Record Wind in Scotland Means Grid Tells Some Turbines to Stop

[Caribbeans]

North Sea Dogger Bank Wind Farm, UK

Bloomberg.com
By Will Mathis, Rachel Morison, and Todd Gillespie
May 25, 2022

Wind farms across the UK are producing more electricity than the grid is able to cope with, forcing the network operator to ask some turbines in Scotland to shut down.

National Grid Plc asked some wind farms connected to the local network in the west of Scotland to reduce output by 25 megawatts. While that’s a tiny fraction of the record amount of wind supplies being produced by blustery weather spinning turbines across the country, it highlights the difficulties of a network still unable to store large amounts of electricity.

Britain has bet big on renewable power to curb carbon emissions, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson describing the UK as the Saudi Arabia of wind. But that has also left the country at the mercy of weather, and made it harder for grids to cope without the ability to store large amounts of electricity in batteries or use it to produce green hydrogen.

Wind power peaked at 19,835 megawatts on Wednesday, enough to cover more than half of Britain’s electricity needs. Production surpassed a peak set in late January and follows record renewables output seen recently in other parts of Europe, highlighting the potential for green energy to replace expensive fossil fuels...>
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-25/uk-wind-power-sets-record-on-gusty-weather

If only someone had an idea of how to store excess renewable energy...

(another silly video! What good are they...)

[PoliticAverse]

1. It isn't that there isn't any way to store excess electrical energy, the problem is the cost

of storing the excess electrical energy. Without mentioning how much per kWh it will cost to store energy via a certain method there is no way to know if it is even a practical idea to do so.

[Caribbeans]

4. Are you...

imagining that there are no studies by actual professionals regarding Power to X?

Power-to-X (also P2X and P2Y) is a number of electricity conversion, energy storage, and reconversion pathways that use surplus electric power, typically during periods where fluctuating renewable energy generation exceeds load.[1][2] Power-to-X conversion technologies allow for the decoupling of power from the electricity sector for use in other sectors (such as transport or chemicals), possibly using power that has been provided by additional investments in generation.[1] The term is widely used in Germany and may have originated there...MORE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-Xhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-X

PLEASE SEE THE FOOTNOTES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE before bashing Wikipedia. Thanks.

Just because the US has spent trillions of dollars and millions of engineering hours on NOTHING BUT war since 1999 doesn't mean the rest of the world has done that with their own resources and time.

The "New American Century" has come and gone. The US does not lead the world right now in anything but war. Simply a fact.

[PoliticAverse]

7. No, I'm not "imagining that there are no studies", I am pointing out that whether any method...

is a practical one depends on the cost of storage. Without mentioning that it matters not how cool the technique of storage is.

[Finishline42]

13. Storing electricity produced by wind

is different than by solar. Solar is produced on a schedule and drops off on schedule (sun coming up and going down). As a result battery storage is easier to justify. Wind of course is unpredictable. Transmissions lines are probably the best way to deal with excess supply.

There is so much wind and solar being planned for Texas that they will run into the same problem - too much for their grid to use.

[brush]

2. Don't many of the transit lines use electical power?

Any way to move that power to transit lines?

[Caribbeans]

5. When the grid is full it's full and cannot accept any more juice

but turn the wind power into hydrogen and you can move / ship it anywhere.

It's bottled wind or solar energy.

Portable. Usable. Cost effective even though somewhat inefficient. Because wind and solar will be back - if not in 6 hours, a few days.

Would you rather have 35% of something -

OR 100 % of nothing.

[brush]

6. I say do it. Don't let it all go to waste. Turning it to storable hydrogen...

seems a no-brainer if there's no way to build battery storage capability into the grid.

[PoliticAverse]

9. It's a "brainer" if it costs more to store and retrieve the energy from hydrogen than it does...

to generate the electricity from scratch from other methods that already exist.

[brush]

12. Well does it cost more?

And with advances in battery tech, will it all ways cost more? If not shouldn't storage capability be part of future plans?

[Blues Heron]

3. cant they mine some bitcoin with the excess juice?

dont waste that wind!

[PoliticAverse]

8. Some might consider that a "waste". n/t

[Blues Heron]

10. Free money for the utility - what's not to like?

At least it could help pay for that offshore turbine maintenance. (If there are any buyers left for the bitstuff that is)

[PoliticAverse]

11. You raise an interesting question. Since the profit in bitcoin (and similar proof of work coins)...

is largely about how cheap you can get electricity why aren't more utilities mining?