The diagram illustrates my 5 to 10-year plan (was for “2020” when first published in 2015, but for 2021 to 2026 may be more realistic in 2016), featuring
“Wind” – wind turbines (and other intermittent renewables such as solar) to a total 42GW maximum power (supplies 6GW at 14.3% power) – (7.3GW already installed, in 2017) + 34.7GW cost £51 (onshore prices) to £85 billion (offshore prices).
Total pumped-storage power – 6GW, energy stored 216GWh, – cost £5.8 to £8 billion – illustrated as two components –
* “Pumped-storage” (new hydro-turbo-pumps, new reservoirs)
* “Hydro + pumped-storage” (existing conventional hydro upgraded with new hydro-pumps, bigger reservoirs)
“Peterhead gas” – burning hydrogen gas (H2) from power to gas
“Longannet bio-mass” – 2.4 GW (upgraded with handling for bio-mass fuel such as wood) 1.
“Cockenzie gas CCGT” – 1GW (new build) – H2, cost less than £1 billion 2.
Hunterston B nuclear (as today)
Torness nuclear (as today)
Such a plan – total cost £60 – £100 billion, £12 – £20 billion/year for 5 years (or £6 to £10 billion/year for 10 years) can be afforded as UK deficit spending, – offers
* 100% renewable power generation, even during periods of no-wind
* The option to decommission the nuclear power stations at a future date as and when convenient
* Exceptional flexibility to cope with all circumstances
* No requirement to import power from England
* Up to 36GW of intermittent wind power for export, power-to-gas etc.
* more energy for heating 3. and transport too
Vertical axis – installed electricity generating capacity in MegaWatts
Columns for the years 2010, 2015 (actual) and 2020 (planned) illustrating the main power stations or generating methods for each year.
Diagram adapted from one by Euan Mearns of Energy Matters (and no, I am not he!)
Modelling (see next post) proves that this plan copes well with a 92-day period of low wind recorded in summer 2014.
Notes
- Longannet coal-fired power station was decommissioned in March 2016 and a contractor with plans in place to demolish Longannet has since been appointed. So it is too late to “upgrade” the plant to biomass burning. Nevertheless, Scotland still needs additional biomass-burning generating capacity for the lowest-cost transition to 100% renewable energy. The best sites for big new-build biomass power stations are sites on the coast which are conveniently close to a deep water port to facilitate import of biomass fuel from overseas.
- I should mention the smarter option of localising multiple smaller electrolysis, hydrogen gas storage and gas-fired power stations each of which to be sited in association with the larger wind farms.
Localised power-to-gas with gas-to-power has the distinct advantage of being able to use much more of the available surplus wind power above and beyond the limit of surplus power which the grid has the capacity to transmit.
Possibly the way to invest in wind farm on-site power-to-gas and gas-to-power would be to offer grants and subsidies to wind farm operators to install such plant on site. - See the comment below discussing using electricity and renewable energy hydrogen for heating, suggesting combining air source heat pumps with gas boilers for central heating systems.
See also the comment below discussing renewable energy methane for the gas supply network.
Scottish Scientist 
Very interesting – like to see more details. What happens when there is a lot of wind? Do you have to pay constraint/curtailment payments?
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Thank you very much for your interest and as it happens, the first ever comment on this Scottish Scientist blog on WordPress.com!
Check out my 2nd post here – “Modelling of wind and pumped-storage power”.
What I would intend to happen when there is a lot of wind is that the following get wind power in this order of priority
1) Customer demand
2) Pump up water into the upper reservoirs
3) Export
4) Turbines controlled to decrease the power they are generating
“constraint/curtailment payments”?
I must say I am somewhat baffled and amused at the whole strange notion of paying wind turbine operators NOT to generate power! I don’t know why they are not automatically controlled to power down when their power is not needed?
Other non-wind turbine generators have their power control linked to the grid frequency and power down as the grid frequency increases. Why don’t wind turbines have something similar?
I’ve no idea what their lame excuse is for not having figured out a solution to this already. Perhaps someone else can tell us?
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Two problems. When wind blows in Scotland it likely blows in England so you won’t be able to export it. Also there is lack of connectivity. A 2.2GW connector is between Scotland and Lancasshire is supposed to open in 2016 at a cost of £1 billion and there are two to Norway planned I believe but not building. Ther £800 million Coire Glas pumped storage scheme was “consented” in 2013 but not building as it does not get renewable subsidy.
The constraint/curtailment payment system was set up to get people to invest in turbines. I am not sure how long it runs for – certainly many years yet.
The capacity scheme is needed to keep fossil fuel systems on line because otherwise they are not economiuc. Longannet did not win the “auction” for this and will close in 2016. Killingholme (0.9GW) a new gas station also did not win (or not enough) and is being mothballed.
It’s all ruinously expensive and chaotic. I would not be surprised to see Longannet reprieved and the new carbon tax reduced (i.e. things fall apart)
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There will be no shortage of problems Peter but no insurmountable problems I trust.
When the wind is also blowing in England then we may find a market for our electricity further away, connections permitting.
But at times of high wind, we may have very much more than another 2.2GW available for export. For example, the latest revision of my plan specifies a maximum wind power of 42GW leaving up to 36GW of surplus intermittent power available.
What surplus we can’t export then we can put to good use in other less efficient energy storage schemes – such as power-to-gas where water H2O is electrolysed into hydrogen gas and oxygen gas and the hydrogen produced is collected and pressurised for use as a fuel.
Hydrogen gas used to be a constituent of coal or town gas, the domestic gas supply, before the days of natural gas from the North Sea. So hydrogen from power-to-gas may again one day be part of the fuel gas mix in our domestic gas supply.
In this paper
Scottish Renewables – Pumped Storage – Position Paper
Scottish renewables urge UK investment into pumped-storage hydro schemes like the one planned and approved for Coire Glas, though I’m of the opinion that the Coire Glas site could and should be used to build a bigger water reservoir which can store more energy because we’ll need more than the 30GWh which the SSE is planning for.
It is expensive Peter but there’s no need for £12.5 billion per year of more deficit spending to ruin anyone, least of all the UK because that’s less than 2% of the annual UK budget – but rather such deficit spending would provide a much needed boost to economic activity and in the long run provide the country with much needed cheaper energy which could be the saviour of the economy.
I do hope you are right about Longannet being reprieved because it is certainly needed for Scotland’s security of energy supply and could have a future beyond 2020 burning non-fossil fuel, renewable biomass as a stand-by power station, as specified in my plan.
What’s somewhat “chaotic” is the UK’s threat to Longannet via unfair National Grid transmission charges imposed on all the old Scottish power stations who are being forced to subsidise the new grid work required for all the new wind turbines installed in Scotland.
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As well as describing the vertical axis of the chart, would you please also explain the red horizontal line at just over 5GW of installed capacity (Scottish peak demand?). What happens to this with a switch to heat pumps and further transport electrification or is this just insignificant in a 4 year time frame or balanced by efficiency improvements offeseting demand increases?
RE handling the of the 92 day lull in wind, summer 2014:
There is no mention of solar , tidal (stream), wave or AD (biomethane) in the chart. I appreciate that Scotland is not the most productive place for solar PV (except in temperature terms), it does have one very big advantage in balancing the mix as it is the only intermittent renewable with a summer seasonal bias, counter to the seasonal biases of wind, hydro and wave resources. AD biomethane is of course storable / dispatchable and tidal stream deployment from 2016 onwards might start to appear in the 2020 bar?
I’d be interested to know if you had any numbers on the cost balance of power-to-gas (for Peterhead) vs. a (1.4GW) connector to Norway’s hydro resources, effectively increasing the Scottish hydro storage beyond what you have already shown. Ditto, other storage options that could go from the current demo plants to significant deployments (in Scotland) e.g. liquid air co-located with industrial plant (using waste heat to boost round trip efficiency) and Isentropic. That could go on ad infinitum (V2G) organic flow batteries…) but possibly not mature or scalable enough for the 2020 time frame.
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Alternative: seek out a proposed bridge to an island. Replace the bridge with a few dams, and install hydro turbines. The cost is likely lower than the bridge, but adds energy storage for free. The dams need shallow water (less than 30m?), and the lower reservoir needs “deep” water, at least 30m. The sea is then the upper reservoir. Several GWh are feasible, depending on conditions. Sea areas are less intrusive than land areas, but still environmentally sensitive. Suitable depths can be gleaned at http://www.4coffshore.com/offshorewind/ Given the many Scottish islands, a suitable combination of bridge and enclosed water is likely somewhere, perhaps Sound of Mull (bothering the ferry between Oban-Uist), with a bit of tidal boost. A dam across a fjord will probably be unpopular, maybe Sunart. A local pumped storage complements larger storage in Norway by differences in trade patterns.
The 240 MW Rance Tidal is a somewhat different type than a pumped storage, but it has run turbines in salt water for decades.
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An open letter to the Scottish Government, Energy Strategy Consultation
I am a Scottish scientist replying to the Scottish government’s Energy Strategy Consultation (this email is for publication if you wish) which I am sorry to say is not very inspiring because of your “Scottish Energy Strategy – the future of energy in Scotland” document‘s fundamental scientific errors and fraudulent nonsense which make me lose confidence in the people who are managing this consultation.
I really think it would be better to appoint someone else to start again with a new energy strategy document, this time produced by someone competent to the task.
For example, your “VISION for 2050” is fatally flawed because of your reliance on “Carbon Capture and Storage” which I take to be a fraudulent exercise by the fossil fuel industry.
Typically, with CCS fraud, most of the carbon dioxide which may be captured won’t be stored for long before it is sneakily vented to the atmosphere by cowboy operators because there will be a profit in doing so. Leaking CO2 will always be cheaper than storing CO2. Storage can’t be policed. Indeed the fossil fuel industry has no intention of policing CCS.
The CCS fraud is simply promoted to serve as a slogan and an excuse for ignorant government ministers to repeat as per in your “Scottish Energy Strategy – the future of energy in Scotland” document, while continuing to support the business-as-usual fossil fuel industry and dodging valid criticisms of fossil fuel burning causing global warming and environmental damage.
Promoting the Carbon Capture and Storage fraud is obviously the wrong priority for energy planning in Scotland.
I have comments on your numbered points, as follows.
67. The draft climate change plan makes the same wrong claims about CCS. They are wrong. You are wrong about CCS. 2 wrongs don’t make a right.
75. Hydrogen is not a “hydrocarbon” (there’s no carbon in hydrogen) therefore hydrogen should not be introduced as such.
84. “Fuel cells” which use “natural gas” as their fuel are still at an early stage of development whereas hydrogen fuel cells are well established. Therefore it makes no scientific sense to propose starting off with natural gas fuel cells and then running them off hydrogen.
Perhaps you are confusing the fact that natural gas BURNING thermal generators (not “fuel cells”) can also be run by burning hydrogen gas?
Don’t confuse your gas-burning generators with your fuel cells. You sound like you don’t know what you are talking about.
The following sentence is once again entirely WRONG!
"Hydrogen gas at scale will most likely require natural gas (methane) as the sourcefeedstock and as such in order to be low carbon, carbon capture and storage
facilities will be a necessary system requirement."
WRONG! The great potential renewable use of hydrogen is not making it from natural gas but by making it from water via electrolysis powered by wind, solar or other renewable generators.
What you propose with the so-called “carbon capture and storage” (which doesn’t work and is fraud) is fossil fuel hydrogen, not renewable, not sustainable and that too is a FRAUD.
The whole section titled
"SUPPORTING THE DEMONSTRATION AND COMMERCIALISATION OF CARBONCAPTURE AND STORAGE AND CO2 UTILISTAION"
is utterly wrong, unscientific, an invitation to fraud and it should be deleted. That’s points 86 to 91. Bin it. CCS is a fraud.
Really, the Scottish government would do better for an energy strategy by binning your entire document and by publishing and promoting a link to my Scottish Scientist blog.
My ideas for a renewable energy strategy are more scientific, more realistic and more ambitious than your so-called “Scottish Energy Strategy” which is a disgrace to Scotland I am sorry to say.
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Additional comments which I had added to my submission (on 2017-05-12) to the Scottish Government’s energy strategy consultation were –
“1 . What are your views on the priorities presented in Chapter 3 for energy supply over the coming decades? In answering, please consider whether the priorities are the right ones for delivering our vision.
1. What are your views on the priorities presented for meeting our energy supply needs?”
Thank you for the opportunity to respond to this consultation.
Your 2050 VISION is NOT AMBITIOUS ENOUGH where it says
“with the equivalent of half of all energy consumed delivered from renewable sources by 2030;”
that’s disappointingly unambitious and certainly not world-leading considering that many countries in the world already produce 99% of their electricity from renewable (mostly hydroelectric) sources.
Admittedly, 100% of all energy, including heat and transport is more of a challenge but certainly possible.
Scotland could aim for 100%+ at the best possible speed aiming to become a renewable energy EXPORTER to England and beyond.
3. What are your views on the proposed target to supply the equivalent of 50% of all Scotland’s energy consumption from renewable sources by 2030? In answering, please consider the ambition and feasibility of such a target.
What are your views on the proposed 2030 target of 50% of Scotland’s energy consumption being met by renewable energy?:”
“50% by 2030” is a depressingly unambitious target and certainly not world-leading considering that many countries in the world already produced 99% of their electricity from renewable (mostly hydroelectric) sources.
Admittedly, 100% of all energy, including heat and transport is more of a challenge but certainly possible.
Scotland must aim for 100%+ as soon as possible and become a renewable energy EXPORTER to England and beyond.
I don’t see any reason in principle why Scotland one day could not be producing 200% of our total energy needs and exporting the other 100%.
It is possible though ambitious to be sure that if my Strathdearn Pumped-storage hydro scheme proposal (link follows) is ever constructed – which would allow Scotland to offer energy storage facilities to neighbouring countries – then Scotland could be exporting (and importing) as much as 30 times (or 3000%) electricity – maybe 5 or 6 times (500% to 600%) as much energy of all kinds as we use ourselves.
World’s biggest-ever pumped-storage hydro-scheme, for Scotland?
Norway’s ideal mountains and fjords is the obvious place to build colossal international or continental pumped-storage schemes to serve most of north and eastern Europe and Norway has already begun to serve for example Denmark and interconnectors to Britain are planned too.
Nevertheless Scotland based pumped-storage is more conveniently located to serve Scotland’s own needs for energy storage and those of England, Wales and Ireland too.
So Norway will have no shortage of international customers for its pumped-storage hydro energy storage but it remains to be seen how much of that international business Norway wants to bid for and doesn’t want to bid for and therefore how many business opportunities would be left for Scotland to exploit.
“4 What are your views for the development of an appropriate target to encourage the full range of low and zero carbon energy technologies?
What steps can be taken to make Scotland the first place in the UK to see commercial development of ‘subsidy-free’ renewables?: “
I don’t think simply setting targets is sufficiently encouraging.
What would be more encouraging would be the Scottish (or UK) government developing a public sector “Green Investment Bank” investing £10 billion a year in Scottish renewable energy funded by the central bank from additional government borrowing.
The investment is what is really required to develop technologies. Targets are useless without money to invest.
Also we don’t really need to have “the full range” including every possible technology.
For example, many countries have achieved 99% of their electricity from just one technology – hydroelectric.
In Scotland, we could exploit a number of key technologies – hydro including pumped-storage hydro, wind, solar, biomass, tidal. There’s no need to use every technology just because in theory we could.
So the Scottish government should really be confronting the limitations on its own borrowing powers which it had imposed on itself by signing the Fiscal Framework Agreement of February 2016.
Setting a political target to summon up the political wisdom and courage to rip up that bad agreement and press for a better fiscal framework which would allow the Scottish government to borrow to invest in a green bank would be the better target.
“5 What ideas do you have about how the onshore wind industry can achieve the commercial development of onshore wind in Scotland without subsidy?”
What are your views on the future of thermal generation in Scotland, with a particular focus on repowering Scotland’s existing thermal generation sites?: “
Allow siting of the largest possible turbines at the most advantageous, windiest sites, typically atop mountain ridges where they can be seen for miles around.
Don’t run scared of NIMBY opposition from mountaineers or hill-walkers or national parks or sites of natural heritage or bird lovers or the likes of Donald Trump.
Be bold. For example, give permission to erect some really huge wind turbine farms atop the Cairngorm national park mountains which offer the windiest sites in Scotland.
Bold siting of wind turbines may require a government advertising campaign to promote wind turbines as a site of Scottish pride so as to thwart NIMBY campaigns.
Also we can’t have wind farm developments being held up in the courts for too long.
The Scottish government should impose specially punitive court fees for actions which would delay economically vital work, which would serve as a lucrative tax-raising measure for the government if any billionaire-funded lawyers dared to object.
“6 What are your views on the potential future for Scotland’s decommissioned thermal generation sites?
What are your views on the role of hydrogen in Scotland’s energy mix and what can government do to support this?: “
Longannet should be recommissioned as a biomass burning power station, with an equivalent maximum power generation capacity as the site had as a coal-fired power station.
It goes without saying that the biomass furnaces should be fit for the purpose of rapidly changing power requirements to balance the intermittent availability of wind power.
There might still be a case for the planned CCGT power station at Cockenzie but with a view to burning hydrogen gas from electrolysis though perhaps the better alternative to one big central CCGT power station would multiple smaller “farm-scale” hydrogen powered generators (either CCGT or hydrogen-fuel cell) situated at wind farms which offer certain advantages to do with utilising surplus wind power that the grid is unable to transmit to a central power station.
“7 What ideas do you have about how we can develop the role of hydrogen in Scotland’s energy mix?
What are your views on the on the four priority areas for a transformation in energy use?: “
I am very ENTHUSIASTIC about the future prospects for cheap hydrogen gas produced from electrolysis powered by surplus wind power.
However, I WARN that the notion of low-carbon dioxide emission production of hydrogen gas from natural gas is fatally FLAWED not least because of the false hopes placed in fossil fuel+CCS which in my opinion CANNOT guarantee permanent carbon dioxide storage.
Hydrogen gas from electrolysis would be more cost effectively produced –
* anywhere on the grid using only cheaper off-peak electricity, at times of high wind and low demand
* locally at wind farm sites, using farm-scale electrolysis plant making use of only surplus wind power that otherwise would be wasted when generation had to be constrained or curtailed because the local grid cannot transmit the surplus power off-site (either because there was no more demand for the wind power anywhere on the grid or when the local connection to the grid was already transmitting at its full power rating).
Hydrogen gas produced from electrolysis at wind farm sites could either be stored on-site and used as an energy store to generate power at times of low wind or piped into the gas supply network to heat our homes etc.
“8 What are your views on the priorities presented in Chapter 4 for transforming energy use over the coming decades? In answering, please consider whether the priorities are the right ones for delivering our vision.
What are you views on the specific actions identified under each priority area?: “
Hydrogen fuel-celled vehicles would be my recommendation for the technology to invest in to power road transport vehicles in future. The range of hydrogen vehicles is longer and the refuelling time quicker when compared to battery only electric vehicles.
I praise very highly the successful Aberdeen hydrogen bus project.
“9 What are your views on the actions for Scottish Government set out in Chapter 4 regarding transforming energy use? In answering, please consider whether the actions are both necessary and sufficient for delivering our vision.
What are your views on how best to reflect the EU ambition to implement a EU wide 30% energy efficiency target to 2030?:
SUPPORTING THE INTRODUCTION OF VIABLE, LOW CARBON ALTERNATIVES ACROSS ALL MODES OF TRANSPORT “
The Aberdeen public transport hydrogen bus project should be rolled out Scotland-wide (and indeed Britain wide) which would provide the necessary national hydrogen refuelling stations infrastructure which would encourage the switch from fossil fuels to hydrogen pollution-free road transport of all kinds – private and commercial transport included.
Hydrogen powered transport is my recommendation but I acknowledge that battery only vehicles have their supporters too.
Governments must as a priority invest in the viable, non-polluting public transport alternatives and with tax and subsidy incentives encourage the transition to completely non-polluting road transport.
It goes without saying that all trains should be electrified.
“13 What are your views on the idea of a Government-owned energy company to support the development of local energy? In answering, please consider how a Government-owned company could address specific market failure or add value.
What role do you see for a potential Government owned energy company that would add value to the current landscape supporting the development of local energy?:”
I think what the Scottish government really needs to do is to run the National Grid in Scotland.
The National Grid as run from the UK has disadvantaged Scottish power generation by adding additional transmission charges because we are “too far north” from the South of England.
Also the UK national grid have been giving the wrong incentives to generators – payments to wind farm operators to curtail or constrain generation at times of high winds instead of incentives to build energy storage facilities and discouraging with fines any supply of unwanted power at very windy times.
The UK National Grid has been privatised and is supposed to be regulated but I think this isn’t working well, especially not for Scotland.
For many reasons, a Scottish National Grid is what is really needed, not a private company but a public service run by the Scottish government.
“14 What are your views on the idea of a Scottish Renewable Energy Bond to allow savers to invest in and support Scotland’s renewable energy sector? In answering, please consider the possible roles of both the public and private sectors in such an arrangement.
What are your views on the need for a Scottish Renewable Energy Bond, the potential structure, and the role of both the public and private sector in such an arrangement?: “
It’s a government responsibility to invest using its own borrowing powers – to borrow from its own central bank, interest free, with no repayments expected and the borrowing simply added to the national debt.
The Scottish government must really focus on securing for itself those borrowing powers – up to I recommend a minimum limit of at least 8% of GDP – allowing for up to another £10 billion a year of Scottish government borrowing for investment.
My concern is that the notion of a “Scottish Renewable Energy Bond” is a Scottish government without borrowing powers that it has failed to secure via a fiscal framework agreement, trying to dodge its responsibility to borrow to invest in the renewable energy sector, if necessary by repudiating the existing fiscal framework agreement and making a political issue of the UK’s refusal to offer the Scottish government a new and better fiscal framework agreement with substantially enhanced borrowing powers as I suggest.
Really there is no good excuse for a bad fiscal framework agreement that doesn’t allow for the Scottish government to borrow to invest as necessary.
Now such matters are not for the Energy minister alone but the fiscal framework is a matter ultimately for the First and Deputy First Ministers and the Finance and Economy Secretaries.
Really it is not acceptable for any of those ministers to agree with a fiscal framework which does not allow for the necessary and sufficient borrowing powers.
“15 What ideas do you have about how Scottish Government, the private sector and the public sector can maximise the benefits of working in partnership to deliver the 2050 vision for energy in Scotland?
How can Scottish Government maximise the benefit of working in partnership with the public and private sector bodies?: “
Well clearly, we need a Scottish government with an energy minister and advisers who
a) don’t have a fatally flawed vision which includes CCS
b) have the money to invest to get it done
that’s £ billions a year, which means a new fiscal framework via either a renegotiation with the UK Treasury or a new Scottish £ currency and a Scottish central bank to borrow from.
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There’s very impressive and confidence-inspiring leadership to be heard coming out of Australia now on the potential for pumped-storage hydro to complete a 100% renewable energy grid system to serve at the heart of a transition to a renewable energy economy.
For example, today’s web-page from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Online –
Pumped hydro storage ‘could make Australia run on renewable energy alone within 20 years’
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-21/pumped-hydro-renewable-energy-sites-australia-anu-research/8966530
– includes a couple of great videos, a good review video from February this year
Pumped Hydro: Australia’s energy future?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-13/pumped-hydro:-australias-energy-future/8267126
Posted 13 Feb 2017, 11:11am
– and a new video of a TV News interview with world-leading expert in the field Professor Andrew Blakers
Australia could use pumped hydro for ‘100-percent renewable energy grid’ says ANU analysis
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-21/australia-could-use-pumped-hydro-for-100-percent/8966974
Posted earlier today at 12:55am
When the leadership is that good, I don’t really have much to add, except
ADVANCE AUSTRALIA FAIR!
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Gas turbines configured to power green hydrogen plant
“is now comparable with” is very encouraging and hopeful news.
“is now less than” would be a game-changer for South Australia and for others whose –
“land abounds in nature’s gifts
Of beauty rich and rare
In history’s page, let every stage
Advance Australia Fair”
http://www.climatecontrolnews.com.au/news/latest/gas-turbines-configured-to-power-green-hydrogen-plant
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Using electricity and renewable energy hydrogen for heating, suggesting combining air source heat pumps with hydrogen gas network supplied gas boilers for central heating systems.
I’m quoting my posts from a discussion which began in Disqus comments under a Scotsman story – Andy Yuill: Heating Scotland in a warming world
I began simply enough –
“The simplest ways for me to switch to renewable heat would be
1) the easiest – if the gas that was supplied domestically was hydrogen sourced from renewable energy (such as using surplus power from wind turbines or solar panels to make hydrogen from water using electrolysis then pipe or truck it into the gas supply network) then I could run my gas central heating system as normal
2) not quite as easy because I would have to buy new electric heaters would be – if the cost of electricity was a lot less so that it was cheaper to heat my home using electric heaters than it is using gas central heating. This switch could be encouraged over time by either carbon taxing the fossil fuel’s carbon content or by subsidising the electricity costs or most likely doing both – funding the subsidy on electricity from carbon taxes on fossil fuels.
There are a lot of more complex ways of doing renewable heating but most of them involve designing in completely new ways of heating when the buildings are being built – and so are not really suitable for converting existing buildings to being heated that way.”
Then Andy Yuill, the Scotsman’s story’s author, kindly replied to me below-the-line, to which I responded with –
“Wikipedia Power to gas – Efficiency states that the Electricity to Hydrogen efficiency and compression to 80 bar for injection into a natural gas pipeline is between 57-73%, so somewhat better than the "circa 50%" you (Andy) stated.
Energy surpluses can be generated at the wind turbine or wind farm which are well in excess of the electricity usage and are characteristic of the over-capacity of wind (or solar) intermittent generation which is required to minimise the dispatchable back-up power which may be required in many 100% renewable energy electricity generation system configurations.
For example, in my ” Wind, storage and back-up system designer” the “no back-up” Row A configuration, suggests an over-capacity of wind turbine generating capacity of 7 times the peak customer demand, leading to a available energy surplus of %169 of electricity usage.
See link.
Using these energy surpluses for power-to-gas is much more efficient than simply constraining or curtailing generation. One can use hydrogen generated this way for either hydrogen fuel cell vehicles transport or heating.”
I emphasised this point in a reply to Slioch –
“there’s a golden opportunity being missed which is to produce vast quantities of hydrogen cheaply using electrolysis plant located at the site of the wind farm or actually installed within the wind turbine itself, using surplus power that the grid can’t transmit, and would otherwise have to be constrained or curtailed from even being generated in the first place where the waste heat from electrolysis could be utilised most importantly to warm the rotor blades in winter, to keep them ice-free and generating in freezing conditions.”
I continued in reply to Andy Yuill –
“Green” hydrogen cannot be generated from steam (fossil fuel) methane reforming because the concept of “Carbon Capture and Storage” is scientifically flawed, as I explain in my recent comment in another Scotsman story which hopefully can be read at this link here …
The “CCS doubts” elephant is not easily ignored in any room I am in!
An odorous gas is added to the gas supply and a gas boiler flame isn’t visible anyway. Compared to carbon monoxide, a poisonous component of the town gas or coal gas that used to be supplied to gas customers before the days of North Sea gas, hydrogen is harmless.”
Then it occurred to me to suggest this.
“Air source heat pumps can utilise the heat of the flue gases (and maybe, not as easily, from the hot water condensate too, in the case of a condensing boiler) of a central heating gas boiler.
Using this possible configuration – heat pump with gas boiler (I have no idea if such a combined product is yet for sale) – it makes more sense to run the air source heat pump only in summer and turn the gas boiler on (and supercharge the air/flue source heat pump) only during the winter.
Hydrogen can be generated all year round and stored for heating use in the winter thus reducing the need for “additional capacity” of electricity generation which “would only be needed sporadically during cold winter months”.
Anything that the UK can learn and copy from Sweden to improve our electricity carbon intensity (in terms of grams of carbon dioxide emitted per kiloWatt of electricity generated) to match Sweden’s impressively low value (second only to Norway in the league table of the 33 most electricity producing countries in the world) will be most welcome as far as I am concerned.
That includes learning how to do district heating Swedish style but I fear that it will be difficult for us to do.
It seems to me that much digging up of roads and connecting of communal hot water pipes to house central heating water supplies will be needed. Some houses do not even have central heating yet. Some people will resist the disruption and wonder what it is all for.
So much easier to do with new-build housing developments.
So good luck with that. LOL.
Geothermal is too deep here. This is not Iceland.
We don’t need “short term peaking can be provided with low cost natural gas plant” and that’s fossil fuel and therefore not green”.
I did thank Andy for his reply and I’m quoting my half of our Disqus discussion in my blog because I have posted very little about heating until now.
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BBC – Climate change: Ban gas grid for new homes ‘in six years’ – report
Whoa! Not so fast with such a ban. Just beware that such a ban could make it more difficult and much more expensive to heat homes in the winter using renewable energy.
Inter-seasonal energy storage – storing energy in the summer by making hydrogen fuel gas from water by electrolysis using surplus wind and solar power – can increase system efficiency.
It is more efficient to use that stored hydrogen to heat homes via the gas grid than it would be to use the same hydrogen to generate electricity in remote power stations where there would be thermal losses.
If the hydrogen gas can efficiently heat existing homes and homes built before 2025 then why can the gas grid not do the same for homes built after 2025 too?
Combination electric heat pump / condensing gas boilers
There is another reason to keep using the gas grid after 2025 – to increase the efficiency of electric heat pumps.
Condensing gas boilers still expel warm, dry air.
Now, while the gas grid supplies natural gas or in future when bio-methane and synthetic methane made from renewable energy is supplied then that expelled warm, dry air is and will be carbon dioxide and nitrogen mostly.
If a gas grid supplies only hydrogen that warm, dry air will be simply nitrogen mostly.
Either way, this expelled warm, dry air can be used as an “air” heat source for an electric heat pump, which is particularly useful in winter when the air outside is far from ideal and may often times be inefficient to the point of becoming unusable as an air heat source – too cold and / or too wet.
Likewise ground heat sources can get frozen and inefficient to the point of becoming unusable too.
In colder countries in winter, good heat sources are not always to hand for every house’s electric heat pump to utilise.
So a dependable source of warm, dry air from the flue of a condensing gas boiler is just what air source electric heat pumps need to extract their heat energy from.
Combination electric heat pump / condensing gas boilers should be researched, developed and brought to market and may indeed be the next big thing in home heating.
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H₂ GtP plants will migrate towards fuel cell assemblies. Those have already higher yield and will move towards ~80%. Furthermore they are more flexible than gas turbines (faster up and down).
And they have the potential to need far less maintenance than gas turbine – generator combinations.
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Thanks Bas. I am copying and pasting your comment from greentechmedia too –
“Nice! Your plan has more chance on success if you replace most new hydro & pumped storage, by PtG(H₂) using storage in deep earth caverns (Scotland has enough of those to cover months without wind. e.g. empty gas fields, rock caverns).
Because that is cheaper, easier and faster to implement (hardly any NIMBY).
The Germans make good progress: LINK
BtW.
The site “euanmearns” censors comments that its moderator, Euan Mearns, doesn’t like without noticing the author….
He even censored similar as the text above. Apparently because he wants nuclear.”
– BasG on GreenTechMedia
Pumped storage hydroelectricity is always more efficient for grid-scale energy storage than power-to-gas and at least for short term (days) energy storage it is practical and, I think, worth the additional custom engineering that pumped storage projects require.
For longer term, high energy capacity storage or farm-scale storage then PtG(H₂) is a good option I would agree.
I supported the case Bas was making for power-to-gas on Euan Mearns’ “Energy Matters” blog as follows.
“Excuse me for butting in, Euan.
Power-to-gas, producing hydrogen from electrolysis, for energy storage, to use the H₂ to regenerate power on demand, is, I suggest, more fairly described as follows.
Today we use very cheap wind power to make less expensive electricity than the expensive electricity made from natural gas.
Today also we curtail the use of very cheap wind power that we could be using instead to generate cheap electricity at certain times where the supply of wind power significantly exceeds consumer demand – when it is blowing a gale at night, for example – and when the price of that wind generated electricity would be cheap – potentially dirt cheap, in fact, when priced near to the wind farm, as it can usefully be, if at the wind farm is where the power to gas equipment is sited, because then there are no grid transmission costs for the power-to-gas operation.
So we, I trust, are arguing that in future we use that cheap (or dirt cheap) electricity to make expensive gas (H₂) to make very expensive electricity.
Noting that that very expensive electricity generated from H₂ is available on demand it can therefore in theory replace generation of expensive electricity from natural gas, if the primary school business model is made profitable by government intervention in the market.
The government can make the P-t-G H₂ generation business model profitable by intervening the market – for environmental reasons – either by subsidy of the H₂ generation or by carbon taxing the natural gas generation – so that the H₂ generated electricity is slightly less expensive for the grid manager and electricity consumers than the natural gas generated electricity.
The Green New Deal approach would prefer subsidy of the H₂ generation which protects poor electricity consumers rather than the punitive carbon-taxing of natural gas alternative which doesn’t.”
“There are little or no additional “costs” to account for if and when we utilise the surplus wind power which would be available for power-to-gas instead of being curtailed.
The costs of wind generation is paid for in the good value price which consumers pay for the power which is supplied directly to them via grid.
It is no skin off the consumers’ noses if we utilise that otherwise to be curtailed power instead of letting it all go to waste.”
“No-one is proposing that oil and gas companies “go out of business” but rather that with the transition to renewable energy, companies should and indeed already are preparing to adopt new business models.
Shell plans floating wind project off the Norwegian coast
The renewable energy sector also pays taxes and the tax revenue will grow as the sector grows.
To speed the transition to renewable energy, governments must provide incentives, especially for demonstrator projects and first adopters of new technology – as they did with wind turbines and as they should with power to gas and other energy storage and regeneration technologies.
Pumped storage hydroelectricity is not exactly “new technology” but is most practical when government invests in it as national electricity grid infrastructure.
The renewable energy sector has found profitability with maturity and “benevolence” to company shareholders.”
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Using renewable energy methane instead of natural gas in the gas supply network.
Anaerobic digestion of biomass produces bio-gas, a mixture of methane, carbon dioxide and corrosive hydrogen sulphide so bio-gas has to be upgraded to a quality that is suitable for supply via the gas pipe network as bio-methane.
Presumably, the carbon dioxide extracted from bio-gas is discarded but instead it probably should be used as a feed-stock for the Sabatier reaction with hydrogen (produced by electrolysis of water) to synthesise more methane.
Such renewable energy methane offers a lowest-cost, no-change 100% renewable energy transition solution for the gas pipe network, gas boilers and other gas appliances, which would be most economical when compared to the unwelcome additional costs of supplying pure hydrogen (which has only about a 1/3rd of methane’s energy at the same pressure) which may often require modifications or enhancements where existing gas pipes and appliances can’t easily supply and burn three times the volume of hydrogen to maintain the same heating performance as is now enjoyed with natural gas.
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Aberdeen Offshore Wind Farm official opening
Vattenfall Press Release – First Minister hails ‘ground-breaking’ Scottish offshore wind farm at official opening
Use this link to generate the Wind Generation Capacity Focus Table for a 93MW wind farm with capacity factor of 38% (which is about what the Aberdeen Bay Wind Farm is).
As you can see, my table recommends in each row A to H, a system configuration – matching the wind turbines with energy storage (of about 750 MWh) and back-up power (ranging from none – 0MW – up to 82MW) to deliver on power on demand (ranging from 21MW up to 147MW).
Since I recommend about 750 MWh of energy storage capacity is suitable to match with this wind farm, I must simultaneously WARN NOT TO TRUST ANY (SNAKE OIL) BATTERY SALESMAN who claims that their (far too small capacity) battery is of any “use” whatsoever to match with this wind farm.
Far too small batteries of a capacity much less than 750 MWh are simply not fit for purpose and any battery salesman showing up claiming anything to the contrary should be politely but firmly SHOWN THE DOOR.
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Energy Voice Turbine at Aberdeen Bay down for six weeks due to possible ‘lighting strike’
Recharge News reports –
Lightning is an obvious hazard for wind turbines so turbine blades which cannot withstand a lightning strike are not fit for purpose. Each and every turbine blade should have been tested for lightning proof performance before leaving the factory.
If this is the first blade to take a lightning strike and it failed right away then such an early failure looks like there could be a design fault or a systematic manufacturing fault with the lightning protection components.
This could be very expensive for MHI Vestas if they have to replace or repair all the turbine blades under warranty so as properly to lightning-proof them all but that’s what the customer has every right to demand.
It is simply unacceptable to wait until the next lightning strike takes out another turbine blade. A systematic replacement or upgrading programme must be instituted to get all turbine blades lightning proofed.
Aberdeen has its reputation to preserve as the energy capital and that means no shoddy goods allowed in the Aberdeen Bay “shop window”, so to speak.
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GREEN NEW DEAL RESOLUTION. Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Washington, 7th February 2019
Wikipedia – Green New Deal
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The Energy Innovation AND Carbon Dividend Act – THE BIPARTISAN CLIMATE SOLUTION is, in my opinion, half-baked as is and so I won’t support it, not unless and until it is amended to restrict the “Carbon Dividend” spending by consumers to only government-approved and audited low-carbon purchases.
So rather than issue the carbon dividend foolishly as money, it would be wisely administered by depositing credits in each person’s carbon dividend low carbon spending account administered as a quasi-banking service which issues to everyone a special purpose low carbon spending credit card whose credits could only be spent on government-approved low carbon purchases from government-approved sellers which would credit the seller’s low carbon money accounts with such low carbon purchase credits, which sellers could spend as they see fit.
The scheme is half-baked as it is because carbon dividends issued as money could be spent on high carbon purchases resulting in the reverse effect to that intended – namely an increase in carbon dioxide pollution.
Additionally, I would support Green New Deal government projects funded from additional government borrowing and / or from progressive taxation.
UPDATE – See Green Petrol Vouchers – so that people will vote FOR higher petrol prices
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Caroline Lucas and Clive Lewis table Green New Deal Bill
It’s a British Green New Deal!
😀
Decarbonisation and Economic Strategy Bill
Caroline Lucas – Green Party
“The answer to climate breakdown and austerity? A green new deal”, Caroline Lucas, the Guardian.
See also – Labour for a Green New Deal
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“Green New Deal” for Scotland links.
Scottish Greens Website – PDF report
No link for the SNP / Scottish Government yet – still parroting only one of the options recommended by the UK civil service as per usual – but Common Space “Green New Deal” tagged stories gently try to coax the SNP in the “Green New Deal” direction.
Christopher Silver reporting for Common Wealth on Green New Deal devolution.
Scottish Labour – a Green Industrial Revolution
Google is your “Green New Deal” Scotland friend
Watch this space for additional links or comments or readers are invited to reply to this comment to add a link to something they want to share about the “Green New Deal” and Scotland.
In replies to this comment, I intend to moderate that it is on-topic to discuss Scottish independence vs the Union, YES vs NO, pro and anti independence, but only in so far as comments are relevant to a “Green New Deal” or other plans for the energy sector and / or climate action in Scotland and how it is all paid for and the social implications of the plan for transition to renewable energy use.
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Labour for a Green New Deal writes informing me that the Labour Party has overwhelmingly voted in favour of their Green New Deal with decarbonisation by 2030 – “We did it, comrades 🌹🌹”, they say triumphantly.
Labour for a Green New Deal’s statement –
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The Green Party of England and Wales have launched their “Climate Emergency” General Election 2019 campaign!
Amelia Womack, the deputy leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, said –
😀
The UK borrowed an average of 8% GDP for the 5 years following 2008 so the Green Party’s plan to borrow an additional £91 billion per year for the Green New Deal is easily affordable. 😎
Borrowing even more would allow for additional investment in health, education etc. 💡
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“A Message From the Future With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez”
You go girl! 😀
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