London, 2 June: A new paper published today by the Global Warming Policy Foundation warns that intermittent wind and solar energy pose a serious energy security risk and threaten to undermine the reliability of UK electricity generation.
Many people – including ministers, officials and journalists – believe that renewable energy enhances Britain’s energy security by reducing the dependency on fossil fuel imports. The ongoing crisis over the Ukraine and Crimea between Russia and the West has given much attention to this argument.
Written by Philipp Mueller, the paper (UK Energy Security: Myth and Reality) concludes that domestic and global fossil fuel reserves are growing in abundance while open energy markets, despite the conflict in the Ukraine, are enhancing Britain’s energy security significantly.
In contrast, the ability of the grid to absorb intermittent renewable energy becomes increasingly more hazardous with scale.
Germany provides a warning example of its growing green energy insecurity. Last December, both wind and solar power came to an almost complete halt for more than a week. More than 23,000 wind turbines stood still while one million photovoltaic systems failed to generate energy due to a lack of sunshine. For a whole week, conventional power plants had to provide almost all of Germany’s electricity supply.
Germans woke up to the fact that it was the complete failure of renewable energy to deliver that undermined the stability and security of Germany’s electricity system.
“Open energy markets are a much better way to ensure energy security than intermittent generation systems like wind and solar. It would be a huge risk in itself for Britain to go down the same route as Germany and destabilise what is still a reliable UK electricity grid,” said Philipp Mueller.
Full paper (PDF)
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Way back the politicians were told that the way the subsidies were paid favoured unreliable energy replacement methods. They were told to pay the subsidies on the basis of a contractual energy delivery quota with payments based on load but with heavy fines for non delivery of the quoted supply.
This only made renewable energy which was reliable a financially stable investment. river based hydro and tidal would have seen far greater investment and wind near zero given its dead spots when we in the UK have a low pressure zone centred on us giving cold and foggy weather. As for solar farms in the UK they are a joke. A 45KW installation produced 800W at the particular point when UK demand was highest from the reading displayed on the site.
Solar energy is not ideal in UK. At 55 degrees latitude, solar insolation drops to below 200 W/m^2 on winter and autumn. Solar is ideal in tropical countries near the equator where insolation is 400 W/m^2 on average year round.
John says: June 2, 2014 at 2:13 pm
The resource guy mentions a battery. Is there a successful large scale battery anywhere?
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The best ‘batteries’ are pumped storage systems, like Dinorwig, which is one of the largest in the world. This provides 1.45 gw for 5 hours, or around 7 gwh, and can be on-line in 75 seconds from startup:
http://www.electricmountain.co.uk/en-GB/Dinorwig
Its a great battery. However……
We would need about 50 Dinorwigs to run the UK for just 5 hours (more, if you want electric vehicles too). Or 250 Dinorwigs for a day. Or if the wind was slack for two weeks, as it often is, we would need the equivalent output of 3,300 Dinorwigs.
Some problems with that…….
Dinorwig was the most expensive power station ever. Because of the Greenies they had to put it inside a mountain, at enormous cost. The UK does not have enough mountains. And wherever you found a location, the Greenies would always find a lesser-spotted ridge-back slug living there, that was on the endangered species list.
In other words, there is no battery that is ever going to bridge the energy gap that renewables will deliver. Unless you want to build a lead-acid battery the size of Coventry. Any offers?
R
Battery storage and solar panel costs are falling fast. Expected to be cheaper than coal-fired generation within a few years. China is investing heavily.