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1,769 MW wind generation at 18:30 today

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    #32
    ted1
    Registered Users Posts: 23,318 ✭✭✭✭ted1


    Impetus wrote: »
    They are insulated to prevent heat movement within the house. There is an outer layer of heavy insulation to keep the heat within the building. This is not just a heat pump issue. With central heating if you keep an entire house heated all day, you are wasting energy. Empty bedrooms etc.
    I'm not sure of the exact figures and I'm on my phone so can't dig them out but on a standard home turning off the heating in one room doesn't necessary mean savings as the cold room results in significant heat losses from the rest of the house.


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    #33
    Impetus
    Registered Users Posts: 1,667 ✭✭✭Impetus


    ted1 wrote: »
    So basically a heat pump is not a practical alternative for the majority of houses or apartments.

    On the continent, especially in the Mediterranean area, every house and apartment uses heat pumps. You have to have air con so you might as well use the same system to heat the place in winter. Some well organised towns have district heating and cooling systems powered by the local incinerator - ie they buildings are plumbed for chilled (5C) and hot water travelling from the incinerator to each house/apartment. A heat exchanger in each room takes in these water feeds to heat or cool the room.

    The only reason I mentioned the 10m limit, is that it applies to the Ururu Sarara system I have which ducts fresh air into the room via one of the pipes. Most air heat pumps don't bring fresh air in at all and have longer pipe ranges. There are other ducted options too.

    Storage heating is basically a "British isles" idea, ie ill-conceived and badly designed. Every other country in Europe uses heat pumps, radiators, or ducted systems or underfloor.


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    #34
    Impetus
    Registered Users Posts: 1,667 ✭✭✭Impetus


    ted1 wrote: »
    I'm not sure of the exact figures and I'm on my phone so can't dig them out but on a standard home turning off the heating in one room doesn't necessary mean savings as the cold room results in significant heat losses from the rest of the house.

    Exactly. There is no point in switching off central heating in an un-usued room in a centrally heated house, unless that room is thermally insulated from the heated living area.


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    #35
    ted1
    Registered Users Posts: 23,318 ✭✭✭✭ted1


    Impetus wrote: »
    On the continent, especially in the Mediterranean area, every house and apartment uses heat pumps. You have to have air con so you might as well use the same system to heat the place in winter. Some well organised towns have district heating and cooling systems powered by the local incinerator - ie they buildings are plumbed for chilled (5C) and hot water travelling from the incinerator to each house/apartment. A heat exchanger in each room takes in these water feeds to heat or cool the room.

    The only reason I mentioned the 10m limit, is that it applies to the Ururu Sarara system I have which ducts fresh air into the room via one of the pipes. Most air heat pumps don't bring fresh air in at all and have longer pipe ranges. There are other ducted options too.

    Storage heating is basically a "British isles" idea, ie ill-conceived and badly designed. Every other country in Europe uses heat pumps, radiators, or ducted systems or underfloor.

    Grand but we are talking about Ireland where the buildings are built already and its cost prohibitive to retro fit heat pumps.

    As regards district heating, I think Dublin missed out dramatically during the boom particularly the docklands. It'd be great to see a tie in with either of the power stations to provide district heating. Instead there cooling and dumping it into the Liffey


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    #36
    Impetus
    Registered Users Posts: 1,667 ✭✭✭Impetus


    ted1 wrote: »
    Grand but we are talking about Ireland where the buildings are built already and its cost prohibitive to retro fit heat pumps.

    As regards district heating, I think Dublin missed out dramatically during the boom particularly the docklands. It'd be great to see a tie in with either of the power stations to provide district heating. Instead there cooling and dumping it into the Liffey

    It is easier to fit an air heat pump system into an old building than radiator or ducted central heating. All it requires is four pipes which can be combined in a conduit, run through a hole in a wall. Five to ten minutes with a drill can dig this hole through a meter thick wall in an old house.

    On the storage heater front if you charge a storage heater with 3 kW consumption over 8 hours, you consume 24 kWh. Put 24 kWh of electricity into a heat pump and you will generate 5x heat = 120 kWh of heat.


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    #37
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,827 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    Impetus wrote: »
    You have the option of just charging your car at night, or if "battery" technologies allow (eg capacitors?) use a country's electric car fleet as "pumped storage" equivalent.
    don't believe every thing you read. The economics are insane for a car owner.

    A Tesla battery is 53Kwh so could store at most 53 units of electricity , if you deep discharge it which is just asking for trouble by the way. Night rate is 10.18c per unit. So you can save €5.40 of electricity into the battery. This could save you 90% of the power (charging efficiency) of 19c per unit dayrate so €9.06 worth of electricity out. A nett profit of €3.66.

    The economics on wholesale are way worse - check out www.sem-o.com

    http://theunderstatement.com/post/18030062041/its-a-brick-tesla-motors-devastating-design
    If the battery is ever totally discharged, the owner is left with what Tesla describes as a “brick”: a completely immobile vehicle that cannot be started or even pushed down the street. The only known remedy is for the owner to pay Tesla approximately $40,000 to replace the entire battery.

    What I am saying is that whatever form it takes, it provides a more flexible solution than storage heating.
    Most apartments in this country have electric heating because of fire safety so just have to deal with it.

    Look at the difference between peak power used. At a guesstimate there's a GW of extra heating used in winter. That's a lot of demand that could be spread out over time.
    http://www.eirgrid.com/operations/systemperformancedata/weeklypeakdemand/


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    #38
    Impetus
    Registered Users Posts: 1,667 ✭✭✭Impetus


    Capt'n Midnight wrote: »
    don't believe every thing you read. The economics are insane for a car owner.

    A Tesla battery is 53Kwh so could store at most 53 units of electricity , if you deep discharge it which is just asking for trouble by the way. Night rate is 10.18c per unit. So you can save €5.40 of electricity into the battery. This could save you 90% of the power (charging efficiency) of 19c per unit dayrate so €9.06 worth of electricity out. A nett profit of €3.66.

    Charge your Tesla at night, rather than using a storage heater. If a more robust battery comes around (eg a capacitor) that might be suitable for in/out storage.
    Most apartments in this country have electric heating because of fire safety so just have to deal with it.
    So use air heat pumps, powered by electricity and get 5x as much heat for each kW of power consumed.


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    #39
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,827 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    Impetus wrote: »
    Charge your Tesla at night, rather than using a storage heater. If a more robust battery comes around (eg a capacitor) that might be suitable for in/out storage.
    the point was that a lot of schemes sound sensible until you do some back of the envelope calcuations

    you'd want to be a nutter to risk bricking a €40,000 battery to make three fifty

    and besides how are you going to get to work in the morning if your battery is flat ?

    and peak demand, and hence peak price is roughly when everyone arrives home and plugs in their cars to charge


    Battery storage using today's technology is a non-starter if you have a grid connection



    heat pumps in apartments ?
    not going to happen to those that already exist

    and on new build would it be cheaper to try for near-passive heating ?
    or dumping solar heat under the building using PV powered pumps ?


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    #40
    Impetus
    Registered Users Posts: 1,667 ✭✭✭Impetus


    Capt'n Midnight wrote: »
    the point was that a lot of schemes sound sensible until you do some back of the envelope calcuations

    you'd want to be a nutter to risk bricking a €40,000 battery to make three fifty

    and besides how are you going to get to work in the morning if your battery is flat ?

    Any system has to be managed. 1) you need a capacitor type battery with zillions of cycles and high energy efficiency and 2) you manage your car energy storage, so there is more than enough power remaining in the vehicle to serve your needs for the day. It is no different to setting an alarm clock.
    Capt'n Midnight wrote: »
    and peak demand, and hence peak price is roughly when everyone arrives home and plugs in their cars to charge
    It is called smart metering. The price of power imported from the grid and the price of power exported to the grid varies depending on demand at the time of up/download.
    Capt'n Midnight wrote: »
    Battery storage using today's technology is a non-starter if you have a grid connection

    I presume you mean a standard grid connection for a house. Add hundreds of thousands of 50A/230V connections up and you have a lot of power. ie if the grid can deliver enough power to meet consumption demand across a network, it can handle dispersed "production" at a similar level.
    Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

    heat pumps in apartments ?
    not going to happen to those that already exist
    What are you saying? Ireland is a country full of ejits, who like high and increasing power bills? Perhaps you are correct. Even putting a single heat pump in the living area of an apartment - cost, incl installation €2,500 would provide a far superior living environment in terms of heat, clean air, lack of dampness, less noise etc and 5x efficiency on energy consumption. Far cheaper than gas central heating.
    Capt'n Midnight wrote: »
    and on new build would it be cheaper to try for near-passive heating ?
    or dumping solar heat under the building using PV powered pumps ?
    On a new build, you have the luxury of using any technology you feel appropriate.

    AIR HEAT PUMPS ARE VERY OLD BUILDING FRIENDLY and energy efficient - far more so than other methods.


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    #41
    fclauson
    Registered Users Posts: 1,691 ✭✭✭fclauson


    Impetus wrote: »
    They are insulated to prevent heat movement within the house. There is an outer layer of heavy insulation to keep the heat within the building. This is not just a heat pump issue. With central heating if you keep an entire house heated all day, you are wasting energy. Empty bedrooms etc.

    In a very well insulted (and this airtight) house its best to keep the whole building at one temp - if you don't you can suffer from condensation issues

    Its also super important to keep the whole building correctly ventilated


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    #42
    Impetus
    Registered Users Posts: 1,667 ✭✭✭Impetus


    fclauson wrote: »
    In a very well insulted (and this airtight) house its best to keep the whole building at one temp - if you don't you can suffer from condensation issues

    Its also super important to keep the whole building correctly ventilated

    If the entire building is being used yes. If there are rooms that aren't used continuously, like bedrooms, they should be thermally insulated and kept in a separate zone, and heated when required. I'm not suggesting that you under-insulate a building - the outer shell should be highly insulated. One just needs a low level of insulation to contain the heat in the required zone, rather than heat spreading throughout the house when not required in all rooms.

    Insulation standards:

    1) Oirish 1960s
    2) EU era standards
    3) Passive Haus
    4) Passive Haus modular


    Condensation is caused by humidity, which air con / heat exchangers will remove. The Daikin Ururu Sarara system also has a MOULD SHOCK system which can be used to kill mould and similar (eg woodworm). It does so by bringing the humidity down to extremely low levels - even when a house is un-occupied.


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    #43
    fclauson
    Registered Users Posts: 1,691 ✭✭✭fclauson


    Impetus wrote: »
    ...also has a MOULD SHOCK system which can be used to kill mould and similar (eg woodworm). It does so by bringing the humidity down to extremely low levels - even when a house is un-occupied.

    Sounds interesting - I have noticed in my MHRV vented house that some of the older timber items are "distressed" that is they have shrunk - your program above my give them even more of a fright


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    #44
    Impetus
    Registered Users Posts: 1,667 ✭✭✭Impetus


    fclauson wrote: »
    Sounds interesting - I have noticed in my MHRV vented house that some of the older timber items are "distressed" that is they have shrunk - your program above my give them even more of a fright

    At least it involves no wood preservative chemicals etc. One comes across timber houses in Switzerland (where the humidity is far lower than Ireland) and they are sometimes 400 or 500 years old. The Kapellbrücke (wooden bridge) in Lucerne was built in the 14th century and still remains today (having had to be repaired after some idiot caused part of it to go on fire after dumping a cigarette in the 1990s).

    Maintaining low humidity levels is key to keeping timber and artwork etc in good condition. Humidity (Ireland is one of the most humid countries in the world) is the cause of so much rot, rust, and damage to things. It also affects the health of people - it slows mental activity and encourages diseases like arthritis.


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    #45
    maninasia
    Registered Users Posts: 4,616 ✭✭✭maninasia


    Capt'n Midnight wrote: »
    now look at the other graph - it's what happens when renewables kick in



    it says you can sell power for just twice the price you bought it at.
    but you only get 150% of what you paid because you loose 1/4 of the power through conversions

    suddenly a 500% gross profit becomes just 50%. to give you an idea of the capital costs involved, it's been 45 years since anyone started building energy storage here and it's still just Turlough Hill. and it's only in the last few years that wind has eroded the peak price so for 40 years that "six times" just hasn't interested more investors.


    tl;dr if pumped storage wasn't economically attractive before wind it's less attractive now

    Wouldn't a better idea nowadays be to promote large fleets of electric cars which could automatically suck up electricity surges and act as a distributed storage mechanism as mentioned earlier. Less capital intensive and a win-win for both government and the consumer.


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    #46
    maninasia
    Registered Users Posts: 4,616 ✭✭✭maninasia


    Capt'n Midnight wrote: »
    don't believe every thing you read. The economics are insane for a car owner.

    A Tesla battery is 53Kwh so could store at most 53 units of electricity , if you deep discharge it which is just asking for trouble by the way. Night rate is 10.18c per unit. So you can save €5.40 of electricity into the battery. This could save you 90% of the power (charging efficiency) of 19c per unit dayrate so €9.06 worth of electricity out. A nett profit of €3.66.

    The economics on wholesale are way worse - check out www.sem-o.com

    http://theunderstatement.com/post/18030062041/its-a-brick-tesla-motors-devastating-design


    Most apartments in this country have electric heating because of fire safety so just have to deal with it.

    Look at the difference between peak power used. At a guesstimate there's a GW of extra heating used in winter. That's a lot of demand that could be spread out over time.
    http://www.eirgrid.com/operations/systemperformancedata/weeklypeakdemand/

    Tesla doesn't have badly designed batteries, the modules are independent and they offer a long-term warranty on them at a price.

    Electrical battery storage is decreasing in cost at the same rate as PV was, therefore things that are totally uneconomical now will be profitable and feasilbe within the next few years.


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    #47
    Impetus
    Registered Users Posts: 1,667 ✭✭✭Impetus


    maninasia wrote: »
    Tesla doesn't have badly designed batteries, the modules are independent and they offer a long-term warranty on them at a price.

    Electrical battery storage is decreasing in cost at the same rate as PV was, therefore things that are totally uneconomical now will be profitable and feasilbe within the next few years.

    While one accepts what you say about the Tesla battery, it seems to me that electric cars will be "strategic charging" opportunities to make use of cheap power (via smart metering) when the wind is blowing - as we saw in December. In other words one programs the car charging system to fill to the brim while the cost per kWh is below a certain specified amount. In the absence of cheap wind on a day, the car might charge just enough for one's daily commute + 15%.

    If/when a capacitor energy storage unit comes to the market, like the one promised by Eestor, which can be cycled for for hundreds of thousands of times, without any degradation, the electric car might sell power back to the grid when needed.


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    #48
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,827 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    maninasia wrote: »
    Wouldn't a better idea nowadays be to promote large fleets of electric cars which could automatically suck up electricity surges and act as a distributed storage mechanism as mentioned earlier. Less capital intensive and a win-win for both government and the consumer.
    Would you risk prematurely aging a €40,000 battery for the sake €3.66 some nights ?

    everyone here has experienced dead laptop or phone batteries, lithium technology if very unforgiving of deep discharge, drop below 2v per cell and it's game over.

    regardless it's an insane capital cost €1,000 to per KWh stored.
    and it can't provide power at peak demand because that's just after people drive home from work, which means low batteries.


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    #49
    Greensleeves
    Registered Users Posts: 337 ✭✭Greensleeves


    In the UK the National Grid is considering paying businesses to operate at night as it seeks to tackle the spiralling sums of money it has to pay to wind farms to keep their turbines shut down during off-peak hours, typically the middle of the night.

    http://processengineering.theengineer.co.uk/power-and-water/plan-to-pay-process-plants-to-use-electricity/1017753.article


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    #50
    maninasia
    Registered Users Posts: 4,616 ✭✭✭maninasia


    Capt'n Midnight wrote: »
    Would you risk prematurely aging a €40,000 battery for the sake €3.66 some nights ?

    everyone here has experienced dead laptop or phone batteries, lithium technology if very unforgiving of deep discharge, drop below 2v per cell and it's game over.

    regardless it's an insane capital cost €1,000 to per KWh stored.
    and it can't provide power at peak demand because that's just after people drive home from work, which means low batteries.

    It's not so much about providing a battery storage system for the grid, it's more about taking this useful cheap energy that would otherwise largely go to waste and storing it for use for transportation, thereby replacing oil used for transportation or more fuel being burned for electricity generation.

    This is 99% about having smart software and algorithms and 1% hardware challenge.

    For instance somebody keeps on going on about 'bricking', that's not been a problem for many years for common electronic items, it's a minor tweak to software to make sure there is reserve capacity in the battery.


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    #51
    fclauson
    Registered Users Posts: 1,691 ✭✭✭fclauson


    Is Ireland heading this way - Germany being bankrupted by renewerable energy


    http://t.co/Vs5P2tOvx0


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    #52
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 25,611 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    No agenda there.


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    #53
    fclauson
    Registered Users Posts: 1,691 ✭✭✭fclauson


    Deleted User wrote: »
    No agenda there.
    ?
    not certain what you mean


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    #54
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 25,611 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    The source is one thing, the framing and general use of rhetoric shows an agenda on the part of the writer.


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    #55
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,827 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    http://www.finfacts.ie/irishfinancenews/article_1027084.shtml
    Falling Irish wholesale electricity prices were the principal driver of the 1% month-on-month fall in the Bord Gáis Energy Index during December. Increased wind energy, which met a record 24% of the total electricity demand in December, combined with a reduction in electricity demand due to the mild weather, resulted in wholesale electricity prices dropping by 5% month-on-month.

    Wind forecasting is fairly accurate. And grids already have reserves to cater for the largest generating unit going off line anyway. The UK gets 5% of it's electricity from wind. Unpredictability means that 9% of the operating reserve was used for it, and the rest was used to cover the "dispatcable" stuff.

    Overall wind provided over 1,000 times the power that was used to cover it's "intermittancy"

    http://www.gizmag.com/uk-national-grid-wind-data/28046/
    For the 23,700 gigawatt-hours of electrical energy generated by wind in the UK between April 2011 and September 2012, only 22 GWh of electrical energy from fossil fuels "was needed to fill the gaps when the wind didn't blow,"
    ...
    Table 2 of the report shows the energy provided by the National Grid's Short Term Operating Reserve, and how much of that was due to wind energy output being lower than forecast. Of the 246 GWh provided by the Reserve for the same period, 22 GWh are thought to be due to the wind not blowing as forecast.


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    #56
    Gambas
    Registered Users Posts: 846 ✭✭✭Gambas


    fclauson wrote: »
    Is Ireland heading this way - Germany being bankrupted by renewerable energy


    http://t.co/Vs5P2tOvx0

    You didn't really mean bankrupted, did you. You just threw that ludicrous exaggeration in the hope that someone feeble minded might actually believe it. Isn't that right?


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    #57
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,827 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    Gambas wrote: »
    You didn't really mean bankrupted, did you. You just threw that ludicrous exaggeration in the hope that someone feeble minded might actually believe it. Isn't that right?
    LOL

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/brighammccown/2013/12/30/germanys-energy-goes-kaput-threatening-economic-stability/
    Like many countries, once promising advances in nuclear technologies have suddenly taken a backseat after Fukushima. Unlike America, Europe has not been able to transition to natural gas,
    They are promising technologies, they've been promising then for decades without delivering. "But this time it will be different". EDF still hasn't completed one of their current EPR reactors.

    We have gas. We all use gas. Coal is cheaper though, but it's used for base load. We all use gas to match supply and demand.


    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-03/german-power-costs-seen-dropping-for-fourth-year-energy.html
    Wholesale power prices in Europe’s biggest economy plunged 32 percent since 2010 amid record wind and solar output and the weakest demand in four years. The cheapest coal since 2009 is spurring utilities to keep building plants burning the fuel. EON SE (EOAN) and RWE AG (RWE), the largest generators, will report lower profit this year, according to analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

    ...
    Year-ahead electricity prices fell 19 percent to 36.80 euros ($50.30) a megawatt-hour in 2013. The contract closed at 35.90 euros yesterday, its lowest settlement since March 2005, and at 36.15 euros today, according to broker data compiled by Bloomberg.

    ...
    Generating capacity will expand by 9.4 gigawatts this year, equal to 5.3 percent of current supply, according to Energy Brainpool GmbH & Co. KG. Renewable capacity will rise by 5.1 gigawatts and coal plants will supply most of the rest in their biggest expansion since at least 2000, the Berlin-based consultant estimates. A gigawatt of electricity, or 1,000 megawatts, is enough to power about 2 million European homes.
    ...
    EON, RWE and Stockholm-based Vattenfall AB, the three biggest utilities operating in Germany, plan to shutter more than 16 gigawatts of unprofitable generating capacity in central-west Europe in the four years through 2015, company filings show.
    So yes there is more coal but there is also less coal. A lot of the new coal plants are replacing older more inefficient ones.

    No details on which plants are closing but it's unlikely to be renewables
    http://gastopowerjournal.com/technologyainnovation/item/2851-german-regulator-approves-closure-of-51gw-of-generating-capacity

    Jan 16 – The German energy network regulator, Bundesnetzagentur, has approved operators' requests to close 16 power plants with a combined capacity of 5,092 MW.

    The plants are located mainly north of the river Main, where closure impacts less on security of power supply than in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg – the states most impacted by Germany's nuclear exit.


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    #58
    fclauson
    Registered Users Posts: 1,691 ✭✭✭fclauson


    So what does this all mean for the Irish markets ?

    Dropping whole sale prices must make wind farms less attractive to build

    The reduction on the emphasis on CO2 reduction by the EU must also have an impact

    15 year contracts by the Irish government to wind farm operators would have to some how price in these market variations (somehow)


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