Energy infrastructure

Carawaystick · 12-09-2020 6:05pm

We have a 40 year old pumped service station working away here. We also refurbed the turbines in the hydro plants in the mid 00's onwards so thats about 70years for the turbines before they needed re-furb. Most of Turlough hill is bored into granite, so little concrete degradation to worry about, vs dams for larger projects.

I know the Poulaphuca plant got a lick of paint a decade ago, stripping the pitch and white lead that was there since it was built.

RE Apogee's post, any statement that says a battery can power X amount of things without stating For How Long is fairly pointless. The Fabs in intel can run off batteries too, but just for 4 seconds until the generators switch in.
In 06, and 07, we had no wind for the entire week before xmas, whish is when the highest grid demand is. If you cant store 2 weeks energy, we are gonna need dispatchable generation capacity.

bobbyy gee · 12-09-2020 6:41pm

France derives about 75% of its electricity from nuclear energy, due to a long-standing policy based on energy security. Government policy is to reduce this to 50% by 2035. France is the world's largest net exporter of electricity due to its very low cost of generation, and gains over €3 billion per year from this.France has 57 nuclear reactors operated by EDF, with a total capacity of 62.3 GWe.The low cost of French nuclear power generation is indicated by the national energy regulator (CRE) setting the price at which EdF’s electricity is sold to competing distributors. In 2014 the rate is €42/MWh, but CRE proposed an increase to €44 in 2015, €46 in 2016 and €48 in 2017 to allow EdF to recover costs of plant upgrades, which it put at €55 billion to extend all 58 reactor lifetimes by ten years. In November 2014 the government froze the price at €42 to mid-2015. This Arenh re-sale price has represented a long-term floor price for EdF’s power, and is nominally based on the cost of production. The industrial group Uniden said that the proposed 2015 wholesale price of €44/MWh would be €14 higher than Germany’s.
French retail prices, without major effects from feed-in tariffs for wind and solar, remain very low. In 2013 French prices for medium-size industrials were about 90% of EU-27 average, and those for medium-size households (at less than 8 c/kWh) were less than half of EU-27 average.

Apogee · 12-09-2020 7:38pm

Carawaystick wrote: »

RE Apogee's post, any statement that says a battery can power X amount of things without stating For How Long is fairly pointless.

That seems to happen repeatedly. If you look back through the many posts here quoting from newspaper reports on these various energy storage projects, they invariably quote a MW value but rarely MWh value. Presumably these reports are based on company press releases which also omit this information.

Carawaystick · 12-09-2020 9:55pm

bobbyy gee wrote: »

French retail prices, without major effects from feed-in tariffs for wind and solar, remain very low. In 2013 French prices for medium-size industrials were about 90% of EU-27 average, and those for medium-size households (at less than 8 c/kWh) were less than half of EU-27 average.

Its 3c/kWh on nightrate, which includes 2 hours around lunchtime. Well, was last year anyway

dubhthach · 13-09-2020 11:38am

Carawaystick wrote: »

We have a 40 year old pumped service station working away here. We also refurbed the turbines in the hydro plants in the mid 00's onwards so thats about 70years for the turbines before they needed re-furb. Most of Turlough hill is bored into granite, so little concrete degradation to worry about, vs dams for larger projects.

I know the Poulaphuca plant got a lick of paint a decade ago, stripping the pitch and white lead that was there since it was built.

RE Apogee's post, any statement that says a battery can power X amount of things without stating For How Long is fairly pointless. The Fabs in intel can run off batteries too, but just for 4 seconds until the generators switch in.
In 06, and 07, we had no wind for the entire week before xmas, whish is when the highest grid demand is. If you cant store 2 weeks energy, we are gonna need dispatchable generation capacity.

in the case of the Midland battery installations, each is 100MW/150MWh. Generally ye're best going to relevant company website / industry portal than relying on Irish media. Of course one of key aspects of large scale grid storage is to help stabalise the frequency of the grid. I'll imagine they'll probably make most of their money providing PFR (Primary frequency response) and rapid (short-term) dispatch.

This has been the case in South Australia and also in Belgium:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/05/teslas-new-battery-in-belgium-shows-value-is-in-dispatch-speed/

Of course the likes of GE have also been working on Hybrid Battery/Gas peaker solutions, as current peakers are quite inefficient given that they have to run in what's basic 'hot-standy' mode. Stick some rapid response batteries in front of them and you can keep the peaker in Cold Standby and have sufficient time to spin up the turbine while the battery dispatches.

https://www.ge.com/news/reports/batteries-included-hybrid-power-plants-let-californians-breathe-easy

SCE estimates it will use 2 million fewer gallons of water to operate each power site and reduce greenhouse emissions for the lifecycle of its peakers by 60 percent. It’s also paying off handsomely for SCE itself. Not only does using less water and natural gas drive down operational costs, but the type of power Hybrid EGT produces is very much in demand. Spinning reserve — the term used for power that can become available in less than 10 minutes — is currently valued between $5 and $7 per megawatt an hour (MWH), whereas its slower counterpart, known as non-spin reserve, only sells for 10 cents per MWH. Thanks to its new batteries, SCE can easily and cheaply generate spinning reserve for the grid.

Given that the battery can react to demand straight away (when spot price is highest) such a setup would pay for itself a lot quicker than a standard peaker.

Of course we need diversity of power generation, obviously it's nice if every day was both Windy and Sunny, but it's fairly obvious that for immediate future (well until batteries decline by another 50-80% in cost) that we'll be dependent on having dispatchable Gas on grid.

It's also why we are getting the Interconnector to France, obviously when the wind is blowing we'll probably be exporting to the European grid, but nice having the ability to import 700MW (Moneypoint is 915MW) in event of major surge in demand/powerstation failure/'grid issue'.

tom1ie · 13-09-2020 12:55pm

dubhthach wrote: »

in the case of the Midland battery installations, each is 100MW/150MWh. Generally ye're best going to relevant company website / industry portal than relying on Irish media. Of course one of key aspects of large scale grid storage is to help stabalise the frequency of the grid. I'll imagine they'll probably make most of their money providing PFR (Primary frequency response) and rapid (short-term) dispatch.

This has been the case in South Australia and also in Belgium:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/05/teslas-new-battery-in-belgium-shows-value-is-in-dispatch-speed/

Of course the likes of GE have also been working on Hybrid Battery/Gas peaker solutions, as current peakers are quite inefficient given that they have to run in what's basic 'hot-standy' mode. Stick some rapid response batteries in front of them and you can keep the peaker in Cold Standby and have sufficient time to spin up the turbine while the battery dispatches.

https://www.ge.com/news/reports/batteries-included-hybrid-power-plants-let-californians-breathe-easy

Given that the battery can react to demand straight away (when spot price is highest) such a setup would pay for itself a lot quicker than a standard peaker.

Of course we need diversity of power generation, obviously it's nice if every day was both Windy and Sunny, but it's fairly obvious that for immediate future (well until batteries decline by another 50-80% in cost) that we'll be dependent on having dispatchable Gas on grid.

It's also why we are getting the Interconnector to France, obviously when the wind is blowing we'll probably be exporting to the European grid, but nice having the ability to import 700MW (Moneypoint is 915MW) in event of major surge in demand/powerstation failure/'grid issue'.

Yep.
The issue is how much will it cost to import the 700 MW compared to how much we export when the wind blows?
From an economic pov would it cost more to run this interconnector or to run money point?
Obviously from an environmental pov the interconnector is best.

dubhthach · 13-09-2020 2:01pm

tom1ie wrote: »

Yep.
The issue is how much will it cost to import the 700 MW compared to how much we export when the wind blows?
From an economic pov would it cost more to run this interconnector or to run money point?
Obviously from an environmental pov the interconnector is best.

Given that the battery operators tend to be using Algorithmic systems for purchase/sales on the energy market I imagine we'd see them importing power over the Interconnector at certain times when the French spot rate is most favorable. In which case they can then dispatch it later making nice profit.

It'll be interesting what's in pipeline over the next 5 years, I imagine we'll see at least 1GW of grid storage go through the planning process.

bk · 14-09-2020 10:55am

A couple of thoughts on the past few comments:

- Pumped Storage - I love it, but it comes with it's own very significant environmental impacts. Flooding large numbers of valleys comes with it's own downsides.

- Batteries offering just 4 hours of storage, sure, pity not more, but still incredibly useful to help get through peak power usage times like everyone switching on the kettle after work at 6pm. Such peak usage tend to be by far the dirtiest energy generation. So eliminating them with battery + wind power from the night before is very helpful in decarbonising the grid.

- California has a massive pipeline of battery storage projects in development. 8GWh to give 2GW for 4 hours.

- Talking more sci-fi, there is a project under development to build skyscraper sized towers out of car sized concrete blocks, with cranes on the top. The cranes rearrange the blocks to store or release energy! Move concrete block to the top of the tower to store energy, lower the concrete block from the top to the bottom of the tower to release energy! Basically a physical version of pumped storage.

loyatemu · 14-09-2020 11:06am

that was the plan of the Energy Freedom(?) guys years ago - they wanted to dam a number of steep-sided bays on the west coast and use them for pumped storage alongside covering the coast with turbines. Didn't get off the ground for several obvious reasons.

Sam Russell · 14-09-2020 3:47pm

bk wrote: »

- Talking more sci-fi, there is a project under development to build skyscraper sized towers out of car sized concrete blocks, with cranes on the top. The cranes rearrange the blocks to store or release energy! Move concrete block to the top of the tower to store energy, lower the concrete block from the top to the bottom of the tower to release energy! Basically a physical version of pumped storage.

I like the idea of that If it could be done with the blocks falling inside the tower block, with accommodation included in the design on the outside, it might make a lot of sense.

Add a windmill atop of the tower, together with a solar panel, and wow, a positive contribution to renewable energy. I must rush off and patent this.

bk · 14-09-2020 4:16pm

It is sounds mad, but also sort of brilliant if it works (a big if of course), video simulation of what it would look like here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itbwXMMkBQw

Sam Russell · 14-09-2020 4:32pm

bk wrote: »

It is sounds mad, but also sort of brilliant if it works (a big if of course), video simulation of what it would look like here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itbwXMMkBQw

Looking at the simulation, it is OK at the beginning dropping a few tonnes of concrete a few hundred metres or so, but as the pile at the bottom grows, the pile at the top lessens, so the potential energy for each block lessens. So the system becomes less efficient, with the first quarter of blocks never being used.

Better to build a structure close to a cliff of some sort so the height is not lost as the blocks are lowered or raised.

It should be more efficient than a pumped water system.

Interesting concept - using the same type of technology found in the the regenerative braking of hybrid cars.

loyatemu · 14-09-2020 4:54pm

I seem to recall a similar proposal involving disused mine shafts?

EDIT: it was these guys: https://gravitricity.com/

theguzman · 14-09-2020 6:46pm

There is a test project in America called ARES which effectively uses gravity and a downhill system of railways.

https://www.wired.com/2016/05/forget-elons-batteries-fix-grid-rock-filled-train-hill/

https://www.aresnorthamerica.com/about-ares-north-america

Apogee · 15-09-2020 3:55pm

The Journal wrote:

PLANS FOR A North-South interconnector have been given the green light. It is set to create a 400kv overhead electricity line connecting the North with the Republic of Ireland, and has been described as “crucial” for handling growing demand across the island. Applications were previously approved by Northern Ireland’s Department for Infrastructure in 2018, however a legal challenge saw the two applications quashed and remitted back to the department for determination.

https://www.thejournal.ie/north-south-interconnector-2-5204641-Sep2020/

tom1ie · 03-10-2020 7:51pm

Anyone know if there are any country’s in the world using their excess electricity generated by (for example) wind energy and “storing” this energy by creating hydrogen via electrolysis?
We know batteries aren’t big enough to store electricity on a commercial scale for when it’s needed.
If seems to me as the grid increases renewables, there will be times (and are times) when we generate more than we consume.
So why not use this excess to create hydrogen which can be used as a liquid fuel to drive a fleet or be used to drive generators at peak time’s to feed the utility grid?
Thoughts?

Sam Russell · 03-10-2020 7:52pm

tom1ie wrote: »

Anyone know if there are any country’s in the world using their excess electricity generated by (for example) wind energy and “storing” this energy by creating hydrogen via electrolysis?
We know batteries aren’t big enough to store electricity on a commercial scale for when it’s needed.
If seems to me as the grid increases renewables, there will be times (and are times) when we generate more than we consume.
So why not use this excess to create hydrogen which can be used as a liquid fuel to drive a fleet or be used to drive generators at peak time’s to feed the utility grid?
Thoughts?

The hydrogen thus generated could be added to natural gas, along with methane from digesters.

gjim · 04-10-2020 8:59am

tom1ie wrote: »

Anyone know if there are any country’s in the world using their excess electricity generated by (for example) wind energy and “storing” this energy by creating hydrogen via electrolysis?
We know batteries aren’t big enough to store electricity on a commercial scale for when it’s needed.
If seems to me as the grid increases renewables, there will be times (and are times) when we generate more than we consume.
So why not use this excess to create hydrogen which can be used as a liquid fuel to drive a fleet or be used to drive generators at peak time’s to feed the utility grid?
Thoughts?

Round-trip efficiency of electricity storage by hydrogen (produced by electrolysis) is only about 30%. Storing/transporting hydrogen is no joke either. I don't see much use for hydrogen in the transition to renewables. Maybe it's not as silly as growing edible plants then extracting/converting the sugars to hydrocarbons to burn in internal combustion engines (i.e. biodiesel) but it doesn't solve any particularly problem well while introducing a whole bunch of other problems around storage/transportation and safety.

Markcheese · 04-10-2020 10:03am

Adding hydrogen to the gas grid is being tried in places, but in relatively small amounts , but it's relatively wastful in energy terms ,
And it's a fairly capital intensive operation to set up on the "off chance " of having a bit of spare electricity for a few hours off peak ...
I think a battery can have up to Around 95 % efficient, (energy in / energy out ) , hydrogen is around 30 ,maybe 40 ish % ...

Although you wouldn't have the same compressor losses by adding the gas directly to the gas grid ...

Markcheese · 04-10-2020 10:03am

Adding hydrogen to the gas grid is being tried in places, but in relatively small amounts , but it's relatively wastful in energy terms ,
And it's a fairly capital intensive operation to set up on the "off chance " of having a bit of spare electricity for a few hours off peak ...
I think a battery can have up to Around 95 % efficient, (energy in / energy out ) , hydrogen is around 30 ,maybe 40 ish % ...

Although you wouldn't have the same compressor losses by adding the gas directly to the gas grid ...

tom1ie · 04-10-2020 10:22am

Well we are regularly generating more renewable energy than needed at off peak time’s.
One way we store it is pumped storage a la turlough hill, but that’s relatively small.
So we are increasing renewables so it’ll be quite a wasteful grid at times when the renewables are maxed out generating.
Have we factored in that this electricity would be wasted anyway so why not put it into the electrolysis process and make some hydrogen that we can use later when it’s needed.

I do get it though if u were using a finite resource to make hydrogen it doesn’t make sense, however an excess renewable that we would otherwise be wasting.......

gjim · 04-10-2020 10:41am

tom1ie wrote: »

Well we are regularly generating more renewable energy than needed at off peak time’s.

One solution to this problem is to switch some of the 2.7 million hydrocarbon burning vehicles in the country to pure battery power which should be a priority anyway for health reasons.

Say 10% of the existing fleet were replaced with electrics, each with an average battery capacity of 50KWh. That gives you 13GWh (if my sums are correct) of electricity storage distributed around the country. Now you have a useful sink for excess electricity from renewables.

Sam Russell · 04-10-2020 10:50am

If battery powered cars become ubiquitous, those very batteries could be used as backup storage for the grid. We need a feed-in tariff so that microgenerators can be harnessed by the grid and local storage can also take pressure off the grid when needed. Using 20% to 30% of the battery stored energy will make little difference to the owner in most cases, but cumulatively would be huge for the network in times of shortage when the wind does not blow.

The feed-in tariff would need to be highly intelligent in order to work. This would allow domestic users to allow depletion of their stored energy at a premium price, and replenished at a lower price. [I would anticipate that the difference in price would be less than 10% to 15% but would be an attractive proposition to many by reducing the energy bill].

gjim · 04-10-2020 10:56am

I also think interesting economics could kick in in this scenario when battery electric vehicles reach 5% or 10% of the market.

For example, if electric vehicles could also feed electricity back into the grid at peak times, the price differentials would mean you could charge your vehicle overnight - for say 1c per KWh and sell 10% the electricity back into the grid at peak times for 10c an hour meaning you were paying nothing for the energy to run your vehicle while at the same time making more renewable production viable.

For all this magic to work 'though, you need variable pricing for electricity for consumers. Unfortunately I think the (misguided) water meter backlash means most politicians will be wary of introducing anything which smacks of making people pay in proportion to the cost. I suspect the left/opportunist/populist politicians would have no problem whipping up some national indignation if the government were to try to introduce smart electricity meters alongside making people pay twice or more the rate for using electricity during peak periods even though overall everyone would be better off.

edit - just saw your post after submitting mine Sam and see you've made the point I was trying to make.

Sam Russell · 04-10-2020 11:34am

gjim wrote: »

For all this magic to work 'though, you need variable pricing for electricity for consumers. Unfortunately I think the (misguided) water meter backlash means most politicians will be wary of introducing anything which smacks of making people pay in proportion to the cost. I suspect the left/opportunist/populist politicians would have no problem whipping up some national indignation if the government were to try to introduce smart electricity meters alongside making people pay twice or more the rate for using electricity during peak periods even though overall everyone would be better off.

edit - just saw your post after submitting mine Sam and see you've made the point I was trying to make.

There is already a low cost night rate with electricity, so this would just be a more sophisticated version. The benefit would, for a user that takes maximum benefit, a significant reduction in their energy bill while benefiting the grid, and the overall green agenda.

People who make their homes more energy efficient by insulating effectively make significant savings, and this approach could reduce their energy cost to zero or even make a profit.

This is what is needed across the whole nation.

Sam Russell · 04-10-2020 1:06pm

Post deleted.

boards.ie acting up at he moment.

TimeToShine · 04-10-2020 1:10pm

tom1ie wrote: »

Anyone know if there are any country’s in the world using their excess electricity generated by (for example) wind energy and “storing” this energy by creating hydrogen via electrolysis?
We know batteries aren’t big enough to store electricity on a commercial scale for when it’s needed.
If seems to me as the grid increases renewables, there will be times (and are times) when we generate more than we consume.
So why not use this excess to create hydrogen which can be used as a liquid fuel to drive a fleet or be used to drive generators at peak time’s to feed the utility grid?
Thoughts?

Not yet but they are trialling it in a few places and the EU Want 40GW of hydrogen from electrolysis of renewable energy by 2030. I think France and Germany have already committed to 5GW each.

Problem is most of this hydrogen will come from offshore wind, so you also have to transport it to the mainland. The costs add up.

TimeToShine · 04-10-2020 1:13pm

Sam Russell wrote: »

There is already a low cost night rate with electricity, so this would just be a more sophisticated version. The benefit would, for a user that takes maximum benefit, a significant reduction in their energy bill while benefiting the grid, and the overall green agenda.

People who make their homes more energy efficient by insulating effectively make significant savings, and this approach could reduce their energy cost to zero or even make a profit.

This is what is needed across the whole nation.

It won't be low cost forever, remember the treasury are losing a huge amount of tax revenue from declining petrol and diesel use, no government can take that lying down. if EV uptake is as fast as hoped we can expect to see taxes levied on night-time charging or maybe a tax paid per km driven. At the end of the day you'll be on the hook in some way, no such thing as a free lunch.

Sam Russell · 04-10-2020 1:27pm

TimeToShine wrote: »

It won't be low cost forever, remember the treasury are losing a huge amount of tax revenue from declining petrol and diesel use, no government can take that lying down. if EV uptake is as fast as hoped we can expect to see taxes levied on night-time charging or maybe a tax paid per km driven. At the end of the day you'll be on the hook in some way, no such thing as a free lunch.

Well, no-one keeps horses to pull their carriage anymore. That was a saving for those that had to keep horses. Life moves on.

It is obvious that tax revenue has to be got from somewhere, and the mandarins in Gov buildings can be very inventive. Property tax could rise, and broadband tax could be per mbyte down loaded, perhaps text messages charged 0.1c each, and I think they could invent a few more.

Sam Russell · 04-10-2020 3:46pm

Another duplicate post. What is up with boards.ie today?

Energy infrastructure

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