Britain Has Gone Nine Days Without Wind Power – Bloomberg
Britain’s gone nine days with almost no wind generation, and forecasts show the calm conditions persisting for another two weeks.
The wind drought has pushed up day-ahead power prices to the highest level for the time of year for at least a decade. Apart from a surge expected around June 14, wind levels are forecast to stay low for the next fortnight, according to The Weather Company.
“People would’ve started worrying about brownouts,” Elchin Mammadov, analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence said. “This shows that relying on wind, solar and batteries to supply the majority of our power is reckless for energy security.”
On Wednesday, wind generated about 4.3 percent of the U.K.’s electricity. Coal output has dropped near zero. Gas and nuclear have picked up the slack with 54 percent and 25 percent respectively, according to data from National Grid Plc.
The weather can be fickle and the government has to make sure that there is enough back up generation for times when the wind isn’t blowing. Greg Clark, secretary of state for business energy and industrial strategy announced Monday that the U.K. will take the next step toward agreeing to help Hitachi Ltd. finance a new nuclear reactor.
Britain Has Gone Nine Days Without Wind Power – Bloomberg
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VENTUSKY LIVE
THE wind blowing everywhere but the UK! LOL…
Ventusky – Wind, Rain and Temperature Maps
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ANY national grid system reliant on unreliables – wind and solar – and the whims of the weather, is doomed for failure – energy poverty, blackouts and brownouts!
Prices soar as solar, wind power fails | The Australian
Wind and solar power equal to about one-third of the coal-fired power that dropped out of the NSW market last week also failed to deliver in cloudy, wet conditions, helping to drive market prices higher as demand soared.
Rooftop solar generation dropped by as much as 254 megawatts under heavy cloud in NSW last week, with demand higher because heating and lighting needs were above those forecast by the market operator.
Electricity consultancy WattClarity said 1000MW of commercial-scale wind generation “did not turn up” last week as unusually low input from wind farms dipped further at the peak demand periods on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday nights.
The fall in renewables output came as five of NSW’s six coal-fired generation plants had outages last week, spiking wholesale prices and forcing the biggest consumer, the Tomago aluminium smelter in the Hunter Valley, to halt production three times.
Rooftop solar panels have been the fastest growing source of new generation in the national electricity market, up 58 per cent in the first five months this year.
The Australian Energy Market Operator highlighted the limited role of rooftop solar at a time when NSW suffered three days of above-average demand.
AEMO said thick cloud cover and rain reduced rooftop solar output by between 115MW and 254MW over the week, contributing to a level one “lack of reserve” condition, the lowest of three warning levels. At the same time 3800MW of coal generation that had been expected to be available disappeared due to planned and unplanned outages at the coal plants. “With the recent exit of almost 5000 megawatts of generation in the last decade, Australia does not have the energy reserves it once had to lean on in times of need,” AEMO said.
Prices soar as solar, wind power fails | The Australian
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See also :
Delingpole: Epic Renewables Fail as Solar Crashes and Wind Refuses to Blow
Reblogged this on Climate Collections.
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