On 02/05/2011 16:54, Grimly Curmudgeon wrote:

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember The Natural Philosopher
saying something like:

This has been addressed. There's no shortage of potential lakes on the
West Coast of Wales and Scotland.

Bull****.

Really?
Do tell.
I'm waiting with unbated breath.


TNP would appear to be right, at least with respect to the west coast of
Wales. The only potentially reasonably site I could see (adjacent high
and low lakes with a decent head between them) is Llyn Cau plus
Tal-y-llyn Lake on the South side of Cadair Idris. That would give a
head of about 1250 feet which is some 400 feet less than they get at
Dinorwyg. There is a shortage of low level lakes along the coast and
many of the best dam sites in the hills are already occupied by reservoirs.
--
Roger Chapman

Grimly Curmudgeon wrote:
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember The Natural Philosopher
saying something like:

This has been addressed. There's no shortage of potential lakes on the
West Coast of Wales and Scotland.
Bull****.

Really?
Do tell.
I'm waiting with unbated breath.

You simply have no idea how much space it takes to store more than a few
hours of a couple of power stations do you?

Roger Chapman wrote:
On 02/05/2011 16:54, Grimly Curmudgeon wrote:

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember The Natural Philosopher
saying something like:

This has been addressed. There's no shortage of potential lakes on the
West Coast of Wales and Scotland.

Bull****.

Really?
Do tell.
I'm waiting with unbated breath.


TNP would appear to be right, at least with respect to the west coast of
Wales. The only potentially reasonably site I could see (adjacent high
and low lakes with a decent head between them) is Llyn Cau plus
Tal-y-llyn Lake on the South side of Cadair Idris. That would give a
head of about 1250 feet which is some 400 feet less than they get at
Dinorwyg. There is a shortage of low level lakes along the coast and
many of the best dam sites in the hills are already occupied by reservoirs.

I calculated if we could flood the whole of loch ness to a depth of 1000
feet - assuming the mountains round it are 1000 feet tall - it would run
the country for about a week in winter.

Roger Chapman wrote:

with respect to the west coast of
Wales. The only potentially reasonably site I could see (adjacent high
and low lakes with a decent head between them) is Llyn Cau plus
Tal-y-llyn Lake on the South side of Cadair Idris. That would give a
head of about 1250 feet which is some 400 feet less than they get at
Dinorwyg. There is a shortage of low level lakes along the coast and
many of the best dam sites in the hills are already occupied by
reservoirs.

Also both reservoirs need to be essentially devoid of fish and the turbines
need to be a 20m lower than the reservoirs to combat cavitation. The river
was diverted around the lower lake at Dinorwig.

As energy storage is height*mass*gravity as you trade height for mass the
equipment size (and cost) rises proportionally.

Dinorwig works because the loads are predictable and the supply from
baseload fairly contant, so they can count on buying cheap power in the
early hours to fulfil a peak (and higher wholesale rate than average) load
in the following evening. From what I remember of my tour the capital cost
of the installation per delivered kWhr was less than a conventional power
station ( but presumably more than a comparable hydro electric scheme?)

non schedulable renewables won't fit this bill so provision for them is
likely to be more expensive.

BTW I thought a pumped storage scheme was being built near Edinburgh.

AJH

In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Roger Chapman wrote:
There is a shortage of low level lakes along the coast and
many of the best dam sites in the hills are already occupied by reservoirs.

I calculated if we could flood the whole of loch ness to a depth of 1000
feet - assuming the mountains round it are 1000 feet tall - it would run
the country for about a week in winter.

Loch Ness is already flooded to 750 feet, which gives you a head start ...

Nick
--
Serendipity: http://www.leverton.org/blosxom (last update 29th March 2010)
"The Internet, a sort of ersatz counterfeit of real life"
-- Janet Street-Porter, BBC2, 19th March 1996

On 02/05/2011 22:13, andrew wrote:

BTW I thought a pumped storage scheme was being built near Edinburgh.

I don't know about that but ISTR that at least one of the existing
Scottish hydro schemes has the capability to be used for pumped storage.

--
Roger Chapman

On May 2, 10:27*pm, Nick Leverton wrote:
In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Roger Chapman wrote:
* * * * * There is a shortage of low level lakes along the coast and
many of the best dam sites in the hills are already occupied by reservoirs.

I calculated if we could flood the whole of loch ness to a depth of 1000
feet - assuming the mountains round it are 1000 feet tall - it would run
the country for about a week in winter.

Loch Ness is already flooded to 750 feet, which gives you a head start ....

Nick
--
Serendipity:http://www.leverton.org/blosxom(last update 29th March 2010)
* * * * "The Internet, a sort of ersatz counterfeit of real life"
* * * * * * * * -- Janet Street-Porter, BBC2, 19th March 1996

It would be a "monstrous" problem :-)

--
John MacLeod

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember The Natural Philosopher
saying something like:

This has been addressed. There's no shortage of potential lakes on the
West Coast of Wales and Scotland.
Bull****.

Really?
Do tell.
I'm waiting with unbated breath.

You simply have no idea how much space it takes to store more than a few
hours of a couple of power stations do you?

Get real and stop knee-jerking every time wind is mentioned.
www.spiritofireland.org has an answer. Go and argue with them, you
patronising tosser.

Roger Chapman wrote:
On 02/05/2011 22:13, andrew wrote:

BTW I thought a pumped storage scheme was being built near Edinburgh.

I don't know about that but ISTR that at least one of the existing
Scottish hydro schemes has the capability to be used for pumped storage.

Yes. A friends father worked on it way back when. I forget the name. Its
a couple of hundred megawatts IIRC.

Pumped storage is great, but its already fully utilised load balancing.

There really isn't the space for more, and it adds to the overall cost
of the solution, both in cash terms and in waste of materials, and in
connecting wires.

Its pretty disruptive on the environment, as are wind turbines, and
indeed all renewables. How could they not be? They are pulling energy
*from* the environment, pretty low grade energy so pretty vast
structures are needed.

Grimly Curmudgeon wrote:
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember The Natural Philosopher
saying something like:

This has been addressed. There's no shortage of potential lakes on the
West Coast of Wales and Scotland.
Bull****.
Really?
Do tell.
I'm waiting with unbated breath.
You simply have no idea how much space it takes to store more than a few
hours of a couple of power stations do you?

Get real and stop knee-jerking every time wind is mentioned.
www.spiritofireland.org has an answer. Go and argue with them, you
patronising tosser.

Just because I am right there is no need to sulk.

The calculations are O level mechanics. Do them yourself, and stop
relying on pretty web sites to form your opinions.

Try doing some sums and forming your own.

Hint: Google hoover dam and lake mead. There are figures there in wiki
for how much energy is stored in the county sized lake. Not enough for
more than a couple of weeks of the UK in winter.

On Sun, 01 May 2011 20:27:58 +0100 (BST), "Dave Liquorice"
wrote:


So would a coal or nuclear station be compensated at the same rate
for the power they couldn't sell in similar circumstances?

Yes


--

On Sun, 01 May 2011 20:21:39 +0100, Guy Dawson
wrote:

On 01/05/2011 18:19, Steve Eldridge wrote:
On Sun, 01 May 2011 18:04:29 +0100, Dave Liquorice wrote:

On Sun, 1 May 2011 17:11:29 +0100, ARWadsworth wrote:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-13253876

"Mr Larque said a transmission fault in the system meant the surplus
energy could not be transferred to England and so generation had to be
cut."

That's the real reason. But why pay 'em just because they are generating
when the power isn't needed? That is *their* problem not ours or
National Grids.

But who believes that? The whole purpose of the National Grid is like any
other network to prevent failure on one point breaking the system.

Chronic under investment in the national grid means it's not what it
used to be.

Backup circuits are being used to provide additional capacity resulting
in a loss of backup capacity.

There never was any concept of backup. You don't duplicate routes,
ever. You design for predicted demand and for the planned generation.
If that can't be accommodated on the existing network a new route is
built. In the past that process was less refined than it is now and
NIMBY's were few and far between hence you sometimes had lines and
cables operating at relatively low capacity.

Generation can often be constrained off by system configuration and
that has been the case for many years in certain locations. Some
operators choose such an arrangement as they can get very low cost
connections if they are prepared to accept the possibility of being
unable to generate 100% of the time they wish to.

One key driver is that if 'new' (as in post 1990) generation requires
infrastructure then the operator of that generation pays for all of
the system asset / upgrade costs, hence why the vast majority of 'new'
generation is either near the demand, or on existing sites that are
being decommissioned, or is at locations where the operator of that
new generation predicted correctly / guessed lucky in their being
spare capacity on the existing infrastructure.

For instance new generation by operator A B and C in a particular
geographic region area amounted to say 2000MW and the cost of
connection across a period of a few years for all three operators was
essentially nothing. Operator D then came along two years later with
500MW of planned generation as they had access to cheap gas and a
suitable pipeline route and a contract for waste heat into a nearby
industrial process. But that additional generation busted some grid
system limits in that area. So that new operator had to pay for all
the infrastructure that enabled them to generate on an as required
basis. As a consequence that infrastructure as a side effect removed
constraints elsewhere. On the day operator D connected an application
for connection was made by operator E that enabled them to connect
another 500MW at near zero cost.

Lack of investment post 1990 hasn't been an issue as if demand
increases and lines and other infrastructure is needed then they are
built, but planning issues can sometimes seriously delay bringing
them into service.

Also improvements in conductor construction means more capacity on
existing line routes when they are restrung. More accurate modeling
of thermal properties of overhead lines, underground cables and to a
lesser extent transformers means that existing assets can also be
operated for longer at their maximum ratings - short term overloads
can be tolerated for longer in colder weather, higher loadings can be
tolerated for longer in hot weather.

But, while the majority of demand is in the south and the majority of
generation is in the north you will always at some stage run into
problems, be it from Scotland to England, or Yorkshire to the
Midlands, or the Midlands to the South East.


--

On Mon, 2 May 2011 01:22:54 -0700 (PDT), Andy Dingley
wrote:

On May 1, 10:27*pm, Huge wrote:
On 2011-05-01, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Rubbish. Its fully bi directional at flat out rate.

Quite. They can back up at a few moments notice.

How many moments though? The design can come on line for generation
in a little over a minute. If it's a pre-planned boost (post
Eastenders kettles) it's about 15 seconds. Coming on line as a power
dump though was never seen as needing this fast response (after all,
they were mostly sinking surplus from Trawsfynydd), so can't react so
fast.

It's not a barrier to Dinorwig's use for wind power, but if it was
designed now, it would be designed differently.

From spinning in air synchronised to the grid to 1320MW generation is
around 12 seconds (with 1800MW being achieved another 6 seconds later)
Going from full pumping to full generation and vice versa takes
significantly longer, in the order of about 8 minutes.

There is no need for fast response for pumping as governor action
across the rest of the generators on the system would take care of any
similar increase in generation by reducing their output - at the
moment you wouldn't see 1320MW increase in wind generation in a matter
of minutes and hopefully that day will never arrive.


--

The Other Mike wrote:
On Sun, 01 May 2011 20:21:39 +0100, Guy Dawson
wrote:

On 01/05/2011 18:19, Steve Eldridge wrote:
On Sun, 01 May 2011 18:04:29 +0100, Dave Liquorice wrote:

On Sun, 1 May 2011 17:11:29 +0100, ARWadsworth wrote:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-13253876
"Mr Larque said a transmission fault in the system meant the surplus
energy could not be transferred to England and so generation had to be
cut."

That's the real reason. But why pay 'em just because they are generating
when the power isn't needed? That is *their* problem not ours or
National Grids.
But who believes that? The whole purpose of the National Grid is like any
other network to prevent failure on one point breaking the system.
Chronic under investment in the national grid means it's not what it
used to be.

Backup circuits are being used to provide additional capacity resulting
in a loss of backup capacity.

There never was any concept of backup. You don't duplicate routes,
ever. You design for predicted demand and for the planned generation.
If that can't be accommodated on the existing network a new route is
built. In the past that process was less refined than it is now and
NIMBY's were few and far between hence you sometimes had lines and
cables operating at relatively low capacity.

Generation can often be constrained off by system configuration and
that has been the case for many years in certain locations. Some
operators choose such an arrangement as they can get very low cost
connections if they are prepared to accept the possibility of being
unable to generate 100% of the time they wish to.

One key driver is that if 'new' (as in post 1990) generation requires
infrastructure then the operator of that generation pays for all of
the system asset / upgrade costs, hence why the vast majority of 'new'
generation is either near the demand, or on existing sites that are
being decommissioned, or is at locations where the operator of that
new generation predicted correctly / guessed lucky in their being
spare capacity on the existing infrastructure.


That is not true in the case of trunk routes. There is considerable
argument going on at the moment because the Scottish windpower companies
want NG to upgrade the trunk lines south on the basis that their
(winpower cos) responsibility ends at the connection TO the grid.

..

But, while the majority of demand is in the south and the majority of
generation is in the north you will always at some stage run into
problems, be it from Scotland to England, or Yorkshire to the
Midlands, or the Midlands to the South East.

Another reason why intermittent renewables place costs elsewhere. They
completely disconnect supply/demand, and they need a lot more
interconnection to carry peak versus mean generation capacity.

The Other Mike wrote:
On Mon, 2 May 2011 01:22:54 -0700 (PDT), Andy Dingley
wrote:

On May 1, 10:27 pm, Huge wrote:
On 2011-05-01, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Rubbish. Its fully bi directional at flat out rate.
Quite. They can back up at a few moments notice.
How many moments though? The design can come on line for generation
in a little over a minute. If it's a pre-planned boost (post
Eastenders kettles) it's about 15 seconds. Coming on line as a power
dump though was never seen as needing this fast response (after all,
they were mostly sinking surplus from Trawsfynydd), so can't react so
fast.

It's not a barrier to Dinorwig's use for wind power, but if it was
designed now, it would be designed differently.

From spinning in air synchronised to the grid to 1320MW generation is
around 12 seconds (with 1800MW being achieved another 6 seconds later)
Going from full pumping to full generation and vice versa takes
significantly longer, in the order of about 8 minutes.

There is no need for fast response for pumping as governor action
across the rest of the generators on the system would take care of any
similar increase in generation by reducing their output - at the
moment you wouldn't see 1320MW increase in wind generation in a matter
of minutes and hopefully that day will never arrive.


It will if the governments stated policy is implemented.

However that is actually near the sort f level of spinning reserve
anyway IIRC - enough to cope with sudden loss of a power station.

On May 1, 5:11*pm, "ARWadsworth"
wrote:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-13253876

Could have used that power to charge an elecric car.

It might make a good sound bite, but really one can't expect any part
of the generation capacity and grid to be fully functional 100% of the
time. Really its a normal part of electricity generation.


NT

Tabby wrote:
On May 1, 5:11 pm, "ARWadsworth"
wrote:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-13253876

Could have used that power to charge an elecric car.

It might make a good sound bite, but really one can't expect any part
of the generation capacity and grid to be fully functional 100% of the
time. Really its a normal part of electricity generation.


And will be far more common as more 'renewable' energy that isn't, is
banged on there.


NT

Tabby wrote:
On May 1, 5:11 pm, "ARWadsworth"
wrote:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-13253876

Could have used that power to charge an elecric car.

It might make a good sound bite, but really one can't expect any part
of the generation capacity and grid to be fully functional 100% of the
time. Really its a normal part of electricity generation.



The point is that they were paid 20 times more to stop generating than they
would have been for the electricity had they been generating.

--
Adam

On May 4, 11:42*am, "ARWadsworth"
wrote:
Tabby wrote:
On May 1, 5:11 pm, "ARWadsworth"
wrote:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-13253876

Could have used that power to charge an elecric car.

It might make a good sound bite, but really one can't expect any part
of the generation capacity and grid to be fully functional 100% of the
time. Really its a normal part of electricity generation.

The point is that they were paid 20 times more to stop generating than they
would have been for the electricity had they been generating.

that's a contract screwup, nothing to do with the fact that they were
wind generators.


NT

Tabby wrote:
On May 4, 11:42 am, "ARWadsworth"
wrote:
Tabby wrote:
On May 1, 5:11 pm, "ARWadsworth"
wrote:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-13253876

Could have used that power to charge an elecric car.

It might make a good sound bite, but really one can't expect any
part of the generation capacity and grid to be fully functional
100% of the time. Really its a normal part of electricity
generation.

The point is that they were paid 20 times more to stop generating
than they would have been for the electricity had they been
generating.

that's a contract screwup, nothing to do with the fact that they were
wind generators.

Wouldn't happen on a still day would it?

--
Adam

In message
,
Tabby writes
On May 4, 11:42*am, "ARWadsworth"
wrote:
Tabby wrote:
On May 1, 5:11 pm, "ARWadsworth"
wrote:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-13253876

Could have used that power to charge an elecric car.

It might make a good sound bite, but really one can't expect any part
of the generation capacity and grid to be fully functional 100% of the
time. Really its a normal part of electricity generation.

The point is that they were paid 20 times more to stop generating than they
would have been for the electricity had they been generating.

that's a contract screwup, nothing to do with the fact that they were
wind generators.

You don't expect them to press the 'OFF' button for nothing, do you?
That's a highly specialized job. The few who have the necessary skills
to do it command banker-like salaries. If you don't pay them what they
ask, they'll be off abroad to work on wind-farms where their true value
to a nation's economy is more widely recognised.
--
Ian

On May 4, 8:06*pm, "ARWadsworth"
wrote:
Tabby wrote:
On May 4, 11:42 am, "ARWadsworth"
wrote:
Tabby wrote:
On May 1, 5:11 pm, "ARWadsworth"
wrote:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-13253876

Could have used that power to charge an elecric car.

It might make a good sound bite, but really one can't expect any
part of the generation capacity and grid to be fully functional
100% of the time. Really its a normal part of electricity
generation.

The point is that they were paid 20 times more to stop generating
than they would have been for the electricity had they been
generating.

that's a contract screwup, nothing to do with the fact that they were
wind generators.

Wouldn't happen on a still day would it?

depends on the contract


NT