Random Renewables Thread

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120686732#Comment_120686732

Presumably even if the transmission was almost free you'd also lose a lot of heat through the pipe walls. Even insulated pipes probably lose a decent amount of heat over the space of hundreds of meters

I hope they get that district heating system online in Dublin, it would definitely make a difference to the heating bills in that area. Too bad there's loads of offices around there probably wasting heat for 10% occupancy. Maybe they'll repurpose them into housing soon

Jonathan

https://twitter.com/CMacIver11/status/1666811631656124419

This thread is interesting, specifically the distributed generators. The increased inverter tolerances from ESB Networks (page 8, section 2.2) will have a similar effect over here.

redmagic68

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120680154#Comment_120680154

Now let’s get some substations built

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120700868#Comment_120700868

Damn right, I've never understood why the EU isn't investing in more interconnectors to North Africa and solar and wind energy in the Sahara desert

I imagine installation costs would be a lot lower compared to offshore wind and would generate a lot more power than in northern Europe

It would give North African countries a source of income, and diversify them away from oil, as well as giving them and Europe additional options for peak power.

For example, in winter extra power could come from North Africa to offset the loss of solar output in Europe. And vice versa in summer excess power could be sent south to help with the additional cooling load

redmagic68

Or set up massive green hydrogen production close by also for the hgv and plant machines and have them making income from that instead of oil.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120701464#Comment_120701464

bullit_dodger

A big problem with a getting energy from these places is that North Africa hasn't historically been a great place for Political stability. Pipelines and/or high voltage transmission lines going through places like Algeria/Tunisia or <shakes head> Libya.....we'll you can image that would be somewhat vulnerable to a shakedown by some "bad actors". Would I want my fridge down in Tesco's being subjected to some muppet with a lb of C4 in a country 3000km away? Probably not.

As much as engineering wise it would make sense, sadly we live in a different world. That said, I do think that interconnectors for example from stable states like Spain (if you can call Spain a stable state - LOL) with sun and like us/Scotland with wind, nuclear from France etc are the future.

unkel

A south facing panel in a good area in Ireland obviously doesn't make anywhere near as much as one in the best part of the world, but the difference is not that big either, maybe a factor 3. I'd say it's cheaper and simpler and indeed more stable to just have rooftop solar on most buildings and some large PV farms here in Ireland. With a lot of wind and battery too, we wouldn't even need an interconnector for our own needs any more.

But we could make considerable money exporting wind, if we get the hell on with it. Provide cheap wind to our neighbours, who then won't need to bother buying their own less efficient and more expensive renewable systems. Win-win for everybody Wind is Ireland's oil as an Taoiseach said...

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120702404#Comment_120702404

Honestly I think the bigger problem would be the fact that North African nations are generally a bit suspicious of Europeans bearing gifts. There is some historical context to back this up, colonial enlightenment tended to involve a lot of genocide of the native population

As for safeguarding energy supplies, here's some bizarre facts for you, currently any gas from Russia to Europe is being shipped via Ukraine, through active combat areas in some cases. Both sides have just sort of decided to leave the pipeline network alone mostly

Even more bizarre, Russia (or more accurately Gazprom) is still paying Ukraine transshipment fees to deliver that gas. Although I suspect that transaction amounted to Gazprom delivering a stack of rubles and their Ukrainian counterparts wiping their asses with them and sending them back with a "f**k you" note included 🤣

Anyway, my point is that even in unstable nations it's possible to safeguard infrastructure, particularly when it's bringing some money in

Bigger problem would probably be the government of the day stealing any income instead of spending it on improving the living situations of their citizens

EDIT: Also to be fair to the Spanish, they're doing better than the Italians for stability. IIRC Italy is on its 75th government in 60 years

bullit_dodger

Honestly I think the bigger problem would be the fact that North African nations are generally a bit suspicious of Europeans bearing gifts. There is some historical context to back this up, colonial enlightenment tended to involve a lot of genocide of the native population

True there is that, a history of abuse and exploitation. But currently these countries don't have the GDP or indigenous infrastructure to support the development of large scale solar farms for the likes of Europe. This would mean that investments would have to come from abroad and no country in their right mind would be spending billions of tax payers money in a foreign country, even if from an engineering perspective it might be the right way to go.

No, countries will at best spend money within their own boarders - and that's actually ok for us. It would be great to have the solar output of somewhere like Spain, but our wind as unkel mentions above is "best in class", possibly only beaten by Scotland.

Often wondered if there were other (viable) sources in ireland like wave, or tidal (Shanon estuary for example?). One thing about the tides is that it's as predicable as clockwork - no cloudy days, or high pressure systems with low wind. Tides are tides.....and you can get generation 16-18 hrs out of the day.

La Rance Tidal Barrage | Tethys (pnnl.gov)

Things like this are doable.....but wind is for sure cheapest/kwh, still it's good to have a mix in the generation matrix.

Edit: Came across this since. Looks like it's been thought of at least.

Tidal stream energy potential in the Shannon Estuary - ScienceDirect

unkel

I know it interests you a lot, @bullit_dodger , but we don't need any of that! Wind and PV and battery will do the trick nicely. We should not wait to look what might be around the corner next (and will probably not work anyway)

bullit_dodger

Nahh, it's effectively just hydro which we've had at Ardnacrusha on the shannon for nearly 100 years. It's old tech getting a revamp and with any tech as adoption happens total cost of ownership drops. Came across this a few weeks back

(695) Breakthrough Energy Source is 10X Better Than Wind & Solar!? - YouTube

Not a huge fan of his channel, but that one did spark my interest. Not saying it's a complete runner for Ireland mind you, only that these things should be looked at - and glad to see that they are. Wind at one stage would have been in the same boat, as was solar, 20-30 years back. If you don't look at these things and iterate, then progress is slow.

Wind is great in Ireland. Solar....is ok. Super for domestic, and the fact that most of us here have shelled out €10k + is a testiment to that, but it's not great grid wise when the country is 52-54 deg north. Physics works against us there so we have months of diminished production (i.e. winter). So wind will be the primary provider, but always good to look at alternatives when the wind isn't as bountiful.

Jonathan

It appears that Eirgrid have given the Smart Grid Dashboard a bit of a sprucing up and introduced a "Carbon Clock".

https://www.smartgriddashboard.com/#roi/carbon-clock

User guide here. Perhaps more useful is the addition of forecast data to the CO2 intensity tab (previously only retrospective). Hopefully they've also fixed the longstanding bug whereby the dashboard shows nothing when the grid is emitting less than 200g CO2eq/kWh.

KCross

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120707675#Comment_120707675

The Carbon clock is interesting. I wasn't expecting the "Best time to use" as 6-7pm today. Thats generally against the norm of them telling us to avoid the peak hours when everyone comes home and fires up the cooker/kettle etc. Its also the opposite of what the smart peak tariff is currently encouraging which is to not use electricity during 5-7pm. Its all a bit odd isn't it!

I know its all dependent on the weather forecast and how much renewables etc we have. I guess what it does highlight is that hardcoded time-of-use tariffs are not what should be in play. What we should actually be doing is providing more realtime tariffs a day in advance and then utilise automation to use it like they have in the UK.

e.g. The Zappi can read data like the above and charge your car at those times and it reads that data a day in advance. In some cases you would then be able to charge the car for free.

Hopefully this Carbon clock and the current pilot system Eirgrid have in operation with some people, where they send text messages around this data, will be a precursor to providing realtime tariffs. The data is there, we just need to use it and get away from the current day/night/peak tariffs.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120709100#Comment_120709100

Yeah it'd be great if one could sign up for some agile which tracked CO2 emissions. So you could get a lower tariff for lower carbon generating times (generally when prices are lower anyway)

DC999

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120707675#Comment_120707675

Interesting that ‘CO2 emissions from other countries are not included in these calculations. Imported electricity is considered as zero carbon from Ireland’s perspective as emissions are counted in the jurisdiction in which they are emitted’. That would cause their new ‘best times to use carbon clock’ to be incorrect emissions wise at times. I fully get they have no easy way to see that though. We buy from the UK interconnectors. At times that could be fed from a French interconnector, which is fed by a Germany interconnector…

We were importing ~20% yesterday (when renewables were at rock bottom). So if that interconnector’s grid is running that 20% from coal…..

At times yesterday it was well under 10% was Irish renewables (no wind). ~75% from ‘thermal generation (coal, gas, other)’. Rest was the interconnectors

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120709230#Comment_120709230

I suppose one fairly simple but lazy solution would be to take the average CO2 emissions for the country we're importing from. It'd probably be somewhat inaccurate but better than zero

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120715228#Comment_120715228

Yeah was pretty overcast most of the day.

And to give full context

We have issued a #System Alert due to low wind and solar and forced outages at a number of generators which has resulted in a reduced capacity to meet demand. We are working to resolve the issue. For more information http://EirGrid.ie/alerts

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120715228#Comment_120715228

I seem to remember Monday was cloudy?

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120715342#Comment_120715342

Turns out your in luck.

Panels work here very well already.

Even though it was overcast my 8kwp system still generated 30kwh ish that day.

Tree

Also in Limerick city, generated ~15kWh on Monday rather than the highs of 38 the week before.

AFAIK there's groups in UCD looking at the compounds in the panels and imrproving efficiency, and someone in UL recently posted a survey researching forecasts vs actuals.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120715840#Comment_120715840

There's always research ongoing, but it'll take a long time for any gains now to filter down to mass market

There's panels available now that are a bit more efficient than the cheaper mass market ones, but they're a good bit more expensive so generally the few extra watts you get aren't worthwhile

As @graememk said even on an overcast day in summer you can get quite a bit of solar generation. I got 16.9kWh from my 6kWp array against 14.3kWh consumption

As long as I'm generating more than I'm using then I'm happy 😁

Dev1234

His username was EamonnResearch.

There is a thread on here somewhere where he requested data from solar systems.

the_amazing_raisin

In France at the moment, despite the sunshine and obvious benefit of having air conditioning with as a solar diverter here I've yet to see a single solar panel

Okay I'll admit I haven't seen a huge number of houses but a fair number of businesses with plenty of roof space

I know energy prices back home are a pain, but they have spurred a lot of people to look at rooftop solar

unkel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120727630#Comment_120727630

Was in Portugal the last 2 weeks and same story. Almost all houses had solar thermal though and some houses had PV panels alright, but fewer than here in Ireland. I guess they don't really need to as the percentage renewables in Portugal is already extremely high, often 100%. Probably because of the location. There are large solar PV farms, they have substantial hydro and wind too. Not an EV to be seen though...

curioustony

I think smart meter penetration is quite low on Europe too. Italy, Ireland and the UK seem to be ahead on that one...

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120727953#Comment_120727953

Yeah I guess for France having lots of (subsidised) nuclear power just means they don't have the same focus on microgeneration

Also I suppose that French cities are a lot denser than Irish ones so not the same benefits

I find the lack of air conditioning in houses bizarre. I know that the heat waves have only gotten really bad in the past decade or so. But hot summers in northern France aren't exactly a new concept

I suppose the locals are better adapted to the climate, us Paddy's are famously bad at warm weather 😂

Still, the human body has the same limits everywhere, so I suspect it's more a case of knowing how to manage it than actual tolerance for the heat. On top of that, I know several Spaniards and Italians who prefer living in Ireland because the summers are cooler, so it isn't like there's some magic gene the Irish are missing

Except for the ability to handle 30 seconds of open sunlight without looking like a red pepper afterwards, we definitely missed that one 🥵

unkel

@the_amazing_raisin - "I find the lack of air conditioning in houses bizarre"

People got used to the heat, it wasn't as hot as it is now, people avoided doing anything during the hottest hours of the day, the systems were expensive, people were poor. And had no solar PV

A lot of that has changed now. That's why you will see more and more air conditioning at home in countries like the Netherlands. You can get a half decent portable aircon unit for €400 now incl. VAT. I reckon I'll shortly buy one myself.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120728047#Comment_120728047

Yeah I reckon you nailed it. I think management of the heat is a lot better here than back home. I remember in Spain and Italy every apartment I was ever in had shutter screens inside all the windows to allow ventilation without solar gains

And as you say the afternoon is very quiet on the continent in summer, people sort of hide indoors out of the sun

Historical side note, apparently the siesta in Spain isn't actually supposed to be a nap. Farmers in fields would wear a hat with a really long brim at the back and just sit with their back to the sun for an hour or so after lunch

At least that's what the Catalonian dude I used to work with told me about his grandfather. He was very much Catalonian, I called him Spanish once and was treated to a particularly varied selection of Spanish swear words in response 🤣

bullit_dodger

Well hot summers in France aren't new. Here's 20 years ago.

2003 European heat wave - Wikipedia

15,000 dead from it. Good article on France's nuclear manifest is here.

Nuclear Power in France | French Nuclear Energy - World Nuclear Association (world-nuclear.org)

Would be great though if some country got on board with the Thorium stuff. I know they are close, but haven't heard of a country deploying a significant level of reactors.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120728146#Comment_120728146

I think EDF has sunk too much money into the EPR to give up now. If they do the exces will probably be hanged

After seeing the total lack of rooftop solar in France I'm even less convinced about nuclear than ever. I think it just ends up blocking money that can be used for renewables which deliver much quicker and more reliably

Remember in most heatwaves in France in the past few years that about half their reactors need to shut down because the water they're outputting to the river is too hot and causing a mass fish die off

I think it's had it's day but beyond a few specialised applications isn't really worth the money anymore

unkel

@bullit_dodger - "Well hot summers in France aren't new"

Of course they're not. Nearly every year you'd have a 40C day going back a long time. But not nearly 50C. UK and Netherlands the same, you'd have a 30C, but not the 40C they got last year. Canada went from hottest ever recorded 40C to 50C. Huge increases. Even Ireland had a 37C day last year (warmest day ever) that would have hit 40C had it not been mainly overcast that day

And I heard maybe this year, but almost certainly next year is expected to be the hottest ever in many countries.

the_amazing_raisin

Random side question, does anyone know what the deal is with the doubled up power lines in HV cables?

I've noticed that on a lot of the pylons each "line" is actually two cables wutn probably a 10cm air gap between them. They're joined every few metres with a spacer, can't tell if it's insulated or a conductor (and I certainly wasn't going to try and get closer 😂)

Is there something clever going on there like a primary and backup scenario? Or is it just a cheap way to double your capacity through the same set of pylons?

bullit_dodger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120728174#Comment_120728174

It's not so much "sunk money into EPR to give up on them now", but rather I think you need some nuclear in the mix, and if it's carbon free (or extremely close to carbon free) that's a win in my book. The mix is the key point there. If someone gave me a few €1b to build a power plant, all day long I'd pick wind, and then solar - but if you gave me a few €10b's to design a matix for a country's generation....then I'd have nuclear in the mix somewhere.

People make a big deal about "ohh but the waste will turn us all into mutants, etc" or some other nonsense, but the fact is that while waste does indeed deserve thought, it's generally a well solved problem. That said, I think France are too gung-ho on nuclear. They've proved it can work, but I think they should adopt a more balanced approach.

I spend a lot of time in france, esp in the Savoie area (alps). Over the years I've noticed a decent, but not outrageous number of PV installs. One scheme I remember reading last year. New French law will blanket parking lots with solar panels - The Washington Post

So they aren't against renewables either. Certainly a step in the right direction from me.

bullit_dodger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120728184#Comment_120728184

Actually "only" 33.1c for Ireland .... :-)

Ireland records hottest day for 135 years as temperatures hit 33.1 degrees in Dublin – The Irish Times

I remember that day as I took a snap on my car dashboard.

Nuts - and yeah, as someone who's seen (1st hand) glaciers melting over the past 2 decades, it's not just the summer temps that get my attention. There's one area in Chamonix where you used to be able to ski down from the glacier, and get the lift. Now they had to install 2 additional sets of 50 steps so you can get up to the lift as where the snow used to be......all gone, and we're talking about snow that was there for 100's of years.

Could be an El Nino coming as well

What we know about the 2023 El Niño and its effect on weather - Vox

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120728202#Comment_120728202

I dare say it's more capacity.

Solar on commercial buildings have jumped here, local supermarket has them, filled the roof.

Fish factory too, completely covered.

feed mill has something like 200odd kw installed. And that's just the ones I've noticed

bullit_dodger

Supervalu in Harold's cross.

Google Earth

unkel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120728421#Comment_120728421

I was there in 1999. Total novice to skiing, didn't like it but me and my best mate took de cable car up the Aiguille du Midi - doing a near 3000m vertical climb - higher than any cable car in the world, was lovely thing to do with my fear of heights 😮

Out of the cable car we walked up a few flights of steps to the platform (which got you interestingly out of breath - it is over 3800m high and he indeed skied down the glacier all the way down to the town.

Wasn't the hottest day in Ireland for 135 years, BTW. That old "record" was near certainly a bad measurement. It was the hottest day in Ireland ever. And there was nothing in it between the official met.ie measuring stations of the Phoenix park and Baldonnel (very near where I live). You are right it was just a bit over 33C. But it felt a lot hotter than that. I have been in temps up to 45C abroad and didn't feel anywhere near as hot as this, must have been the humidity.

bullit_dodger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120728819#Comment_120728819

Aiguille du Midi - that's the one alright, you ski down the valley blanche glacier, and then at the bottom you used to be able to walk up about 20-30 steps to the lift from the snowpack. Now it's something like 130 steps after they had to extend the stairway as there was no other way out for people. Here's a snap I took from the top.

I was just over 4,000m according to my watch, but that works off atmospheric pressure, I think your figure of 3800m is closer to the truth. Same story across most of the alps. Glaciers disappearing with gusto. By the way, the walk down to the run was....."interesting" too as I recall. You drop a glove, or a ski and it's bye-bye ski ! :-)

Yeah, I'd heard the debate about that temp reading back in 1885 being nonsense too and that the one last year is probably the hottest. I think it's academic anyway and that within the next 5-10 years (maybe even this summer for all I know) it'll be beaten again and it will remove all uncertainly. Sadly not a good thing.

I mean statistically any record can be broken in any year, and that's just normal weather pattern. Flukes happen., but when you have the consistency of records being matched or broken, year after year.....that's something else.

slave1

SuperValu and a very large joinery near me currently filling their entire (and very large) roofs with panels, great to see

the_amazing_raisin

I remember Pavilions Swords got planning permission a couple of years to put a couple thousand solar panels on the roof. Don't think they've installed them yet though

paulbok

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120729595#Comment_120729595

The amount of area taken up by roof space in any country is huge. While not all of it is suitable for plastering with panels, aspect, shape, structural condition etc, there is enough to get some serious MW's onto the grid without taking up new land.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120728366#Comment_120728366

Well I think for EDF and the French government, the EPR was supposed to be the next generation reactor that would revitalise the nuclear industry

I think it's revitalised the nuclear construction industry, not so much the generation industry 😂

So that's why I regard it as a sunk cost, not just financially but politically. If the project fails then it'll probably kill any chance of the French exporting their nuclear design and expertise for a long while yet

I agree that given a design for a large scale energy grid (something Europe sized, not our tiny Irish grid) then nuclear will inevitably form part of the mix. Hence my comment about how it's more suited to stickier areas when renewables can't do the job

However, if I were choosing where to invest my money in power generation, and the choice is renewables or nuclear, then as long as the answer for renewables being suitable is anywhere between "yes" and "barely" the I'd pick renewables every time

IMO even a poorly optimised renewables generator is better because the cost of installation and construction timeline are much lower

Also, one a side note, I managed to find the webpage showing outages in the French grid. Might be interesting to see how much downtime is involved with nuclear

https://www.services-rte.com/en/view-data-published-by-rte/downtime-of-generation-resources.html

There was several reactor's offline for planned maintenance over the last few months from the looks of it

bullit_dodger

The link I gave previously (here it is again) has all those details you were looking for.

Nuclear Power in France | French Nuclear Energy - World Nuclear Association (world-nuclear.org)

I think it mentioned 60% or their abouts for capacity factor along with what plants are doing maintenance (2nd page or so). I also noted this section which is interesting.

n October 2014 the Energy Transition for Green Growth bill was passed by the National Assembly and so went onto the Senate. This set a target of 50% for nuclear contribution to electricity supply by 2025, and capped nuclear power capacity at 63.2 GWe, the level at the time. This meant that EDF would have to shut at least 1650 GWe of nuclear capacity when its Flamanville 3 EPR starts commercial operation. The bill also set long-term targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030 compared with 1990 levels, and by 75% by 2050; to halve final energy consumption by 2050 compared with 2012 levels; to reduce fossil fuel consumption by 30% by 2030 relative to 2012; and to increase the share of renewables in final energy consumption to 32% by 2030.

So they do plan on reducing nuclear. It's sort of a tough call for France on one side. They are perhaps one of the few countries in Europe who's actually got a good CO2 story even today. Nuclear is 63%, hydro 11% and wind/solar another 15%., so upwards of 85% clean power. While I don't necessarily agree with it.....I can get in behind the thinking that why rip apart our existing ecosystem if what we have is giving us good clean power.

Ultimately the market will decide. Renewables are so cheap now that it's hard to argue against them, although there is a lot to be gained from 20-30% of base load covered by a steady eddy like a nuclear reactor.

But hey, fusion is only "10-20 years away" now. (LOL - I head that 40 years ago)

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120732114#Comment_120732114

Fusion 10-20 years away? 😂

Large offshore wind is 10-20 yrs away.. and we know how to build that already

I mean, from planning "we want to build a large farm in the Atlantic, to being fully operational and complete"

bullit_dodger

That's the joke isn't it? "Fusion is ALWAYS 10-20 years away" .... :-)

(PDF) How Many Years Away is Fusion Energy? A Review (researchgate.net)

unkel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120732232#Comment_120732232

The latest Chinese wind generators already in production are 18MW, a single wind farm off the west coast with just 350 or so of these would generate Ireland's entire current electricity consumption. We should really decide to get about 1000 of these installed in 3 phases ASAP.

bullit_dodger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120732472#Comment_120732472

There's a "magic number" for what the right size turbine to get .... verses wind speed at location, accessibility (installing ease etc). Could be that those mega jobbies aren't the best for us - they could be, just saying. The main thing though is to get capacity installed whatever the size of the individual turbines. On that front we're doing better than i thought....

Nearly tripled in 10 years. That's decent - but more to go!

unkel

Ireland has one of the highest capacity factors for wind in the world at 50% at most of the west coast. These biggest size turbines are perfect, as the bigger they are, the cheaper they are per kWh

bullit_dodger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120733971#Comment_120733971

Yeah - bigger is better on many factors. Less connections, less maintenance, greater sweep area, but what I was saying above is that there's a lot of variables to factor. The issue is often one of accesibility. The west of Ireland as you know has many a "small boreen" not exactly conductive to transporting 200m turbine blades, though villages, under bridges or up the side of a hill. Once they are cast they can't be dismantled as they are one piece of carbon fiber generally, so there is that too. They are fairly unwieldy.

Time Lapse Video Of Giant Wind Turbine Blade At Galway Harbour (afloat.ie)

(729) Owenwinny Wind Farm - Turbine Blade Transport January 2023 - YouTube

That said, I'd LOVE to see some of those puppies in play in Ireland.

unkel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120736043#Comment_120736043

They should never even reach land. Straight shipped by boat from wherever it was manufactured to the site in the ocean where it will be erected.