Wind and solar energy

[Mups]

When these turbines and such are making too much energy,  did you know we actually pay them to switch off, and this cost is added to our energy bills? Especially on days like this,  they make more energy than the grid can handle apparently.
I didn't know this until this week,  forget where I read it now,  but I have just found these couple of bits to show you:


1.  Operators are paid to switch off when these orders are issued, with the extra cost added to consumer and business energy bills. The solar operators claiming compensation are understood to include some of the UK's biggest energy suppliers, such as EDF Renewables and Octopus Energy.


& 2. The national grid was only ever intended for fossil fuel power stations that are situated near urban centers, not remote offshore wind farms.
This outdated infrastructure means there's often not enough capacity to carry electricity from where it's generated to where it's needed.

When this occurs, wind farm operators like Ocean Winds are paid to stop generating electricity, this is called a constraint payment.

On that windy June day, Ocean Winds received £72,000 to switch off for 30 minutes. At the same time, a gas plant located in Kent was paid £43,000 to produce more power.

This is a common occurrence; Seagreen, Scotland's largest wind farm, was paid £65 million last year to restrict output more than 70% of the time.
Octopus Energy claims that this method of balancing the grid has already cost the country over £500 million in 2024 alone.

Fancy being paid NOT to work!

[klondike]

It's all madness. They all get the price of the highest element that makes up the days rate too. The reason they can say all this stuff is cheaper than gas is because it costs a fair bit to bring up extra gas fired generators to make up suddenly shortfalls in supply from intermittent wind and solar.

Get a bit of cloud come over or the wind drop or go too fast for safety so the wind turbines have to be stopped and they have to fire up a gas generator which takes energy to get up to temperature before any power is produced. Clouds clear and up comes the solar so the gas generator is turned off and the heat in it just wasted.

We have no financially viable way to store excess energy. Batteries are way too expensive and e don't have enough sites where hydroelectric storage is possible.

[Raven]

Yes I knew they got turned off. Ridiculous there's not enough storage. There's a big wind farm "Causeymire" not too far from us, it's strange seeing them sometimes standing still on a windy day.

[Michael Rolls]

What do you expect from politicians?

[klondike]

Ridiculous there's not enough storage.

The technology simply doesn't exist to do this at a sensible economic cost.
Forget about a carbon free grid any time soon unless there is some huge scientific breakthrough.

[JBR]

Some countries rely on nuclear power to generate electricity.  The UK was one of the world leaders in such things but, unfortunately, some people are afraid of nuclear power.
So we now rely on windmills, which don't work if there is no wind (or too much!) and solar power, which varies in a similar way.

[Alex]

Tony Blair started the dismantling of BNFL and David Cameron put the final kibosh on it with massive clean up losses loaded on to the taxpayer.    BNFL was a world leader, all gone now but I read somewhere that remaining 'bits' are now owned by GB Energy.

[klondike]

That'll be the bits with costly obligations and no income I expect.

[Alex]

No doubt !