete lack of any knowledge of the problems by the politicians.

Robert has mentioned some of the issues with base load and rotating iron, I was on a training course with fellows from the wind power industry and asked some searching questions, the answers were interesting and back up Roberts points.

It’s 7am, a dark & frosty morn, little wind. The heating is on, the shower is running , the kettle is on, the toaster is on, the car is on charge, the lights, radio or tv on – where do you really think the electricity is coming from ?

As we stand, all it wants is for there to be a cold spell over Europe and the French, Belgians, Dutch Etc need their electricity and our lights WILL go out. One of the uses of a smart meter is to be able to cut you off, think on !

Better drink my coffee. Noel.

[Tony Pratt 1Participant @tonypratt1]

My son is in the process of buying a ‘new build’ house and it proudly boasts a heat source pump. It will be interesting to see the truth of the matter regarding these systems.

Watch this space.

Tony

[Ex contributorParticipant @mgnbuk]

My son is in the process of buying a ‘new build’ house and it proudly boasts a heat source pump. It will be interesting to see the truth of the matter regarding these systems.

Good luck !

Direct experience with split unit air source units at work wasn’t very impressive. Out of 3 installed at the same time (Mitsubishi inverter units) one failed within warranty (seized compressor) and a second failed outside warranty (not repaired or replaced, so don’t know failure mode on that one). When running in winter the outside units became encased in a block of ice despite the supposed anti-icing feature that runs the unit in revese at intervals to warm the outer unit. All well and good saying these things work in Scandinavia at lower temperatures than we get here, but we get cold damp conditions that lead to icing up & they have drier conditions. Ended up getting a fan heater for the offices that had these units as they could not be relied upon when it got really cold.

Indirect feedback from my former employer, who built a new house around an under floor heated stand-alone air source unit was that it was economical to run and kept the house designed to use it comfortably warm – when it worked. The outside unit failed at approx. 2 year intervals & repair was almost as much as a new unit. He had 2 failures while living there & the next owner had another. When the new owner had a second failure he had it taken out & replaced with a gas boiler – not a cheap option, as no mains gas in the area.

Output from my domestic solar panels was zero yesterday and so far today – they don’t work well under 4″ snow cover !

Nigel B.

[Mike LondonParticipant @mikelondon]

Whilst generally agreeing with Noel’s post, I am always intrigued by comments I hear and as Noel mentioned, about smart meters being able to cut you off.

I have no 100 amp contact breaker in my meter cupboard.

Certainly whole areas can be cut off at sub stations, having a smart meter or not would be totally irrelevant to this happening.

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Reprocessing is not as good as Robert makes out. It does not reduce the amount of highly active waste, or the waste fuel cladding, which is medium active. It does reduce the demand for raw uranium, but that is not in short supply. A better approach might be to store spent fuel in a safe recoverable state and then in about 100 years reprocess it when the highly active components will have decayed significantly, and the price of uranium will have increased.

[Tony Pratt 1Participant @tonypratt1]

Nigel B,

I’m afraid your experience of heat source pumps mirrors most reviews I have seen, I’m saying nothing atm and we will see how it goes, one does wonder how they continue to sell these underperforming things, politics maybe?

Tony

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

As the object of central heating is to heat our local environment to ~20C why do we use radiators, which have to get up to 60C or so to be effective. Hot air system would seem to be far more practical for heat pump. Not easy to back fit unless you have a bungalow, but easy for new build.

[Mike London]

On Mike London Said:

Whilst generally agreeing with Noel’s post, I am always intrigued by comments I hear and as Noel mentioned, about smart meters being able to cut you off.

I have no 100 amp contact breaker in my meter cupboard.

Certainly whole areas can be cut off at sub stations, having a smart meter or not would be totally irrelevant to this happening.

If you have a smart meter you DO have a 100A contactor in your meter cupboard. Smart meters have them built in. This is how the suppliers are switching consumers to prepayment without changing the meter. IT does of course rely on the communications network working. If the communications fail you can’t top up the meter.

Robert.

[duncan webster 1]

On duncan webster 1 Said:

Reprocessing is not as good as Robert makes out. It does not reduce the amount of highly active waste, or the waste fuel cladding, which is medium active. It does reduce the demand for raw uranium, but that is not in short supply. A better approach might be to store spent fuel in a safe recoverable state and then in about 100 years reprocess it when the highly active components will have decayed significantly, and the price of uranium will have increased.

The only claim I made was that reprocessing was better than deep deposition which is generally consdered non-recoverable. Used fuel still has to be allowed to cool (decay) before going into deep storage. It’s not the “highly active” isotopes that are the problem beacase they have short half lives. It’s the long half life products that are the problem. The best solution for those is to “burn” them in a fast reactor.

A lot of the issues, real and imaginary, with nuclear power are a result of it’s roots in weapons production.

Robert.

[Tony Pratt 1]

On Tony Pratt 1 Said:

My son is in the process of buying a ‘new build’ house and it proudly boasts a heat source pump. It will be interesting to see the truth of the matter regarding these systems.

Watch this space.

Tony

Well there are 4,500 new homes about to be built just south of us and the planning application clearly states that the new estates will NOT be connected to the gas grid (with oil etc strictly prohibited) – so the homes will be ‘Electric Power Only’.  Whilst apparently heat pumps are three times more efficient than gas boilers, i’m currently paying four time more (per Kw hour) for my electricity than for my gas.

So those new homes had better be very well insulated or no one’s going to buy them.

Regards,

 

IanT

[Author]

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