Economics of Renewable Power, simplified.

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Via GCC:
STEAG investing €100M in a total of 90 MW of grid energy storage systems with LG Chem Li-ion batteries
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2015/11/20151110-steag.html

. . . The storage systems are to be used to provide primary control power—a service for stabilization of the networks—for which the Transmission System Operators invite bids on a weekly basis. Primary control serves to stabilize the network frequency when there are short-term fluctuations in the grid (caused, for example, by uneven feed-in of energy from renewable sources which deviates from the forecasts, by power plant outage or by fluctuations in consumption). The six systems are to be operated independently of the STEAG power plants and are capable of relieving the grid fully automatically within a few seconds when there is surplus supply, and also in reverse feeding energy into the grid.

  • Storage facilities and the creation of flexibility are essential elements in the implementation of the energy transition in Germany. STEAG has therefore decided to make this investment in large-scale batteries for deployment on the control power market, without making use of grants or subsidies.

    —Joachim Rumstadt, Chairman of the Board of Management of STEAG GmbH

STEAG’s large-scale batteries will satisfy the current performance criteria for battery storage systems supplying primary control power—e.g., the requirement of being capable of providing primary control power for at least 30 minutes.
So, another frequency/voltage stabilization project, but not mass storage to reduce the need or fossil-fuel plants.
 
Via GCC:
Sandy solution for renewable energy storage; Thermal Energy Storage System
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2015/11/sandy-solution-for-renewable-energy-storage-thermal-energy-storage-system.html

The Danish project by Siemens mentioned in the comments sounds even more interesting.
 
AndyH said:
WetEV said:
AndyH said:

I love the last comment.

I really wonder how one can come to the conlusion that no additional storage capacity is need. Just look at wind and pv production in UK, Denmark and Germany from October 17 to 21. Tiny production for four days in a row.
The conventional capacity to provide almost 100% of demand will not be around forever.

I wonder as well.
That's actually covered in sufficient depth in the article. TLDR: Germany and the rest of the EU already has more than sufficient storage in place because the fossil fuel grid requires back-up as well.
I think it's important to remember that Germany's (and the entire EU's) energy transition is not yet complete. The end state includes a full Third Industrial Revolution build-out with excess energy stored as hydrogen and at least some 'synthetic' methane. Both are to be used in existing gas turbines. So...as this article and other comments make clear, existing turbine generation is part of today's and tomorrow's 'back-up' power plan and is a significant part of the 'storage' solution.
 
Roger Andrews has posted an article summarizing El Hierro electricity production during the second half of 2015.

The bottom line: El Hierro island was touted as going 100% renewable by many pundits, but they have managed to only achieve a renewable fraction just over 30%. It appears that the island ran entirely off renewable energy for about 2 hours in 2015.

It's easy for commenters to walk in and state their opinion that it is cheap and easy to convert the world to 100% renewable energy. In reality, it is both difficult AND expensive, both in terms of cost and the damage done to the environment.

As the Yogi Berra is famously quoted as saying:
Yogi Berry said:
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.
Only those who have put theory into practice fully understand this truth.
 
RegGuheert said:
The bottom line: El Hierro island was touted as going 100% renewable by many pundits, but they have managed to only achieve a renewable fraction just over 30%. It appears that the island ran entirely off renewable energy for about 2 hours in 2015.

Note that several different operational modes are apparent in the data. Hydro has been used as load following at times, and diesel has been used as load following at times. Practice often finds flaws that theory didn't expect. This is a large scale experiment, data collection under different conditions is probably the most important goal at the start, and not maximizing the renewable fraction from day one. I wouldn't draw any firm conclusions without a year of data in the final operational mode.

100% wasn't a realistic goal for this project, and I don't think that was promised by the people designing and building the project. For example:

http://www.hydroworld.com/articles/print/volume-20/issue-5/articles/pumped-storage/creating-a-hybrid-hydro-wind-system-on.html said:
Realistically, however, about 65% of island's total annual energy demand will be covered by the hybrid hydro-wind plant.

It is very hard to get to 100% with a source that varies as much as wind power does.

Judging the success or failure of the project on something that was not a realistic goal isn't helpful.


RegGuheert said:
It's easy for commenters to walk in and state their opinion that it is cheap and easy to convert the world to 100% renewable energy. In reality, it is both difficult AND expensive, both in terms of cost and the damage done to the environment.

Every choice has a cost, and risks. Failure to acknowledge the risks and costs of fossil fuel may well be fatal to civilization.
 
WetEV said:
This is a large scale experiment, data collection under different conditions is probably the most important goal at the start, and not maximizing the renewable fraction from day one.
Data collection for the report I linked started almost one year after "day one". Note that the renewable fraction was maximum at the beginning of the data presented. For the past four months, renewables have produced very little electricity on El Hierro island.
WetEV said:
I wouldn't draw any firm conclusions without a year of data in the final operational mode.
It's a six-month cut approximately from summer solstice to winter solstice. The picture likely won't change much after a year has passed.
WetEV said:
100% wasn't a realistic goal for this project, and I don't think that was promised by the people designing and building the project. For example:

http://www.hydroworld.com/articles/print/volume-20/issue-5/articles/pumped-storage/creating-a-hybrid-hydro-wind-system-on.html said:
Realistically, however, about 65% of island's total annual energy demand will be covered by the hybrid hydro-wind plant.
30% is hardly close to 65%. It seems that the people designing and building the project oversold the capability of this system badly. There is a LOT of that going on these days with renewable energy and it only hurts the cause of trying to increase the fraction of these systems going forward.
WetEV said:
It is very hard to get to 100% with a source that varies as much as wind power does.
Agreed. And that is particularly true in a case such as this where the wind is VERY seasonal. The thesis you put forth in this thread is very well-founded.
WetEV said:
Judging the success or failure of the project on something that was not a realistic goal isn't helpful.
But putting a stop to repeated nonsense IS helpful because it helps to eliminate the misapplication of these technologies. (And I'm not saying the El Hierro project was a bad idea. What I am saying is that it was sold under false pretenses. If I lived on an island, I'd by all for reducing or eliminating diesel purchases, ESPECIALLY if someone else was paying for it!)
WetEV said:
Failure to acknowledge the risks and costs of fossil fuel may well be fatal to civilization.
Nonsense. CO2 has NO ability to heat the oceans and can only reduce the temperature drop of the top 1millimeter surface of the oceans by a mere 0.001K. In other words, it doesn't have any meaningful effect on the heat stored in oceans, which represents 2100X as much energy storage as the atmosphere. As far as lapse rate in the atmosphere goes, the CO2 emissions layer is in the tropopause where an increase or decrease in the height has NO effect on temperature. And, no, CO2 does not control water vapor. In fact, water vapor moves in the opposite direction to that which many alarmists suggest. As such, CO2 is really a "don't care" when it comes to the climate of our planet. But note that adding CO2 to our atmosphere has real, measurable benefits to the biosphere which are extremely well documented in the scientific literature.

The temperature of the earth is controlled by the amount of global cloud cover we have. Some day, scientists may be able to predict the amount of cloud cover, but until that point, we have no way to accurately model future temperature trends.

There are "real" reasons to cut down or eliminate the burning of fossil fuels, but preventing the extinction of man is not among them.
 
RegGuheert said:
WetEV said:
This is a large scale experiment, data collection under different conditions is probably the most important goal at the start, and not maximizing the renewable fraction from day one.
It's a six-month cut approximately from summer solstice to winter solstice. The picture likely won't change much after a year has passed.

http://www.windfinder.com/windstatistics/hierro

Looks to me like September, October, November and December are the low months for wind. This would suggest that a full year would be better than a roughly 6 month period from late June to end of December.

RegGuheert said:
30% is hardly close to 65%. It seems that the people designing and building the project oversold the capability of this system badly. There is a LOT of that going on these days with renewable energy and it only hurts the cause of trying to increase the fraction of these systems going forward.

Well, there surely are people that oversold this project, a rather long list to be sure, but I've seen no evidence that the people designing and building this project are on that list, at least so far. Not enough data, for one.

RegGuheert said:
WetEV said:
Failure to acknowledge the risks and costs of fossil fuel may well be fatal to civilization.
Nonsense. CO2 ...

Notice that I didn't say anything about CO2 or climate change. Need an alternative suggestion? Off topic, of course, but I'm sure you could think of a few.
 
WetEV said:
100% wasn't a realistic goal for this project, and I don't think that was promised by the people designing and building the project. For example:

http://www.hydroworld.com/articles/print/volume-20/issue-5/articles/pumped-storage/creating-a-hybrid-hydro-wind-system-on.html said:
Realistically, however, about 65% of island's total annual energy demand will be covered by the hybrid hydro-wind plant.

It is very hard to get to 100% with a source that varies as much as wind power does.
It won't make sense until you recall the scope of the entire transition. The goal is not to provide 100% of "energy" from wind and hydro - the goal for the wind/hydro system is to provide electricity. Much of the space- and water heating, formerly provided by electricity, is being moved to solar thermal collection. That accounts for about 40% of total energy needs. Please note how nicely 65% and 40% fit together.
 
AndyH said:
WetEV said:
100% wasn't a realistic goal for this project, and I don't think that was promised by the people designing and building the project. For example:
It is very hard to get to 100% with a source that varies as much as wind power does.
It won't make sense until you recall the scope of the entire transition. The goal is not to provide 100% of "energy" from wind and hydro - the goal for the wind/hydro system is to provide electricity.

Ok, then providing 100% of the electricity isn't a realistic goal. There is far too little storage and excess wind capacity to get to 100%

Getting to 65% of the electric load, on the other hand, is realistic.


AndyH said:
Much of the space- and water heating, formerly provided by electricity, is being moved to solar thermal collection. That accounts for about 40% of total energy needs. Please note how nicely 65% and 40% fit together.

Please notice how wind minimum production doesn't line up with space heating needs.
 
WetEV said:
AndyH said:
WetEV said:
100% wasn't a realistic goal for this project, and I don't think that was promised by the people designing and building the project. For example:
It is very hard to get to 100% with a source that varies as much as wind power does.
It won't make sense until you recall the scope of the entire transition. The goal is not to provide 100% of "energy" from wind and hydro - the goal for the wind/hydro system is to provide electricity.

Ok, then providing 100% of the electricity isn't a realistic goal. There is far too little storage and excess wind capacity to get to 100%

:?

WetEV said:
AndyH said:
Much of the space- and water heating, formerly provided by electricity, is being moved to solar thermal collection. That accounts for about 40% of total energy needs. Please note how nicely 65% and 40% fit together.

Please notice how wind minimum production doesn't line up with space heating needs.
Since space heating will no longer be provided by electricity, it doesn't matter one whit what the wind turbines are doing.
 
El Hierro – 16 hours of 100% renewables generation
Posted on February 2, 2016 by Roger Andrews
Between 0540 and 2140 hours on January 31 2016 the Gorona del Viento (GdV) wind-hydro plant supplied the island of El Hierro with 100% of its electricity from renewables. This short post provides plots of the REE grid data for that day and adds a few provisional observations.

January 31 was undoubtedly a pre-planned test. Press announcements had already been prepared, and conditions were right (“The councillor of Gorona del Viento, Juan Pedro Sánchez, states that the predictions for today are good, and in case of a reduction in wind the water accumulated in the upper reservoir gives us the possibility of responding immediately with hydro to continue filling all of El Hierro’s demand”). It was a also a Sunday, when demand was at a minimum. The test of August 9, 2015, where GdV achieved 2 hours of 100% renewables generation, was on a Sunday too. . . .
http://euanmearns.com/el-hierro-16-hours-of-100-renewables-generation/

As is often the case with posts on the above site, the comments provide a lot of very detailed extra information.
 
Renewables clearly won't work, and they're waaaay too expensive besides. At least we have nuclear.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5lg73SDYUw[/youtube]

"...the most expensive power station that has ever been built by the human race that will produce the most expensive electricity that has ever been conceived..." 18,000,000,000 pounds...so far... for 3GW of generation... :shock:

Severely overpriced, so heavily subsidized that money is being pulled from renewables, many years overdue and billions over budget, and we get to pay for secure storage of waste for thousands of years? Yes, please - I'll take six! :roll:
 
And I thought TVA's "brand new" Watts Bar nuclear was expensive at $7B US for 2 GW.

It was downright cheap compared to Hinkley Point C ;) :D :)

Of course it took 40 years to design and build.
And when they decided to finish it a few years back it was supposed to take $2.5 B US for completion.
It took more than $4B US.

So similar cost overrun issues.
 
TimLee said:
And I thought TVA's "brand new" Watts Bar nuclear was expensive at $7B US for 2 GW.

It was downright cheap compared to Hinkley Point C ;) :D :)

Of course it took 40 years to design and build.
And when they decided to finish it a few years back it was supposed to take $2.5 B US for completion.
It took more than $4B US.

So similar cost overrun issues.
I'm still thanking our lucky stars that the South Texas Project expansion crashed and burned before the backhoes arrived. It was heading along the same trajectory as Hinkley Point and Watts Bar, with a double side of corruption.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=195007#p195007
 
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9ATOp5E92A[/youtube]

Portugal stopped using coal in 1994, normally runs on about 63% renewable and has run on 100% renewables for 196 hour periods (4.45 days)...


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym8emBsYdMs[/youtube]


100% electric PassiveHaus in the UK for about GBP1000 per square meter (~$123.56 per square foot) is net energy positive - owners paid annually for excess generation.
 
AndyH said:
Portugal stopped using coal in 1994, normally runs on about 63% renewable and has run on 100% renewables for 196 hour periods (4.45 days)...

Largest source is hydro. BC does better, grid is 99% hydro.

Oh, and if Portugal stopped using coal in 1994, why:

"Portugal’s electricity had 29 percent less coal and 44 percent less gas in it from 2012 figures. The country must import the fossil fuels it burns."

http://www.theenergycollective.com/josephromm/210896/70-percent-renewable-power-possible-portugal-just-did-it-3-months

Along with lots of other sources showing coal burnt in Portugal to produce electric power since 1994.
 
Roger Andrews at Energy Matters has closely followed the production of El Hierro Island's hybrid wind-hydro electricity-generation system's first year of in-service operation (second year in operation) and has published this detailed report on the results of this year. The bottom line is that the system produced 34.6% of the Island's electricity during this period, with the worst month coming in at 13.5% and the best at 53.9%. An analysis of the best-case possible production from this system indicates that it will never produce over 50% of the island's electricity needs.

These results are quite pitiful when compared with the projections made during the construction of this system:
Roger Andrews said:
As to what GdV’s goals were, there are three different perspectives. First we have the starry-eyed pronouncements of the mainstream media, who were never in any doubt that GdV was henceforth going to supply all of El Hierro’s energy needs with renewables. GdV is nowhere close to doing this, so the verdict here is FAIL.

Second are two engineering studies carried out before project startup, one of which estimated that GdV would supply 68.4% of El Hierro’s electricity demand with renewables and the other 64.6%. With renewables supplying only 36.4% of El Hierro’s electricity in its first year of operation GdV is falling well short of these projections too. So the verdict up to this point is also FAIL.

Third is the one that counts – the official version of what GdV was supposed to achieve and the one on which the project was marketed and financed. This is set forth in GdV’s project description and reads as follows:

The operation’s philosophy is based on supplying the electrical demand of the island with renewable sources, thus guaranteeing the stability of the electrical network; the diesel engine plant will only operate in exceptional/emergency cases, when there is not enough windwater (sic) to produce the demanded energy.

This is another obvious FAIL. The wording clearly implies that GdV was expected to produce if not 100% renewable energy all the time then something very close to it. In addition, the stability of the electrical network is still not guaranteed and the diesel plant has so far operated for more than 97% of the time, not just in exceptional cases. I hasten to add, however, that I don’t think that GdV’s bloated expectations were an intentional attempt to defraud. They simply illustrate what happens when green energy enthusiasts get carried away with visionary concepts that they do not take the time to evaluate properly, and also the gullibility of the project’s backers, notably the Spanish government, who also never took the time to do their homework before signing the GdV contract. As a result the government paid through the nose for a very modest amount of GdV renewable electricity in 2015 – €12 million for the 8.7 MWh delivered works out to €1.38/kWh – while the El Hierro Island Council, which owns 67% of GdV, is laughing all the way to the bank.
On top of all of this, it seems the El Hierro electricity grid has collapsed five times since this February. Some of this failures appear to be due to high winds.
 
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