UK electricity generation



Kevj said:
Ørsted Revises Offshore Production Forecasts Downward | Offshore Wind

Despite the positive news that renewables are making significant gains, you can’t plan for the unknown. Or you do know about it and choose to ignore it.

The leading player in offshore wind has downgraded yield forecasts due to a phenomenon which is known to occur, but have simply not included in both their simulation model and the subsequent yield analysis.

It transpires that the fields may not produce the same energy as they have previously forecast.

I have a similar yet different concern for solar. All of that energy from the sun has been absorbed by the earth’s crust for millennia. That energy must go somewhere.
As solar farms become more prevalent, they absorb more energy than the earth has done historically.

There’s the potential that this seemingly small change has an affect that we do not yet fully understand.
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The percentage of solar energy we convert to power is negligible. Even on a roof covered in solar panels we only 'take' around 18% of the solar energy as that is a typical efficiency of a solar panel. There are some panels out there that are better but they are more expensive. The holy grail of PV is to improve the panel efficiency significantly as that would be a game changer. There are a lot of people working on things like thin film technology to try and improve the yield.

As Joe Public mentioned further up the thread, energy itself is indestructable. It can not be 'removed' only changed.
 
Joe Public said:
what does this gibberish even mean?!?
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It means, are we really ran on what we're told we're ran on and does it really work. I have my doubts.
Morse said:
Power stations, wind turbines etc are connected to the national grid. Its not like a nuclear power station in Hartlepool powers Hartlepool, Sellafield powers the area around Sellafield, etc. They contribute to the entire grid.
It’s a very good system, plenty of redundancy.
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Aye...and that's my point.
Why have wind turbines all around it if it can generate that amount of electricity. And also when they shut it down for weeks at a time, what covers for it?
 
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Nukehasslefan said:
It means, are we really ran on what we're told we're ran on and does it really work. I have my doubts.

Aye...and that's my point.
Why have wind turbines all around it if it can generate that amount of electricity. And also when they shut it down for weeks at a time, what covers for it?
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You really lack a very basic understanding of electrical distribution, I suggest go and educate yourself a bit before expressing your doubts over very basic engineering principles and expecting everyone to spoon feed you the information.
 
Joe Public said:
You really lack a very basic understanding of electrical distribution, I suggest go and educate yourself a bit before expressing your doubts over very basic engineering principles and expecting everyone to spoon feed you the information.
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I'm not expecting anyone to spoon feed me anything.
I'm also not expressing doubts over electricity generation in terms of engineering principles.
I'm actually doubting some of the stuff we're told that happens to actually cause the generation of it....or let's just say I'm doubting what causes the nuclear stuff in the way we're told.
And yes I understand there's diagrams of how it's supposed to work. It doesn't add up for me in terms of supposed fissioning for a small amount or metal that supposedly gives out extreme energy for decades.

I don't need for you to tell me anything or anyone else. Just accept that I doubt the way we're told it is.
Maybe it's just the conspiracy theorist in me or maybe it's just the lack of trust I have in the legitimacy of what we're told to accept.

Like I said, it doesn't add up.
Also I'm well aware that people will argue for it.

I don't believe nuclear power exists. There I've said it.
 
joemcdokes said:
I always wondered why they are switched off, pretty obvious when you think about it maybes instead of switching them off they could use the money to create huge battery storage plants.
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There are schemes in play to create battery storage. This will go some way to level out inconsistent generation.
I suppose the decrease in manufacturing due to lockdown is adding to the lack of demand which further exasperates this cost.
 
Kevj said:
There are schemes in play to create battery storage. This will go some way to level out inconsistent generation.
I suppose the decrease in manufacturing due to lockdown is adding to the lack of demand which further exasperates this cost.
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I’m being over simplistic here Kev and I’m sure you can explain to me better;
Why don’t they switch off the fossil fuel power stations and let us run off the wind farms alone ?

Edit:I’ve just looked and Drax is only producing 1.42% of GB demand atm
 
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Joe Public said:
On Saturday wind produced 31.9% of GB electricity followed by nuclear 23.6%, gas 20.7%, biomass 7.9%, imports 6.6%, solar 6.2%, hydro 1.5%, storage 1.0%, other 0.4%, coal 0.0%, national demand 604 GWh *excl. non-renewable distributed generation.

That’s 71.1% from low carbon and renewable sources.

Big change from where we were 5 years ago.
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Where does that data come from Joe?
@Joe Public
 
Kevj said:
There are schemes in play to create battery storage. This will go some way to level out inconsistent generation.
I suppose the decrease in manufacturing due to lockdown is adding to the lack of demand which further exasperates this cost.
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Yep, suppose it’s quite difficult to switch a nuclear power station off. :lol:
 
Gillythedilf said:
I’m being over simplistic here Kev and I’m sure you can explain to me better;
Why don’t they switch off the fossil fuel power stations and let us run off the wind farms alone ?

Edit:I’ve just looked and Drax is only producing 1.42% of GB demand atm
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Is Drax switched on atm? CFPS are usually the first to switch off when demand is low. Then gas. There's only 4 CFPS left in the UK now iirc.
 
Gillythedilf said:
I’m being over simplistic here Kev and I’m sure you can explain to me better;
Why don’t they switch off the fossil fuel power stations and let us run off the wind farms alone ?

Edit:I’ve just looked and Drax is only producing 1.42% of GB demand atm
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They are running the older stations down so play less of a part in grid supply. There will also be compensation schemes for all electricity providers including coal and gas similar to those paid out to wind. What I don’t know is what the rate is and it may be more cost effective to pay wind than it is others, regardless of the actual cost to generate.
 

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