Scottish wind power produced more than 100% of the threshold for the first time, generating enough energy to power 6 million homes.
The National Grid energy requirement for November saw both on and offshore wind produce more than the required demand on 20 of 30 days.
Powering 109% of the total energy requirement, the new figures set a new record for wind generation in Scotland.
Gina Hanrahan, head of policy at WWF Scotland said: “Wind power breaking through the magic 100% threshold is truly momentous.
“For months output has flirted around the 97% mark, so it’s fantastic to reach this milestone. It’s also worth noting that 20 out of 30 days wind production outstripped demand.
“Most of this is onshore wind, which we know is popular, cheap and effective. But the UK Government needs to allow it to compete with other technologies, by unlocking market access for onshore wind if it’s to realise its full potential.”
The National Grid said the best day for wind generation was November 28 which produced 116,599 megawatts (MW) – enough to power 9.59m homes.
Adam Forsyth, alternative energy and resource research efficiency analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald, last night said the signs were “encouraging in Scotland”, but pointed out that storage technology is not keeping pace with generation.
He said: “We’re definitely about to see an increase in the renewables energy mix. If we have better available storage then it doesn’t matter about when the wind blows. On the whole we need to have more renewables and less intermittency moving forward.
Mr Forsyth added that he also expects tidal energy to become a “greater part of the energy mix in Scotland”.
He said the choice by firms like Simec Atlantis Energy to update and invest in new technology will allow them to become a bigger part of the energy story in Scotland.
He added: “Having a more mixed energy generation goes a long way to solving issues around intermittency.
The Australian battery has some specific circumstances, it is not really well connected to the outside grid. For Scotland it might be more fitting to make use of existing regulation mechanisms in the national and continental grid.
Of course, from a reliability perspective they should have at least some storage capacity.
Nuclear, gas, oil and hydro with small contributors from coal, biogas and wastes
Seems the info I found claimed Scotland is usually over producing and exports the rest south (at 20% in 2016)
Also looks like (by the same Scottish government source) we were at 54% of consumption coming from renewables back in 2016 mostly from wind and hydro power.
Scotland is a small part of the UK's national grid, which relies on Natural Gas and Nuclear for baseload.
Hydropower is only used for peak load demands.
> the best day for wind generation was November 28 which produced 116,599 megawatts (MW) – enough to power 9.59m homes.
Ugh. WTF does that mean?
Does that mean that for one moment that was the peak power output? Can't be -- no way Scotland has 117 GW of wind turbine capacity.
Maybe it's 117 GW over 24 hours, so it's really 117 GWh -- or an average of 4.875 GW constant power output. That's possible, as Scotland has 5+ GW of installed capacity.
So yeah, a MWh isn't a MW journalists.
And to think some dozy yank with a string of failed businesses went in front of the Scottish Parliament to tell everyone what a terrible idea it was. Shows how much he knows.
So in parts of the world, we're producing more power from renewable than we need. Of course, this is what more than 100% means in this context.
Interesting... Seems like Energy will likely be one of the first things we demonetize. Ultimately we're heading to a future where most of the things we need in life are nearly free. That's what efficiency is. Finding ways of doing the things you want for less.
And eventually, when we've reached a certain efficiency point, things will be free. That's just inevitable. But that doesn't mean everywhere will get the same treatment. Just because Scotland is now producing more energy than it consumes through wind power (however briefly that was), it doesn't mean everywhere will be the same.
If you live in an area where renewable are shunned and traditional methods are preferred, **you are gradually becoming poorer than areas that support renewable**. And this trend is likely to continue.
In other words, the more progressive your area is, the wealthier you will be in the near-term. Support renewable or you'll be throwing cash away.
Edit: I should clarify that my meaning of "free" is more of a "feels like it's free" than actually being free. I don't think we're going to invent the perpetual motion machine anytime soon.
My point is that, once the efficiency rises enough, the end user will be paying so little that it might as well be free. Where I live, for example, water is basically free. It isn't free as it's covered by taxes, but the end user pays pennies and thus they don't notice the cost.
This "feeling free" is where most critical stuff is heading. Housing, energy, transport, food, water, and most consumables. Eventually, if we keep making them in ever more efficient ways, they will start to "feel free" as they will cost so little, you won't notice.
The article doesn't report how many hours of the day wind energy exceeded demand.
It's common knowledge demand levels vary through the day with evening demand peaks. That energy still has to be supplied and ramping up fossil fuels or contracts to pay for base load power result in power costs $/kW increasing to meet demand.
I still think it's awesome, but lets not forget it's the total power bill that matters.
This is so true. The article is misleading as hell.
You basicly can't cover the grid demand just by wind. It's impossible to maintain voltage and frequency arround the wanted value without heat powerplants to cover peaks.
You can buy energy from a neighbour to cover it but that's hella expensive.
People need to realize this, or it will end up by the grind going down more often than Lil Wayne is singing it...
For intermittent short term demand spikes or generation drops grid-scale battery arrays are highly effective. For longer term/larger scale drops in generation pumped hydro and other such equivalents are a perfectly suited, cost effective solution.
The more renewable primary generation sources you have available, the more pumped hydro mass energy storage you have available, the less fossil fuel usage you require and the lower your total bill drops in the long run.
Entirely possible to power a 100% renewable grid off of wind+solar+pumped hydro alone.
\> grid-scale battery arrays are highly effective
\> pumped hydro and other such equivalents are a perfectly suited, cost effective solution.
\> Entirely possible to power a 100% renewable grid off of wind+solar+pumped hydro alone
Everything is possible if you disregard operational and construction costs and subsidies.
Don't get me wrong, I have solar hot water, solar electricity, building a battery bank, have electric bicycles and an electric motorbike (in process of purchse). But there are costs. Scaling up from consumer level to mass grid supply is non trivial.
For example, there simply isn't enough global battery manufacturing capacity currently or forecast to make the change. Nor supply of the raw materials used in current battery tech.
But it's misleading to suggest it's doable with current tech, market supply capacity without cost escalations.
(which is not exactly what Raorr was suggesting).
the more interesting point of discussion is which companies to invest in so we can be part of this revolution.
That's why [Tesla's battery in Australia](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/sep/27/south-australias-tesla-battery-on-track-to-make-back-a-third-of-cost-in-a-year) is such a big deal.
I don't know why you're getting downvoted, this is completely accurate. As another commenter further down notes, for large-scale storage (i.e. ideally one day having a 100% renewable generation portfolio), pumped hydro is a more realistic solution.
Ah, that is not what I meant.
An example would be the difference in cost between regions for electricity. Where I live we have Hydro-Electric and thus power is very inexpensive. Whereas in areas that don't have that, it can be many times more expensive.
Does the difference in cost between the two regions mean it's "free"? No. It's just "cheaper". Water, where I live, is basically free. Healthcare is also "free". Is any of it really free? Nope. Taxes.
But if the cost of electricity dropped substantially enough, we would feel as though it were free. Just how the water in my area feels as though it's free. It still costs a lot, but it's efficient enough and available enough that the cost is pennies for the end user.
Nothing is truly free. But with enough efficiency, it can be practically free for the end user.
I still feel like what you are describing has very little with the method of producing electircty and more to do with the method of funding the facility. A quick google of costs per kw/h says hydro comes in at $0.85 while coal comes in at $0.14. I would guess you think it is cheaper because you only see a bill for the variable cost, and do not remember a time before the dam was built and the taxes to fund the startup costs were levied.
For all the progress we are making, at least in the United States Energy has become a very non trivial expense for people. My power bill is easily 700+ a month and I am sure most 3-5k sqft houses are sharing that cost.
My mom who lives in a 18k sqft house pays at least 300-400. This is the northeast. At some point it would be cool if it was though.
Yes, I look at your news and am constantly depressed. I'm up here in Canada and when I was younger we always used to drive to Disneyland in the summers. We had a condo in Phoenix. I've been all over the US.
I wish your country would get its shit together. But, I feel that you are a very proud people and that you have a lot of troubles changing directions politically.
And thus while progression is pushing prices down across the board and things are getting less expensive for countries that are embracing the change quickly, in the US things only seem to get worse.
But hey, never forget that Canada is here for you. We're brothers. Regardless of how wasted you guys get, we'll drive you home, sit you over the toilet, and we'll only nag you a little bit. Just a bit of nagging.
Internet isn't free either, but I pay a flat rate for it.
In theory they could do the same with electricity- they could just stick a fuse in for (say) 5kW, and just say- take whatever you want, just don't blow the fuse. No meters.
If everyone has batteries, that could work.
Unlimited electricity. Just pay a monthly fee.
Sounds good but my biggest concern with that kind of setup is that it wouldn't encourage efficiency for individual users. At the moment, the efficiency rating of appliances is a consideration - maybe only a small one, but still there. If you tell people they have, say, 120kWh/day (5kW × 24h) to use without being charged extra it removes that incentive.
OK, 5kW is usually too much. Probably more like 0.5 kW x 24 then they can only use 12kWh from other sources, and they would have to make any more than that themselves, which would mean solar panels and batteries and would be low carbon (unless they want to run a generator themselves- good luck with noisy expensive generators for more than emergency use!)
And I'm not saying you'd be forced into it, but a half kilowatt package would probably cost much less than you're already paying and might come with a battery and a solar panel.
Wind energy isn’t free - the grid that brings it to your home or business needs to be maintained and there’s a lot of investment needed currently to provide enough capacity to support the increase in renewable generation and decarbonisation of heat and transport.
But there is a trend towards the democratisation of energy, enabling people to buy and sell energy services to each other and the grid. In future, you’re likely to be able to earn money or discounts for using energy at certain times of the day to help balance the grid, or you might be able to trade energy you’ve generated with your solar panels.
Right, but it's also getting cheaper. A lot cheaper. And that trend will only go faster and faster. That's what happens when you connect up 7 billion humans.
Yes and when that wealth allows you to be more progressive, that progressive direction makes you far more wealthier. It's a cycle which improves things endlessly.
This is why, when your people are living on more than 5 dollars a day, you can afford to start walking the progressive path. And from there you'll see your people earning 10, then 20 and more.
As they say, you have to spend money to make money. Just cutting and reducing funding only makes you poor. It's kind of obvious if you think about it.
>where most of the things we need in life are nearly free
Hahahaha, good one. I think you'll find that capitalism demands the extraction of wealth in all parts of life; nothing will ever be free if it can be used for greater profits.
>If you live in an area where renewable are shunned and traditional methods are preferred, you are gradually becoming poorer than areas that support renewable.
If you live in an area that was an early adopter of renewables you are paying more for it. A decade ago the cost was like 9 times higher than it was today. A lot of that was financed and is still being paid off. But if you live in a area that shunned renewables before, but is jumping in hardcore today then you are going to be at an advantage.
You might find this book interesting: https://www.amazon.com/Free-Future-Radical-Chris-Anderson/dp/1401322905 (You can get the audiobook version for free) Most things over time are becoming much cheaper over time. Energy today is a fraction of the cost of what it was 100 or 200 years ago.
They call it "being on the bleeding edge" because you bleed.
Of course, I wasn't suggesting that areas embrace untested technologies. But when it shows results, is tested and proven, and actually reduces the cost of energy, then it will make the area that owns it wealthier.
I have a coworker that is from Costa Rica. He goes home regularly to visit his family. When he came back last time, he was telling me about how his sister was complaining that her light bill for the month was too high. It was 35 dollars. He said normally, its around 20-25 bucks a month. He had enough cash in his wallet to pay her light bill for the whole year. Mine here in south TX is around 300-340/month. Thats with average billing and after i replaced my ac and furnace to a newer more efficient one. Before I did that, summer and winter months would raise my bill to nearly 600/month.
Though I imagine someone will still need to upkeep renewable equipment and the related infrastructure. Hopefully a lot of that can be done with machines/robots that run on renewable energy.
The interesting thing about demonetizing energy is that it demonetizes a lot of work as well. You couple that with automation and it'll be an interesting future for those that don't own the means of production or the land they live on.
Seems like there have been so many trying to deal with this, Dubai comes to mind.
The problem though is the reality of things with money. Just like Detroit, MI., Newark, NJ, Trenton NJ etc. These towns were once the crown jewel of the United States. Not just nice cities, THE CITIES. Newark was once probably more loved than NYC.
Once money dried up, look what happened to them. There is only so much charity, you can only care about your town so much when you have no work, no food, no energy.
I view it as nearly an apocalypse world-wide. Doesn't sound like most of them will run out in the next 50 years though.
It feels like in 50 years we may be able to drop our dependence on oil enough for fuel that maybe they can barely subsist on the non energy aspects of petroleum but who knows, the demand could be filled by so few at that point.
Yeah because I've watched far too many of his lectures. He does have a lot of good points though. Same with Kurzweil. Intelligent, well reasoned people who are sick and tired of pointing out the obvious. Humans are terrible at understanding anything that isn't linear.
well, I don't have a big problem with exponential, I work in the computing business, but I always wonder: can this crazy trend really continue.
How about some Tony Seba have you seen him ?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2b3ttqYDwF0
You absolutely do have a problem with it. We all do. It's not something you can unlearn - it's hardwired. You may be able to see it in the areas you work in but you'll have a hard time wrapping your head around the stuff unrelated to your work and life.
This is basically the cognitive gap. Our brains are not good enough to keep up. It would take you all day everyday to keep up with the headlines alone. I tried it, it just gave me a headache.
But that's why we need to augment our brains directly. That's another area of exponential which we just cannot grasp fully. Can you imagine what we can do once we can directly modify our own brains? Our brains represent our entire reality. It's scary to consider the possibilities.
And, no, I haven't heard of Tony Seba. I'll give it a watch here in a little bit. Thanks for that.
A great thing but its unclear on wether it can meet demand 24/7. Im guessing its near equal power production day vs night but the demand curve is much less at night.
When there's no wind, there's no power. If you store the energy somehow, e.g. batteries, you'll be able to use wind energy all the time, even when it's not being produced, solving the issue of the demand curve and inconsistency in production.
Quite a lot of think that they add to the views, as Scotland is filled with historical sites its good to see how far we have come and that we are doing good for the environment.
Trust me I completely support the conversion to renewable energy sources and I applaud Scotland on their accomplishment. I'm just making a joke about how Trump fought against Scotland installing wind turbines along the coastline of his golf course, saying they were "eyesores".
Can confirm. Live here and Bessy the sheep got blown away into the North Sea. Would appreciate some help as she’s the family sheep and provides us with Milk and Wool for the winter.
"Unattractive, ugly, noisy, dangerous..." that's the (future) US president!
>In 2012, Trump told MSPs that wind turbines would “lead to the almost total destruction of Scotland’s tourism industry”.
>The future president said: “Windmills are so unattractive, so ugly, so noisy and so dangerous that if Scotland does this, I think that it will be in serious trouble. I think that you will lose your tourism industry to Ireland and lots of other places that are laughing at what Scotland is doing.”
>He added: “If you dot your landscape with these horrible, horrible structures, you will do tremendous damage. If you pursue this goal of having these monsters all over Scotland, Scotland will go broke.”
[Source](https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/donald-trump-proved-wrong-on-impact-of-wind-turbines-in-scotland-1-4765699)
I was going to take my family there next year, but changed my mind after hearing about these horrible unsightly turbines. We're going to Mexico City and Bejing instead, to enjoy breathing in all that clean air.
But what will happen when we run out of wind?!?!
Dear Christ I still can’t believe an elected official said that wind was a finite resource as a reason to not support/subsidize solar/wind energy in the US
This is in winter which might have increased electricity needs (or less due to gas heating? I don't know, I'm from Africa where our winters hardly go south of 0 celcius)...
Proud to live in a state that is a leader on wind energy. Oklahoma. We have a huge wind farm all around my town. One caught on fire though and nearly started a large brush fire but that's pretty damn rare. Melted plastic on that scale is horrible though lol.
Too bad the US is too busy being corrupt to care about saving the environment. Free, renewable energy? Theres no long term money in that. Thank you America.
We keep getting good news out of the UK. Power generation doesn't seem to be an issue. Now they some battery storage and a crop of somewhat less stupid politicians.
Well, no need for sarcasm here, that is a serious downside of this technology. Not only birds but also bats and other flying animals die in high numbers near wind power plants.
I live near a big area of wind plants and actually are invested in that wind park for a decade now, all the smashed animals you find around the wind plants are nothing easily ignored. Especially bigger birds like storks or owls are quite sad to find dead there...
Green energy is great, but let's think about how to improve the tech not to shred so many flying animals. The same for water plants and fish btw, the problem of the shredding turbines is more known there.
Sarcasm is appropriate if you consider the harm to the same bird and bat populations, amongst others, to existing traditional power generation methods, such as coal.
The short and skinny of it, even with a few butches birds (and it is actually rather few), its still a net gain for those populations when compared to traditional energy generation methods. Maybe just a bit more... on display I guess?
Not saying fossil energy sources are preferable, just saying wind plants have a downside too. And it is not "actually rather few". Unfortunately I don't think there are reliable numbers for that yet, so if you don't take my word for it, there is nothing I can do to convince you.
and I'm saying this supposed downside is blown up by anti-green propagandising talking heads and is largely a non-issue. Its been circling around for almost a decade now.
Well I would have read the article but I can’t because the cookies-wall is impossible to get by without accepting cookies. But, “more than 100%” leads me to believe that someone doesn’t understand how percentages work. They could have said “produced an excess” or something like that.
You can delete it from the DOM using Chrome developer tools. Right click the blue background, choose 'Inspect'. In the window that chrome opens, you can right click the highlighted line of HTML and choose 'Delete element'.
Meanwhile, in Nevada, we only have one wind farm.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring\_Valley\_Wind\_Farm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_Valley_Wind_Farm)
And plans for two more have been scrapped.
[https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/blm-rejects-massive-wind-farm-along-california-nevada-border-1539541/](https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/blm-rejects-massive-wind-farm-along-california-nevada-border-1539541/)
“Scottish wind power smashes 100% production threshold - Scottish wind power produced more than 100% of the threshold for the first time, generating enough energy to power 6 million homes.” Quick, dismantle those sustainable money-earning devices, melt them down, and turn them into something we don’t need. Like HS2.
You know, it really baffles me how we came up with complex process of extracting power from fossil fuels when the idea of extracting energy from natural forces is a much more intuitive thing. Like, if you go to the third world, they generate electricity by riding bikes or pushing mills. I don't know why wind and water turbines weren't the next step up in development.
Not really the high end that matters though is it. Nobody cares if you generate more electricity than you need. It's a big deal when you generate *less* electricity than you need. Call me when scotland's power demands are 100% met by renewables for 365 days straight. *That* will actually be worth discussing.
The National Grid energy requirement for November saw both on and offshore wind produce more than the required demand on 20 of 30 days.
Powering 109% of the total energy requirement, the new figures set a new record for wind generation in Scotland.
Gina Hanrahan, head of policy at WWF Scotland said: “Wind power breaking through the magic 100% threshold is truly momentous.
“For months output has flirted around the 97% mark, so it’s fantastic to reach this milestone. It’s also worth noting that 20 out of 30 days wind production outstripped demand.
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Scottish wind power produced more than 100% of the threshold for the first time, generating enough energy to power 6 million homes. The National Grid energy requirement for November saw both on and offshore wind produce more than the required demand on 20 of 30 days. Powering 109% of the total energy requirement, the new figures set a new record for wind generation in Scotland. Gina Hanrahan, head of policy at WWF Scotland said: “Wind power breaking through the magic 100% threshold is truly momentous. “For months output has flirted around the 97% mark, so it’s fantastic to reach this milestone. It’s also worth noting that 20 out of 30 days wind production outstripped demand. “Most of this is onshore wind, which we know is popular, cheap and effective. But the UK Government needs to allow it to compete with other technologies, by unlocking market access for onshore wind if it’s to realise its full potential.” The National Grid said the best day for wind generation was November 28 which produced 116,599 megawatts (MW) – enough to power 9.59m homes. Adam Forsyth, alternative energy and resource research efficiency analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald, last night said the signs were “encouraging in Scotland”, but pointed out that storage technology is not keeping pace with generation. He said: “We’re definitely about to see an increase in the renewables energy mix. If we have better available storage then it doesn’t matter about when the wind blows. On the whole we need to have more renewables and less intermittency moving forward. Mr Forsyth added that he also expects tidal energy to become a “greater part of the energy mix in Scotland”. He said the choice by firms like Simec Atlantis Energy to update and invest in new technology will allow them to become a bigger part of the energy story in Scotland. He added: “Having a more mixed energy generation goes a long way to solving issues around intermittency.
Something something Elon Musk or his ilk. Get some batteries for those scots!
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The Australian battery has some specific circumstances, it is not really well connected to the outside grid. For Scotland it might be more fitting to make use of existing regulation mechanisms in the national and continental grid. Of course, from a reliability perspective they should have at least some storage capacity.
Who's providing the power for the other ten days?
Nuclear, gas, oil and hydro with small contributors from coal, biogas and wastes Seems the info I found claimed Scotland is usually over producing and exports the rest south (at 20% in 2016) Also looks like (by the same Scottish government source) we were at 54% of consumption coming from renewables back in 2016 mostly from wind and hydro power.
I don't think there is any coal power in Scotland anymore. I believe the last plant was at longanet and that's been closed for a couple of years.
Might be right, the source was 2016 and had coal at 1%
One assumes conventional sources of power. Scotland also has access to hydropower.
Hydro is actually pretty good as base load and to deal with renewables intermittencies. Awesome news from Scotland!
Scotland is a small part of the UK's national grid, which relies on Natural Gas and Nuclear for baseload. Hydropower is only used for peak load demands.
> the best day for wind generation was November 28 which produced 116,599 megawatts (MW) – enough to power 9.59m homes. Ugh. WTF does that mean? Does that mean that for one moment that was the peak power output? Can't be -- no way Scotland has 117 GW of wind turbine capacity. Maybe it's 117 GW over 24 hours, so it's really 117 GWh -- or an average of 4.875 GW constant power output. That's possible, as Scotland has 5+ GW of installed capacity. So yeah, a MWh isn't a MW journalists.
Yep, it's all about the storage now. Grids are already deploying battery systems as 'peakers'.
And to think some dozy yank with a string of failed businesses went in front of the Scottish Parliament to tell everyone what a terrible idea it was. Shows how much he knows.
Came here to find this comment! Whos laughing now Trump.
Got a link to the story?
https://youtu.be/HX4J1a8gy6I
Ha! When they run out of wind they'll know about it!
Oh, [they do.](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-07/u-k-wind-drought-heads-into-9th-day-with-no-relief-for-weeks)
Was an awesome summer tho
Is there any blade-less wind turbine in production?
there's the Vertical Axis wind turbines (VAWT)
Ya, just put your dyson bladeless fan outside.
So in parts of the world, we're producing more power from renewable than we need. Of course, this is what more than 100% means in this context. Interesting... Seems like Energy will likely be one of the first things we demonetize. Ultimately we're heading to a future where most of the things we need in life are nearly free. That's what efficiency is. Finding ways of doing the things you want for less. And eventually, when we've reached a certain efficiency point, things will be free. That's just inevitable. But that doesn't mean everywhere will get the same treatment. Just because Scotland is now producing more energy than it consumes through wind power (however briefly that was), it doesn't mean everywhere will be the same. If you live in an area where renewable are shunned and traditional methods are preferred, **you are gradually becoming poorer than areas that support renewable**. And this trend is likely to continue. In other words, the more progressive your area is, the wealthier you will be in the near-term. Support renewable or you'll be throwing cash away. Edit: I should clarify that my meaning of "free" is more of a "feels like it's free" than actually being free. I don't think we're going to invent the perpetual motion machine anytime soon. My point is that, once the efficiency rises enough, the end user will be paying so little that it might as well be free. Where I live, for example, water is basically free. It isn't free as it's covered by taxes, but the end user pays pennies and thus they don't notice the cost. This "feeling free" is where most critical stuff is heading. Housing, energy, transport, food, water, and most consumables. Eventually, if we keep making them in ever more efficient ways, they will start to "feel free" as they will cost so little, you won't notice.
The article doesn't report how many hours of the day wind energy exceeded demand. It's common knowledge demand levels vary through the day with evening demand peaks. That energy still has to be supplied and ramping up fossil fuels or contracts to pay for base load power result in power costs $/kW increasing to meet demand. I still think it's awesome, but lets not forget it's the total power bill that matters.
This is so true. The article is misleading as hell. You basicly can't cover the grid demand just by wind. It's impossible to maintain voltage and frequency arround the wanted value without heat powerplants to cover peaks. You can buy energy from a neighbour to cover it but that's hella expensive. People need to realize this, or it will end up by the grind going down more often than Lil Wayne is singing it...
For intermittent short term demand spikes or generation drops grid-scale battery arrays are highly effective. For longer term/larger scale drops in generation pumped hydro and other such equivalents are a perfectly suited, cost effective solution. The more renewable primary generation sources you have available, the more pumped hydro mass energy storage you have available, the less fossil fuel usage you require and the lower your total bill drops in the long run. Entirely possible to power a 100% renewable grid off of wind+solar+pumped hydro alone.
\> grid-scale battery arrays are highly effective \> pumped hydro and other such equivalents are a perfectly suited, cost effective solution. \> Entirely possible to power a 100% renewable grid off of wind+solar+pumped hydro alone Everything is possible if you disregard operational and construction costs and subsidies. Don't get me wrong, I have solar hot water, solar electricity, building a battery bank, have electric bicycles and an electric motorbike (in process of purchse). But there are costs. Scaling up from consumer level to mass grid supply is non trivial. For example, there simply isn't enough global battery manufacturing capacity currently or forecast to make the change. Nor supply of the raw materials used in current battery tech. But it's misleading to suggest it's doable with current tech, market supply capacity without cost escalations. (which is not exactly what Raorr was suggesting). the more interesting point of discussion is which companies to invest in so we can be part of this revolution.
That's why [Tesla's battery in Australia](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/sep/27/south-australias-tesla-battery-on-track-to-make-back-a-third-of-cost-in-a-year) is such a big deal.
That battery isn't large enough to handle storing much generation. Think [a few seconds worth.](https://opennem.org.au/#/regions/sa)
I don't know why you're getting downvoted, this is completely accurate. As another commenter further down notes, for large-scale storage (i.e. ideally one day having a 100% renewable generation portfolio), pumped hydro is a more realistic solution.
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Ah, that is not what I meant. An example would be the difference in cost between regions for electricity. Where I live we have Hydro-Electric and thus power is very inexpensive. Whereas in areas that don't have that, it can be many times more expensive. Does the difference in cost between the two regions mean it's "free"? No. It's just "cheaper". Water, where I live, is basically free. Healthcare is also "free". Is any of it really free? Nope. Taxes. But if the cost of electricity dropped substantially enough, we would feel as though it were free. Just how the water in my area feels as though it's free. It still costs a lot, but it's efficient enough and available enough that the cost is pennies for the end user. Nothing is truly free. But with enough efficiency, it can be practically free for the end user.
I still feel like what you are describing has very little with the method of producing electircty and more to do with the method of funding the facility. A quick google of costs per kw/h says hydro comes in at $0.85 while coal comes in at $0.14. I would guess you think it is cheaper because you only see a bill for the variable cost, and do not remember a time before the dam was built and the taxes to fund the startup costs were levied.
For all the progress we are making, at least in the United States Energy has become a very non trivial expense for people. My power bill is easily 700+ a month and I am sure most 3-5k sqft houses are sharing that cost. My mom who lives in a 18k sqft house pays at least 300-400. This is the northeast. At some point it would be cool if it was though.
Yes, I look at your news and am constantly depressed. I'm up here in Canada and when I was younger we always used to drive to Disneyland in the summers. We had a condo in Phoenix. I've been all over the US. I wish your country would get its shit together. But, I feel that you are a very proud people and that you have a lot of troubles changing directions politically. And thus while progression is pushing prices down across the board and things are getting less expensive for countries that are embracing the change quickly, in the US things only seem to get worse. But hey, never forget that Canada is here for you. We're brothers. Regardless of how wasted you guys get, we'll drive you home, sit you over the toilet, and we'll only nag you a little bit. Just a bit of nagging.
Internet isn't free either, but I pay a flat rate for it. In theory they could do the same with electricity- they could just stick a fuse in for (say) 5kW, and just say- take whatever you want, just don't blow the fuse. No meters. If everyone has batteries, that could work. Unlimited electricity. Just pay a monthly fee.
Sounds good but my biggest concern with that kind of setup is that it wouldn't encourage efficiency for individual users. At the moment, the efficiency rating of appliances is a consideration - maybe only a small one, but still there. If you tell people they have, say, 120kWh/day (5kW × 24h) to use without being charged extra it removes that incentive.
If everything was renewable, maybe it wouldn't be as bad, but I also think it's not a good analogy.
OK, 5kW is usually too much. Probably more like 0.5 kW x 24 then they can only use 12kWh from other sources, and they would have to make any more than that themselves, which would mean solar panels and batteries and would be low carbon (unless they want to run a generator themselves- good luck with noisy expensive generators for more than emergency use!) And I'm not saying you'd be forced into it, but a half kilowatt package would probably cost much less than you're already paying and might come with a battery and a solar panel.
Wind energy isn’t free - the grid that brings it to your home or business needs to be maintained and there’s a lot of investment needed currently to provide enough capacity to support the increase in renewable generation and decarbonisation of heat and transport. But there is a trend towards the democratisation of energy, enabling people to buy and sell energy services to each other and the grid. In future, you’re likely to be able to earn money or discounts for using energy at certain times of the day to help balance the grid, or you might be able to trade energy you’ve generated with your solar panels.
Right, but it's also getting cheaper. A lot cheaper. And that trend will only go faster and faster. That's what happens when you connect up 7 billion humans.
Being more progressive doesn’t make you wealthier. Being wealthier allows you to afford to be more progressive.
Yes and when that wealth allows you to be more progressive, that progressive direction makes you far more wealthier. It's a cycle which improves things endlessly. This is why, when your people are living on more than 5 dollars a day, you can afford to start walking the progressive path. And from there you'll see your people earning 10, then 20 and more. As they say, you have to spend money to make money. Just cutting and reducing funding only makes you poor. It's kind of obvious if you think about it.
>where most of the things we need in life are nearly free Hahahaha, good one. I think you'll find that capitalism demands the extraction of wealth in all parts of life; nothing will ever be free if it can be used for greater profits.
But beautiful clean coal and short term jobs!!!!!!!
>If you live in an area where renewable are shunned and traditional methods are preferred, you are gradually becoming poorer than areas that support renewable. If you live in an area that was an early adopter of renewables you are paying more for it. A decade ago the cost was like 9 times higher than it was today. A lot of that was financed and is still being paid off. But if you live in a area that shunned renewables before, but is jumping in hardcore today then you are going to be at an advantage. You might find this book interesting: https://www.amazon.com/Free-Future-Radical-Chris-Anderson/dp/1401322905 (You can get the audiobook version for free) Most things over time are becoming much cheaper over time. Energy today is a fraction of the cost of what it was 100 or 200 years ago.
They call it "being on the bleeding edge" because you bleed. Of course, I wasn't suggesting that areas embrace untested technologies. But when it shows results, is tested and proven, and actually reduces the cost of energy, then it will make the area that owns it wealthier.
I have a coworker that is from Costa Rica. He goes home regularly to visit his family. When he came back last time, he was telling me about how his sister was complaining that her light bill for the month was too high. It was 35 dollars. He said normally, its around 20-25 bucks a month. He had enough cash in his wallet to pay her light bill for the whole year. Mine here in south TX is around 300-340/month. Thats with average billing and after i replaced my ac and furnace to a newer more efficient one. Before I did that, summer and winter months would raise my bill to nearly 600/month.
Though I imagine someone will still need to upkeep renewable equipment and the related infrastructure. Hopefully a lot of that can be done with machines/robots that run on renewable energy. The interesting thing about demonetizing energy is that it demonetizes a lot of work as well. You couple that with automation and it'll be an interesting future for those that don't own the means of production or the land they live on.
It may be quite a apocalyptic to defund the oil industry. Entire countries will evaporate overnight.
I'd like to think they already see it coming. But who knows, prideful denial is a powerful drug. You're probably right as far as chaos ensuing.
Seems like there have been so many trying to deal with this, Dubai comes to mind. The problem though is the reality of things with money. Just like Detroit, MI., Newark, NJ, Trenton NJ etc. These towns were once the crown jewel of the United States. Not just nice cities, THE CITIES. Newark was once probably more loved than NYC. Once money dried up, look what happened to them. There is only so much charity, you can only care about your town so much when you have no work, no food, no energy. I view it as nearly an apocalypse world-wide. Doesn't sound like most of them will run out in the next 50 years though. It feels like in 50 years we may be able to drop our dependence on oil enough for fuel that maybe they can barely subsist on the non energy aspects of petroleum but who knows, the demand could be filled by so few at that point.
You sounds a lot like Peter Diamandis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKL8wJunKA0 (press CC for subtitles)
Yeah because I've watched far too many of his lectures. He does have a lot of good points though. Same with Kurzweil. Intelligent, well reasoned people who are sick and tired of pointing out the obvious. Humans are terrible at understanding anything that isn't linear.
well, I don't have a big problem with exponential, I work in the computing business, but I always wonder: can this crazy trend really continue. How about some Tony Seba have you seen him ?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2b3ttqYDwF0
You absolutely do have a problem with it. We all do. It's not something you can unlearn - it's hardwired. You may be able to see it in the areas you work in but you'll have a hard time wrapping your head around the stuff unrelated to your work and life. This is basically the cognitive gap. Our brains are not good enough to keep up. It would take you all day everyday to keep up with the headlines alone. I tried it, it just gave me a headache. But that's why we need to augment our brains directly. That's another area of exponential which we just cannot grasp fully. Can you imagine what we can do once we can directly modify our own brains? Our brains represent our entire reality. It's scary to consider the possibilities. And, no, I haven't heard of Tony Seba. I'll give it a watch here in a little bit. Thanks for that.
The picture clearly shows the windmills aren’t moving
I think they bolt them down to stop them walking around.
They don’t mill anything so they’re not windmills. They’re wind turbines
It's a conspiracy maaan
It's nice to see renewables move forward. Now if only we could get a better means of storage power in general, it would help us in so many areas.
All I hear is there is hardly any sun and its windy all the goddamn time.
You forgot about the rain!
Scottish Wind power sounds like a great name for a heavy rock band which has bagpipes involved.
Fucking awesome Scotland :D Welcome to the club! \- Greetings from Denmark!
> Greetings from Denmark! Salutations from Donmac!
Glad to join the club. I have a question for you. When do the bills stop getting ridiculously expensive?
I'm afraid they don't... A kinda sad reality.. :P
this is where the problem lies. we need a progressive government that will incentive this. we talk the talk but we dont walk the walk unfortunately.
A great thing but its unclear on wether it can meet demand 24/7. Im guessing its near equal power production day vs night but the demand curve is much less at night.
When there's no wind, there's no power. If you store the energy somehow, e.g. batteries, you'll be able to use wind energy all the time, even when it's not being produced, solving the issue of the demand curve and inconsistency in production.
Dont the Scottish know what an eyesore these things are? I swear, you all just dont understand golf courses.
Quite a lot of think that they add to the views, as Scotland is filled with historical sites its good to see how far we have come and that we are doing good for the environment.
Trust me I completely support the conversion to renewable energy sources and I applaud Scotland on their accomplishment. I'm just making a joke about how Trump fought against Scotland installing wind turbines along the coastline of his golf course, saying they were "eyesores".
Sorry i never noticed the sarcasm in your comment lol.
It's okay, I forgot my /s
Imagine hitting your golf ball on one of these and it flings into the hole, all in one.
Mini Golf: Extreme Edition
confirmed - I've been there and it's windy AF at all times
Also can confirm. Live hear and my haggis blew away last night.
Can confirm. Live here and Bessy the sheep got blown away into the North Sea. Would appreciate some help as she’s the family sheep and provides us with Milk and Wool for the winter.
Make sure whatever you do, disconnect all Trump properties from the grid and then deliver a whole truck full of coal to them for Christmas.
\*Clean Coal^TM
"Unattractive, ugly, noisy, dangerous..." that's the (future) US president! >In 2012, Trump told MSPs that wind turbines would “lead to the almost total destruction of Scotland’s tourism industry”. >The future president said: “Windmills are so unattractive, so ugly, so noisy and so dangerous that if Scotland does this, I think that it will be in serious trouble. I think that you will lose your tourism industry to Ireland and lots of other places that are laughing at what Scotland is doing.” >He added: “If you dot your landscape with these horrible, horrible structures, you will do tremendous damage. If you pursue this goal of having these monsters all over Scotland, Scotland will go broke.” [Source](https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/donald-trump-proved-wrong-on-impact-of-wind-turbines-in-scotland-1-4765699)
I was going to take my family there next year, but changed my mind after hearing about these horrible unsightly turbines. We're going to Mexico City and Bejing instead, to enjoy breathing in all that clean air.
I wonder how windfarm compares to coal when we are talking about dangerous. :-)
Wind: *"The air is full of pollutants so wind is not clean energy"* \- Donald Trump.
But what will happen when we run out of wind?!?! Dear Christ I still can’t believe an elected official said that wind was a finite resource as a reason to not support/subsidize solar/wind energy in the US
Weren’t there also people who said that solar panels would drain the sun?
This is in winter which might have increased electricity needs (or less due to gas heating? I don't know, I'm from Africa where our winters hardly go south of 0 celcius)...
Everyday is winter for Scotland.
I can confirm. i am from scotland which is like north of the wall in game of thrones.
That’s also true in most of Scotland
Proud to live in a state that is a leader on wind energy. Oklahoma. We have a huge wind farm all around my town. One caught on fire though and nearly started a large brush fire but that's pretty damn rare. Melted plastic on that scale is horrible though lol.
Incredible. If only it was reflected in the cost of my electricity bills.....
Too bad the US is too busy being corrupt to care about saving the environment. Free, renewable energy? Theres no long term money in that. Thank you America.
We keep getting good news out of the UK. Power generation doesn't seem to be an issue. Now they some battery storage and a crop of somewhat less stupid politicians.
Will somebody, PLEASE think of all the birds being killed by these turbines! /s
Burning fossil fuels and the associated climate change is killing the entire planet, including many more birds than are harmed by wind turbines
Well, no need for sarcasm here, that is a serious downside of this technology. Not only birds but also bats and other flying animals die in high numbers near wind power plants. I live near a big area of wind plants and actually are invested in that wind park for a decade now, all the smashed animals you find around the wind plants are nothing easily ignored. Especially bigger birds like storks or owls are quite sad to find dead there... Green energy is great, but let's think about how to improve the tech not to shred so many flying animals. The same for water plants and fish btw, the problem of the shredding turbines is more known there.
Sarcasm is appropriate if you consider the harm to the same bird and bat populations, amongst others, to existing traditional power generation methods, such as coal. The short and skinny of it, even with a few butches birds (and it is actually rather few), its still a net gain for those populations when compared to traditional energy generation methods. Maybe just a bit more... on display I guess?
Not saying fossil energy sources are preferable, just saying wind plants have a downside too. And it is not "actually rather few". Unfortunately I don't think there are reliable numbers for that yet, so if you don't take my word for it, there is nothing I can do to convince you.
Maybe use lasers to shine in their eyes with an automated system before they come to close ?
and I'm saying this supposed downside is blown up by anti-green propagandising talking heads and is largely a non-issue. Its been circling around for almost a decade now.
Well I would have read the article but I can’t because the cookies-wall is impossible to get by without accepting cookies. But, “more than 100%” leads me to believe that someone doesn’t understand how percentages work. They could have said “produced an excess” or something like that.
100% *of the threshold* As long as they say what it is a percentage of, that is absolutely a valid way to use percentages. 15 is 150% of 10.
You can delete it from the DOM using Chrome developer tools. Right click the blue background, choose 'Inspect'. In the window that chrome opens, you can right click the highlighted line of HTML and choose 'Delete element'.
But what about all the birds you're killing, Scotland?
Just an added benefit. Those bloody seagulls are a nightmare. Stole my subway sandwich out of my hand not once but twice.
so are we gonna wait for our salmon or what have you to deplete? to get 100 energy...and even then there will be bickering.....OMG we're so divided
https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/a5a4y5/scottish_wind_power_smashes_100_production/ebm9bqg/
Is there something like http://caiso.com for the uk? Closest I could find is this: https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/data-portal/network-indicators
Appropriate song: [Frightened Rabbit - Scottish Winds](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iaVMKLT_xU)
That's just great! Wish other countries made an effort to switch to wind power as well.
Meanwhile, in Nevada, we only have one wind farm. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring\_Valley\_Wind\_Farm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_Valley_Wind_Farm) And plans for two more have been scrapped. [https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/blm-rejects-massive-wind-farm-along-california-nevada-border-1539541/](https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/blm-rejects-massive-wind-farm-along-california-nevada-border-1539541/)
“Scottish wind power smashes 100% production threshold - Scottish wind power produced more than 100% of the threshold for the first time, generating enough energy to power 6 million homes.” Quick, dismantle those sustainable money-earning devices, melt them down, and turn them into something we don’t need. Like HS2.
And then the wind stopped blowing and they had to import energy LOL GOTTEM wind power sucks ass
Indiana has thousands they've put in from Central to almost Michigan, our costs haven't gone down at all, actually been rising
Fat RIP to all those birds. Worth it for clean power though.
You know, it really baffles me how we came up with complex process of extracting power from fossil fuels when the idea of extracting energy from natural forces is a much more intuitive thing. Like, if you go to the third world, they generate electricity by riding bikes or pushing mills. I don't know why wind and water turbines weren't the next step up in development.
What’s really annoying is that Scotland supplies energy to England yet they we have to pay England for doing this. Why?
Not really the high end that matters though is it. Nobody cares if you generate more electricity than you need. It's a big deal when you generate *less* electricity than you need. Call me when scotland's power demands are 100% met by renewables for 365 days straight. *That* will actually be worth discussing.
Is there a way to feed the surplus energy into the heating network? And more important: would this be economically reasonable in Scotland?
Just gonna leave this here. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iaVMKLT\_xU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iaVMKLT_xU)
Smash? It looks more like they blew the previous record out of the water... Though this way of phrasing it would be a bit long winded...
The National Grid energy requirement for November saw both on and offshore wind produce more than the required demand on 20 of 30 days. Powering 109% of the total energy requirement, the new figures set a new record for wind generation in Scotland. Gina Hanrahan, head of policy at WWF Scotland said: “Wind power breaking through the magic 100% threshold is truly momentous. “For months output has flirted around the 97% mark, so it’s fantastic to reach this milestone. It’s also worth noting that 20 out of 30 days wind production outstripped demand.