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There are now EV chargers coming that offer extremely fast power to charge, using batteries to store energy over a longer time. I wonder if lineside batteries could potentially fill any gap in power supply, quickly being topped back up between trains?
SPEN have been looking at this, with support from NR.
A big benefit comes from smoothing out the spikiness of traction demand. Simplified example: imagine something like a 390 slowing for a signal using regen braking. Then the signal clears and the driver throws it back to full power to get back to line speed. That might be a 12 MW demand swing. Smoothing it out with a battery releases grid capacity for other rail and non-rail demand, or potentially provides headroom for additional electric services as an alternative to traditional grid reinforcement.
I can‘t claim the message sank in, I suspect we’ll be having the same chat several times over the next few months, but if a million households do the same, thats 3GW of demand shifted from high peak to off peak.
How is the rise of battery power going to flatten out the peak/off peak cycle? There is going to be an awful lot of stuff wanting to charge at night and/or at cheapest price.
It’s very feasible, the factory that is to make the cable has planning consent (Hunterston on the Ayrshire coast), and the ship that will lay the cables is being built.
Its a mind boggling scheme! My concern is that it is so huge it will be significant to our energy security, whilst being a single cable coming from a country that could become unstable/unfriendly pretty rapidly (though obviously its size would make also make it significant to whoever was in power...as long as they can control and protect it)
How is the rise of battery power going to flatten out the peak/off peak cycle? There is going to be an awful lot of stuff wanting to charge at night and/or at cheapest price.
I suspect it would need a lot of batteries to significantly flatten the peaks. Having said that from what I have seen from the battery trials on the Greenford branch(?) there should be an opportunity worth exploring for rail here.
As for domestic (including domestic EV charging) use then surely much better to encourage via variable tariffs off peak use of energy vs investing in huge battery banks?
There are now EV chargers coming that offer extremely fast power to charge, using batteries to store energy over a longer time. I wonder if lineside batteries could potentially fill any gap in power supply, quickly being topped back up between trains?
This is what the Greenford branch trial does, it has a battery block at West Ealing that feeds the charge point in the neighbouring platform. The large battery block steadily charges and a train recharges directly from this rather than the grid. This works well for branch lines, but presumably isn't necessary where OHLE charging is possible, especially if power supply enhancements are enacted.
How is the rise of battery power going to flatten out the peak/off peak cycle? There is going to be an awful lot of stuff wanting to charge at night and/or at cheapest price.
In the same way pricing mechanisms flatten demand for all sorts of products with high costs of capital assets and peaky demand, such as airlines, holiday parks, railways, etc.
We currently have about 7GWh of grid scale battery capacity (although it is hard to get up to date accurate statistics)
There is a lot more in construction / consented / planned. For example there is 3GWh going in at Lesmahagow (in the news this week), 2GWh at Trafford Park, and 600MWh at Thurrock; that’s just three projects which add almost 6GWh. These will all be on line next year, with some of it this year. There’s many many more grid side Battery projects (mostly smaller) in construction or consented awaiting to start construction, but they add up to getting on for 100GWh. Then there’s several pumped storage projects in Scotland at various stages of development totalling 150GWh+, including Coire Glas which is about to start construction (30GWh) and a bigger scheme at Loch Earba (40GWh) which has recently submitted planning consent. Even if only half of all this goes ahead, and including what we already have, we will have over 150GWh of electricity storage within 5-8 years. But I do expect almost all of it to happen within a decade.
The XLinks project will also have 22.5GWh storage, although that will be used mostly to flatten the peak of generation from Morrocco for “export“ to the UK.
To scale it, 1GWh of battery capacity is what would be in about 18,000 standard Tesla 3s.
In the same way pricing mechanisms flatten demand for all sorts of products with high costs of capital assets and peaky demand, such as airlines, holiday parks, railways, etc.
4 cables
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We currently have about 7GWh of grid scale battery capacity (although it is hard to get up to date accurate statistics)
There is a lot more in construction / consented / planned. For example there is 3GWh going in at Lesmahagow (in the news this week), 2GWh at Trafford Park, and 600MWh at Thurrock; that’s just three projects which add almost 6GWh. These will all be on line next year, with some of it this year. There’s many many more grid side Battery projects (mostly smaller) in construction or consented awaiting to start construction, but they add up to getting on for 100GWh. Then there’s several pumped storage projects in Scotland at various stages of development totalling 150GWh+, including Coire Glas which is about to start construction (30GWh) and a bigger scheme at Loch Earba (40GWh) which has recently submitted planning consent. Even if only half of all this goes ahead, andincluding what we already have, we will have over 150GWh of electricity storage within 5-8 years. But I do expect almost all of it to happen within a decade.
The XLinks project will also have 22.5GWh storage, although that will be used mostly to flatten the peak of generation from Morrocco for “export“ to the UK.
To scale it, 1GWh of battery capacity is what would be in about 18,000 standard Tesla 3s.
And imagine if V2G takes off and people can just use their car to power their home at times of high demand, or sell into the grid. Although in 5 or 10 years you might find they won't want or need much, and so export rates will fall.
And imagine if V2G takes off and people can just use their car to power their home at times of high demand, or sell into the grid. Although in 5 or 10 years you might find they won't want or need much, and so export rates will fall.
I am skeptical that V2G will ever be more than a party trick.
My own work has come to the conclusion that our diurnal storage requirements amount to only to the low hundreds of GWh.
A car battery isn't much use for long term storage and V2G has some serious operational disadvantages compared to fixed batteries.
Flexible charging already provides 90% of the grid benefits of V2G, in my view, for much less operational complexity.
Should there be a requirement for new build homes to have some sort of battery storage included, charged up when electricity is plentiful, and discharging when electricity supply is tight? I'm not sure how large this storage would need to be, both physical size and kWh, and clearly, there would need to be safeguards to ensure that it does not discharge back into the grid when the grid is down. It's a bit like V2G but more bespoke.
I am skeptical that V2G will ever be more than a party trick.
My own work has come to the conclusion that our diurnal storage requirements amount to only to the low hundreds of GWh.
A car battery isn't much use for long term storage and V2G has some serious operational disadvantages compared to fixed batteries.
Flexible charging already provides 90% of the grid benefits of V2G, in my view, for much less operational complexity.
Me too, apart from the charging losses going both ways a vehicle battery is lifed by the charge/ discharge cycles. In Teslas this famously equates to 200k miles. The cost of the battery is such that the car is effectively end of life with the battery. Repairs to the battery are difficult to the extent that the latest Tesla batteries are manufactured to prevent repair. Are you really going to want to reduce the life of the vehicle by 1/2 for V2G?
Me too, apart from the charging losses going both ways a vehicle battery is lifed by the charge/ discharge cycles. In Teslas this famously equates to 200k miles. The cost of the battery is such that the car is effectively end of life with the battery. Repairs to the battery are difficult to the extent that the latest Tesla batteries are manufactured to prevent repair. Are you really going to want to reduce the life of the vehicle by 1/2 for V2G?
GivEnergy Li Iron Phosphate batteries come with a 12-year unlimited cycle guarantee. I wish I had had double my 9.5 kWh installed, as I can't export full bore (3.6 kW) through the 3-hour evening peak and have anything left to take the house through until 2 a.m.
The first three units at Drax opened in 1974, but the second three didn't commence construction until 1978.
They hadn't been scheduled for construction until the early 1980s, but the government instructed (and paid) the board to proceed with construction earlier than planned for industrial and employment reasons.
The plant didn't reach full operation until 1986.
Yes, the industry became enamoured with cheap gas turbines burning natural gas.
We are now rebuilding infrastructure that has been allowed to atrophy by privatisation - a lot of effort and time has been wasted.
EDIT:
At the current time, major power producers are buying natural gas for ~2.74p/kWh.
That implies that on a CEGB pricing schedule, off peak generation with a CCGT is going to be competitive with domestic natural gas. As the traditional pricing scheme would exclude infrastructural costs from Economy 7 pricing.
Kind of funny that - I wonder how a modern CCGT (~63%) compares to a gas boiler in climate terms, considering that sometimes off peak electricity would be produced by renewables, and how much gas leaks out of the distribution system.
If the heating system powered by the CCGT is a heat pump, it will easily beat the gas boiler on carbon emissions. This is because a heat pump will use less gas even if the electricity is 100% gas powered.
Assuming a heat pump with a COP of 3 (which isn't particularly good as heat pumps go), gives you ~1.8 kWh of heat per kWh of gas (0.6*3), whereas an efficient gas boiler gives around 0.9 kWh of heat per kWh of gas. Heat pumps which achieve an average COP of 5 over the year exist, which gives even better emissions reductions. And that is before considering that leaks from the gas grid are more of a problem when it needs to supply every home. And on top of that, the heat pump will be even more sustainable because all of the electricity that isn't produced by gas power stations, but instead by low-carbon sources such as nuclear, wind, solar, or hydro.
There are now EV chargers coming that offer extremely fast power to charge, using batteries to store energy over a longer time. I wonder if lineside batteries could potentially fill any gap in power supply, quickly being topped back up between trains?
In the same way pricing mechanisms flatten demand for all sorts of products with high costs of capital assets and peaky demand, such as airlines, holiday parks, railways, etc.
I was pondering how ‘off peak’ might disappear if demand for overnight charging flattens demand out….which would be disappointing for those with current storage heaters!
That should be 10 winter days (obviously you would hope generation wouldn’t drop to zero though!), but I’m curious how full it would be at the start of those days if much of it is for smoothing intra day fluctuations?
That should be 10 winter days (obviously you would hope generation wouldn’t drop to zero though!), but I’m curious how full it would be at the start of those days if much of it is for smoothing intra day fluctuations?
150GWh is about 4 winter hours at current consumption rates; it will be about 2-3 winter hours with much wider adoption of heat pumps.
But that’s not the point; energy storage will never power the whole country. Our peak for electricity consumption is literally 2-3 hours in the evening, with a broader increased demand from (roughly) 0630-2330, and energy storage will be used to smooth out that. But when there’s 40GW of wind capacity - as we will have within a few years (we have 30GW now) - and overnight demand in the low 20GWs, there will still be much lower prices overnight on windy days even with 100GWh of storage. Same applies to solar in the sunny half of the year, we will simply have way too much at 1pm on a sunny May day, but we’ll need it in the evening.
150GWh is about 4 winter hours at current consumption rates; it will be about 2-3 winter hours with much wider adoption of heat pumps.
But that’s not the point; energy storage will never power the whole country. Our peak for electricity consumption is literally 2-3 hours in the evening, with a broader increased demand from (roughly) 0630-2330, and energy storage will be used to smooth out that. But when there’s 40GW of wind capacity - as we will have within a few years (we have 30GW now) - and overnight demand in the low 20GWs, there will still be much lower prices overnight on windy days even with 100GWh of storage. Same applies to solar in the sunny half of the year, we will simply have way too much at 1pm on a sunny May day, but we’ll need it in the evening.
So what do we do when there is several days of no wind on dark winter skies?
what’s the predicted overnight demand once road vehicles are largely electric?
What people describe as "no wind" isn't actually no wind, and it doesn't appear as though we have had periods with zero wind electricity production in the last few years.
When the production of wind and solar is lower than demand, there will be range of responses, including:
- Increasing electricity imports
- Using battery storage
- Using pumped hydro storage
- Demand management (in industry, commercial/offices, and people's homes)
Also remember that there is a lot of low-carbon production that isn't dependent on the weather (e.g. nuclear), or only has a limited dependency on the weather (e.g. hydro)
In the official plans by the government there is also some scope for limited gas generation during unusual events, with the total annual contribution of gas generation being less than 5%, but that would be concentrated during events like your hypothetical situation above.
What people describe as "no wind" isn't actually no wind, and it doesn't appear as though we have had periods with zero wind electricity production in the last few years.
When the production of wind and solar is lower than demand, there will be range of responses, including:
- Increasing electricity imports
- Using battery storage
- Using pumped hydro storage
- Demand management (in industry, commercial/offices, and people's homes)
Also remember that there is a lot of low-carbon production that isn't dependent on the weather (e.g. nuclear), or only has a limited dependency on the weather (e.g. hydro)
In the official plans by the government there is also some scope for limited gas generation during unusual events, with the total annual contribution of gas generation being less than 5%, but that would be concentrated during events like your hypothetical situation above.
Yes, we don’t get zero wind, but we do get periods of sustained lows. You just have to look at the last couple of days where wind power has been below 5GW. Which has in turn meant sustained gas generation in the 20-25GW range.
If the aim is to truly decarbonise, the amount of storage needs to be way higher than the amount currently being proposed, or it’s time for a “dash for nuclear”.
If the heating system powered by the CCGT is a heat pump, it will easily beat the gas boiler on carbon emissions. This is because a heat pump will use less gas even if the electricity is 100% gas powered.
Assuming a heat pump with a COP of 3 (which isn't particularly good as heat pumps go), gives you ~1.8 kWh of heat per kWh of gas (0.6*3), whereas an efficient gas boiler gives around 0.9 kWh of heat per kWh of gas. Heat pumps which achieve an average COP of 5 over the year exist, which gives even better emissions reductions. And that is before considering that leaks from the gas grid are more of a problem when it needs to supply every home. And on top of that, the heat pump will be even more sustainable because all of the electricity that isn't produced by gas power stations, but instead by low-carbon sources such as nuclear, wind, solar, or hydro.
Depending on the leakage fraction you assume from the gas distribution system, it is entirely possible that even resistive heaters powered by modern CCGTs could come out not far off matching traditional gas boilers.
Once you include even a small percentage of wind or whatnot in the mix it won't even be close.
Estimates on distribution gas leakage are notoriously wooly, but even 2% could get close to wiping out the electricity disadvantage without considering renewables.
Don't know... reducing demand (and especially wasteful private motoring) has got to be part of the mix. Which is why good energy-efficient public transport is a necessity and it's so frustrating that not much seems to be happening to improve ours.
Depending on the leakage fraction you assume from the gas distribution system, it is entirely possible that even resistive heaters powered by modern CCGTs could come out not far off matching traditional gas boilers.
Once you include even a small percentage of wind or whatnot in the mix it won't even be close.
Estimates on distribution gas leakage are notoriously wooly, but even 2% could get close to wiping out the electricity disadvantage without considering renewables.
So what do we do when there are several days of no wind on dark winter skies?
what’s the predicted overnight demand once road vehicles are largely electric?
The other day, when there was little wind, gas came to the rescue providing well over 50% of the power source. The cost per MWh, usually less than £100 (the annual average is £72), was over £1,300 per MWh.
The other day, when there was little wind, gas came to the rescue providing well over 50% of the power source. The cost per MWh, usually less than £100 (the annual average is £72), was over £1,300 per MWh.
and the astonishing thing is that "they" didn't put out a demand-saving session which would have cut domestic consumption and prompted domestic exports at a fraction of the price. I wonder why?
So what do we do when there is several days of no wind on dark winter skies?
what’s the predicted overnight demand once road vehicles are largely electric?
The other day, when there was little wind, gas came to the rescue providing well over 50% of the power source. The cost per MWh, usually less than £100 (the annual average is £72), was over £1,300 per MWh.
This is the inherent problem with the post-1990 energy "market" model in a situation where the power system is dominated by generators with near-zero marginal cost.
Price swings will have to become more and more extreme to drive supply into balance with demand.
So what do we do when there is several days of no wind on dark winter skies?
what’s the predicted overnight demand once road vehicles are largely electric?
The same as what we did last week - import lots, use energy storage (of which there will be much, much more, as above) and burn gas, albeit less of it. “Net Zero” doesn’t mean no gas.
If every car / light van was electric, we’d need 10GW continuous to charge them, on average. Charging will of course vary through the day / week / year, but there won’t be many times when EV charging demand in total is more than 15GW overnight. However, it will be at 20 years before even 80% of cars + light vans are fully electric by which time we will have at least double the interconnector capacity with Europe (and Africa), treble the existing wind capacity, 5 x existing solar capacity, something like 10 x existing grid side storage capacity; plus much more storage on a small scale eg domestic.
The other day, when there was little wind, gas came to the rescue providing well over 50% of the power source. The cost per MWh, usually less than £100 (the annual average is £72), was over £1,300 per MWh.
and the astonishing thing is that "they" didn't put out a demand-saving session which would have cut domestic consumption and prompted domestic exports at a fraction of the price. I wonder why?
I suspect the Grid underestimated demand, thought they had it covered but didn’t, and had to eat into the reserve capacity then had to pay top dollar (more precisely, top euro) to pay for additional imports to provide additional reserve. The peak price of nearly £3k per MWh was only for a short period of absolute peak demand; it fell rapidly after that.
The most important role BESS (Battery Energy Storage systems) at grid level will play in cold conditions like the last few days is in reducing the peak demand.
We currently have around 7GWH of BESS capacity but this is likely to more than double over the next 12-18 months. The installation rate is quite high due to the modularity of the installations. Grid connection constraints are being reduced by both reuse of old power station sites and co locations with renewable installations in particular Solar PV and this either using an existing grid connection or piggy backing onto a connection already being installed.
Forecasted capacity is likely to very quickly allow batteries to support peak demand by supplying 2-3GW around both morning and evening peak times. This allows for potentially significantly increasing the supply availability at peak times.
BESS are forecast to increase emissions reductions by reducing the need to use gas plants to meet the peaks and this will reflect in emissions figures over the next 12-24 months.
BESS are forecast to increase emissions reductions by reducing the need to use gas plants to meet the peaks and this will reflect in emissions figures over the next 12-24 months.
Its already doing that now. Had we had this cold snap last year, there wasn‘t enough battery capacity, and Ratcliffe would have been on full bore for the peak, and arguably longer due to the run up time. Effectively, batteries have replaced Ratcliffe.
The same as what we did last week - import lots, use energy storage (of which there will be much, much more, as above) and burn gas, albeit less of it. “Net Zero” doesn’t mean no gas
Net zero definitely means no gas to many campaigners and their gullible politicians.
Importing is all well and good but not if the same weather means half of Europe is chasing that same ‘surplus’.
ps I don’t advocate for stopping the general direction but worry that ideology is leading to long term planning relying on hopes and dreams and vapourware.
In the long term, gas will have to fully go. Note the word long term. In the nearby future, Labour government policy is that no more than 5% of total annual electricity production should be from gas in 2030. That 5% will be exclusively for the (rare) days that the other, more sustainable methods can't cover it.
Also, I really don't know what world you live in where the campaigners are the ones making the decisions! It certainly isn't the real one...
You are aware that across Europe, there is a wide range of different renewables and nuclear, and a wide range of weather conditions at any time?
I fear you are increasingly falling into the trap of discussing a hypothetical edge case that is so uncommon as to not exist. As has been pointed out repeatedly, there is allowance for a small amount of gas generation for the very rare occasions, and they will be very rare, that the r
ps I don’t advocate for stopping the general direction but worry that ideology is leading to long term planning relying on hopes and dreams and vapourware.
Renewables, nuclear power stations, battery storage, and other storage methods aren't vapourware. There absolutely is planning happening, in detail. A lot of it is publicly accessible online if you wish to verify yourself. For example, this year is planned to be the first year where we have fully fossil-free electricity at times. For comparison, the first day without coal power generation since the 1880s was in 2017, and for the last few years coal use has been minimal.
To finish,any suggestion that the reliability of the electricity grid in the UK is going down, and that such a decrease, if it were to exist, would be caused by renewables is false.
Someone is saying on a Facebook community group that we're regularly suffering blackouts because of this Government and green energy, based I think on an outage after a substation fire.
It seems that once you have a single incident you can extrapolate it to imply we're having outages all the time - and for totally unrelated reasons.
The beauy of a wide range and diverse set of interconnectors is that it simply can‘t be still and cloudy everywhere. For examlle, the last couple of mornings it has been cold and still in France and their demand has shot up. It’s been windy here, and because they are an hour ahead, their demand curve is ahead of ours, and therefore we have been exporting to them (at a decent rate, incidentally).
I thought it was 10%, but the principle is the same. Last year it was 26% Gas. 6 years ago it was 39%. All we need is a slightly higher rate of renewables growth for the next 5 years and we’re there (and the plan is a higher level of renewables growth, mush of which is under construction already). If Hinckley Point comes on line by then we’ll smash it.
I thought it was 10%, but the principle is the same. Last year it was 26% Gas. 6 years ago it was 39%. All we need is a slightly higher rate of renewables growth for the next 5 years and we’re there (and the plan is a higher level of renewables growth, mush of which is under construction already). If Hinckley Point comes on line by then we’ll smash it.
Last I heard, Hinkley Point C has probably been delayed to 2031.
The beauy of a wide range and diverse set of interconnectors is that it simply can‘t be still and cloudy everywhere. For examlle, the last couple of mornings it has been cold and still in France and their demand has shot up. It’s been windy here, and because they are an hour ahead, their demand curve is ahead of ours, and therefore we have been exporting to them (at a decent rate, incidentally).
On this note, my own work suggests (and I believe some have agreed elsewhere) that we have nothing like sufficient interconnector capacity for this sort of system to rely on Continental balancing.
We are running into global shortages of HVDC cable and the fundamental limitation of the technology in capacity terms.
If electricity heavy decarbonisation occurs, as seems likely given the utter failure of hydrogen, then we will need tens of gigawatts of interconnector capacity to allow system balancing with Europe.
Noone is proposing anything like that, and doing it with conventional HVDC technology is challenging to the point of impracticality.
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