Energy infrastructure

Markcheese

Does wind speed count for much ? Would have thought consistent wind would be much more important ?

specialbyte

Wind speed has a huge impact to making a turbine viable.

The amount of power generated by a wind turbine is proportional to the cube of the wind speed. This means that increasing the average wind speed from 6 m/s to 7 m/s results in 60% more power from the same turbine and an increase in annual energy production of 36%.

– Source

Consistency can be valuable. It's one of the benefits of off-shore wind turbines is that the winds tend to be much more consistent off-shore. Most on-shore turbines in Ireland have a capacity factor of 33%. Meaning that they produce peak power for 33 percentage of the hours of the year. Though they tend to produce some power about 85% of the time, just not always at peak power. Off-shore turbines in the North Sea are seeing capacity factors of 40-50%, which is a good indicator for how off-shore wind turbines see strong winds much more consistently than on-shore turbines.

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/110142483#Comment_110142483

5bn for a nuclear plant, FFS.

Hinkley C in England is costing 28bn euros to just construct.

The cost to the consumer is expected to be an additional 50bn sterling over it's lifetime to cover the high cost strike point over others.

That's not even starting in decommissioning a plant.

Plants should not be closed down till they are past date and that should be stretched out if possible but the taxpayer can't be made bear the cost of nuclear energy that has gone on for too long.

Nuclear power is incredible but it never really delivered.

If it had,all other concerns could have been worked on and met.

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118160103#Comment_118160103

Problem is it will take many many many HVDC interconnectors to transport the solar electrons that are needed.

Hopefully HV cable technology evolves further.

Shell buying windfarms, not sure how I feel about that

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2021/1118/1261750-shell-buys-51-of-irish-floating-offshore-wind-project/

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118188037#Comment_118188037

How many off shore wind projects are in development?

This blue star/shell one,

Emerald off the south coast

The Arklow banks

moneyPoint 1 and 2 (which will be built at some stage).

Anymore?

Markcheese

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118188037#Comment_118188037

Well , if you want to find companies who know how to project manage off shore work and handle the finance , it's going to be the likes of shell..

dubhthach

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118188037#Comment_118188037

Given the capital cost of that project ye need someone with deep pockets onboard. Interesting that the largest floating wind farms are generally in range of 50 - 88MW see:

https://www.offshorewind.biz/2021/10/19/worlds-largest-floating-offshore-wind-farm-fully-operational/

https://www.offshore-mag.com/renewable-energy/article/14188882/floating-offshore-wind-park-to-power-two-major-north-sea-field-centers

So the proposal here for 1.35GW is an order of magnitude bigger than anything ever built with the technology, having Shell onboard will make raising finance for it considerably easier. Of course from their point of view there's the added benefit of 'Green Washing'.

Markcheese

https://youtu.be/ge4ux1Y1ric

Nothing particularly new in here - but it's well laid out - and kind of sums up the hype of a near term hydrogen golden bullet - especially if new large scale wind is accompanied by large grid scale batteries buffering their output - there just isn't going to be much cheap or free wind powered electricity going to power / subsidize a hydrogen economy -

Doesn't mean hydrogen won't have a place in for instance generators or heavy machinery - but it won't be cheap -

Markcheese

https://youtu.be/vrKvj2MHLVw

And if the last one wasn't enough ,this one is a punch in the gut to just putting hydrogen into the gas grid

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118191718#Comment_118191718

"We engineers; were all stuck in this real world" Oh no - say it ain't so - I just read this article about this promising new research...

Markcheese

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118193073#Comment_118193073

How do you mean ?

RandomViewer

With rocketing electricity prices and ant-rural propaganda from some government members I can see a huge number of objections to any power cables coming ashore along the west coast, Tie them up in courts for decades

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118193152#Comment_118193152

Nuclear fusion is a decade away and has been for 70 years. It is not easy to control an H bomb.

Nuclear energy is going to be so cheap, we will not need to meter it - 1960s.

The steam car looked promising in the 1910 era, but thermodynamics did for it in a car, which is why it never made it - OK for railway trains, but could not be scaled for a car. I suspect hydrogen might be the same.

Engineers tend to run the slide rule over these things.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118193152#Comment_118193152

I mean the opposite of what Sam Russel is saying. That quote is from the excellent video you linked, and it highlites a serious problem with this infrastructrue thread and the predominant narrative that renewables are an ovious perfect answer to reducing CO2 emissions - no need to consider nuclear - because renewables are the answer. Obviously they aren't, because the grid may have diurnal cyclical demand, but it does not have intermittent random demand that renewables are a good fit for. In order to preserve this fictional vision of renewables being the answer, this thread is stuffed full of post, after post of appeals to 'promissing new technologies - full spectrum solar cells, new battery tech, flow batteries, endlessly blowing reliable offshore wind that, hydrogen generated from excess renewables that can be stuffed down depleted gas wells, and so on. All of which I have previously complained about as pie in the sky.

So that engineer was expressing the same sort of frustration I have with this seemingly endless appeal to unproven, but superficially promising sounding 'solutions', like hydrogen supplanting natural gas, which superficially sounds good and seems logical, but which turns out to be unworkable in reality, for the reasons he explained.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118193516#Comment_118193516

Nuclear fusion for power generation is nothing like a hydrogen bomb and stopping it from behaving like one is not remotely close to the problem - Jesus!

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118193747#Comment_118193747

You are correct. Nuclear fusion is nothing like an H bomb - the former has never made any appearance whatsoever - but unfortunately the H bomb has.

Markcheese

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118193739#Comment_118193739

Some of the tech is literally pipe-dreams - it'll either never scale or it's just victim of timing -

Most big new tech breakthroughs is 10 to 15 years off being available commercially , (although the likes of Tesla are starting to bring that development time down ...)

Nuclear is probably a good bit longer again - I've no doubt that when the french finally get the EPR Design and construction right that the price will drop , maybe 8- 10 billion per reactor then add grid costs and battery costs to help balance out the peaks , but that's probably a decade off in itself - then years of planning - plus another 8 to 10 years of construction -

It's still 30 years off and bonkers expensive

- the Irish grid is currently planning on hitting 70% renewables by the end of the decade - with current tech -and that's including a large transition to electric transport and electric home heating - any new magic bullets that appear will just be a bonus -

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118193739#Comment_118193739

The problem of hydrogen in gas supplies was explained by running a slide rule over the numbers - which shows it will not work.

The problem with many 'solutions' to the CO2 emissions are either just green washing or unproven vapourware.

The Preto rule - 80% of the value is in 20% of the sample. To solve the climate change they should start on the high yield items, but politically, the Saudis, the Russians, the coal producers, and other fossil fuel interests are fighting every attempt to control them. They are part of the 80% of the problem. Recycling plastic bottles is way, way down the list - but that gets the attention of the media.

Nuclear might be part of the global solution, but not for Ireland. Just run the slide rule over the numbers. It just does not scale for us - they are too big and we would need a back up for when it goes off line, so we would need two of them. It would take too long to get it into construction, too long to build, and cost too much. And would be too unpopular with the electorate.

CatInABox

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118193739#Comment_118193739

Aren't you the poster that's been banging on about "promising new technologies" like small/cheap reactors and such? So far, your chosen technology hasn't been developed either, and no, military reactors really don't count.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118187270#Comment_118187270

Kinetic energy is half the mass times velocity squared. Except in the case of wind or water the mass passing through is also proportional to the velocity. So the energy is proportional to the velocity to the power of three.

So you get lots more power from even a small increase in velocity, which is why sticking turbines on high towers into clean airflow is worth doing.

The downside is that you have engineer the structure to survive the energy of the maximum velocity cubed. Then there's rogue waves on top of that.

One reason why constant speeds are preferred is so you don't have to spend extra over-engineering the turbines. Turbines in the bogs in the midlands don't produce the same peak power as offshore, but they don't need to survive the same storms.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118193892#Comment_118193892

In 2002 the price of an EPR was €2.5Bn with a build time of four years. That would be €3.3Bn today based on CPI and that EPR is still under construction in Finland. The interest on the loans have been accumulating for 20 years. The final cost is likely to be €19.1Bn

The most important figure for nuclear power isn't the upfront cost, it's the interest rate of the finance because of the predictable delays.

If you want nuclear power you should get a quote for a no-risk fixed price build including insurance and guarantees to cover delays and cost increases, and paying for alternative power if there's delays and possible site cleanup if the plant isn't completed all to be held in escrow in case the companies involved go bankrupt.

That way the market can decide how much nuclear power really costs.

Markcheese

I assume that going forward wind farm operators will be rewarded for consistency of supply onto the grid - which will encourage offshore - and grid level batteries -

There was a programe a couple of weeks ago on the complexity of adjusting individual turbines in a development to get optimum overall production in different wind conditions..

Markcheese

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118195843#Comment_118195843

Edf are covering the entire cost of construction and overruns for hinkley- they're only going to get paid for unit of power delivered - which is one of the reasons it's so expensive .. they're planning on being significantly cheaper on the next one in sizewell as long as they don't go bust first ... (A lower strike price agreed apparently)

dubhthach

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118193514#Comment_118193514

I imagine the main point of landing for the windfarm that was proposed off Moneypoint was Moneypoint itself. You've got two major cross country powerlines that originate in Moneypoint:

Plus they are currently working on a cross-Shannon 400kv cable that got approved in June.

This ties in with the new Kilpaddoge – Knockanure Project which is an underground 220kv cable.

Sam Russell

I have tried to do some sums on my own domestic requirement for electricity.

I use less than 10kwh per day, and could probably put 4 kw PV on the roof and possible more but not optimised, and put a 10 kwh battery into the system that would control the electricity in the house. Now the daily consumption does not include gas used for cooking and heating. Now if that system could be put in place for €10 k to €15 k, it might give a payback of 7 to 10 years.

With the battery, I could reduce my consumption of electricity by 25% because of the PV, but the battery should allow me to reduce peak demand and use off peak electricity for most if not all my demand, so cutting my bills further.

Now there are 2 million homes in Ireland, so if 25% of homes could do the same, it would cost (500 k homes by €10 k) or €5 billion, paid by the home owner plus some from the public purse. With smart meters, and a feed in tariff, that could remove quite a bit of the uncertainty of the current grid. Now many homes could install a lot more PV, and would naturally reduce consumption by changing habits, and because they will be more aware of the consumption.

Am I wrong in my maths? And would this be a distributed solution to the vagaries of renewables? If generation is closer to the consumers, the grid is less stressed.

embraer170

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118196123#Comment_118196123

I wonder why the Kilpaddoge – Knockanure project was done underground?

machiavellianme

Probably because of the shortage of Overhead line routes. That area is already fairly criss crossed. It'll be interesting to see how they manage the different impedances in parallel leading to most of the power flowing on the cable.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118191718#Comment_118191718

No one's going to use fossil fuel to make hydrogen for the grid. It'll be renewables.

Yes the energy content per volume will go down, as methane has three times the energy per volume as hydrogen. So at 20% by volume it would be 12 parts energy from methane and 1 part from hydrogen. So 7.7% , but it's low hanging fruit and balances a decent chunk of the methane used to produce electricity.

Gas Networks Ireland set the conversion factor from m3 to Kwh based on the composition of the gas, local temperature and pressure etc. so consumers on this side of the pond shouldn't be charged extra if it's a little thin.

Ben D Bus

When people talk of the cost of green hydrogen, what are they using to calculate the cost? If not the marginal cost of using surplus green energy that would otherwise go to waste (or be curtailed by turning off turbines), then they're missing the point. That cost could actually be set at 0 if the windpower company is also the hydrogen generator.

So it's the capital cost plus operational cost of running a hydrolysis plant, albeit intermittently?