Treasury Blocking electrification plans

[Annetts key]

Dungeness last generated in 2018 the decision to not restart was made in the summer. I believe that Hunterston B is now only generating on one reactor which will close in January.

Dungeness was indeed officially closed in the summer.

Hunterston B Reactor 3 is listed as

Moved to defuelling phase. Will not return to power generation.

Details here

 

[Railwaysceptic]

The outline plan for HS2 simply connects the main conurbations along the main trunk of population in the country in an efficient way, so of course it's bound to cover many electoral districts. Given that not many people were actually bothered about high speed rail one way or the other, I doubt the Tories would have lost much support by cancelling it in 2010. But they didn't. Indeed they expanded on the idea. And given HS1 had just been successfully opened at the time there was no obvious reason that HS2's development and construction would have been much of a problem.

. . . .

If they'd wanted to deliver a poison pill, Labour would have announced the electrification of the entire rail network, or a motorway through a national park.

David Cameron's enthusiasm for HS2 was because he was kite flying to justify not making a decision about a third runway at Heathrow. Any Government that announces a new motorway through a national park will lose votes and will give their opponents an open goal instead of a poison pill.

 

[quantinghome]

Any Government that announces a new motorway through a national park will lose votes and will give their opponents an open goal instead of a poison pill.

Fair point - it was a bad example.

"Reversing Beeching" on the other hand would have been a genius move. Spend enough money on initial feasibility, set the bar low enough for loads of schemes to be 'accepted onto the programme' and then let the incoming government take the flak for cancelling them once the practical difficulties become apparent.

 

[Bald Rick]

Fair point - it was a bad example.

"Reversing Beeching" on the other hand would have been a genius move. Spend enough money on initial feasibility, set the bar low enough for loads of schemes to be 'accepted onto the programme' and then let the incoming government take the flak for cancelling them once the practical difficulties become apparent.

You might say that Minister, I couldn’t possibly comment. Although it’s fair to say that those that have been given initial feasibility have not been ‘accepted onto the programme’. They are being tested to see if it is worth spending some proper money on feasibility. As I’ve posted elsewhere I’d be surprised if more than a third of the 38 will get beyond this stage (which is not proper feasibility), and all the unsuccessful projects will know well before the next election. Assuming there’s not an election next year!

 

[DerekC]

After not approving any significant new railway infrastructure investment in a decade, they suddenly, in the space of a few months, decide to propose a hugely expensive rail modernisation/electrification programme and a hugely expensive high speed rail project - with the high speed rail line adopting a shape that seemed tailored to cover as many electoral districts as possible?

Just at the time they are a year from an election and 20 points behind and it is clear they will not be in government beyond said election?

It was designed to cause as much political damage to the Tories from cancelling it, or driving it through, as possible.

As regards electrification I am trying to come up with polite words to describe this and failing. The resistance to new electrification in the five years prior to the change of government in 2010 came from a combination of the Treasury and senior professional civil servants in DfT. In the background some quiet work was going on, pushed by the railway professionals in DfT (there were still some around then). RSSB were nudged into producing a business case analysis for electrification of GWML and MML, which they were unfortunately so slow in producing that it missed the 2007 White Paper. It was, of course, based on what electrification costs were expected to be pre-the actual GWML electrification, so it certainly didn't look hugely expensive and showed a good BCR for both.

What happened in 2008/9 was that the push from the industry (culminating in the famous letter from Network Rail) made the politicians realise this might be a vote winner and didn't look too expensive. Labour may have been 20 points behind but no government gives up on winning an election a year ahead. And you have clearly forgotten how close the 2010 election actually was.

So please consign this theory to the bin on Platform 9¾ where it belongs!

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Partly to prove the point on it always being windy somewhere (with the cororally that it can’t be wind6 everywhere) there is 24GW of installed wind capacity in this country, and the record for peak output (last Tuesday) is about 18.5GW.

Even when we had a long spell (3 weeks) of low wind in April, the average generated was 3GW.

Only 2.17GW as of 22.35 and NG forecasting it to drop further so less than 10% of capacity. Fortunately Gas has come to the rescue running up to nearly 24GW earlier. So whilst I'm all for more wind and solar it would be utter folly to not retain back up generation which can only realistically come from CCGTs. So its imperative they are kept in reserve to deal with blocking highs in the North Sea which are infrequent but do occur.

 

[DorkingMain]

No, there's a finite amoubt of money. Tax revenues are down, costs for things like the NHS are up thanks to the pandemic.

So, once again, how do you propose tgis should be paid for? Who should foot the bill? You putting your hand into your pocket?

Infrastructure is a direct economic driver. More often than not these things pay for themselves in the long-term.

 

[Bald Rick]

Only 2.17GW as of 22.35 and NG forecasting it to drop further so less than 10% of capacity. Fortunately Gas has come to the rescue running up to nearly 24GW earlier. So whilst I'm all for more wind and solar it would be utter folly to not retain back up generation which can only realistically come from CCGTs. So its imperative they are kept in reserve to deal with blocking highs in the North Sea which are infrequent but do occur.

ah but when we have three times much offshore wind, that 2GW would be about 5

I know that’s not enough, by a long way.

The energy strategy sees the future being largely renewable, with 2-3 times more nuclear than now, and CCGT a relatively minor player by 2035. It would be 30-40% of what it generates now, compared with a grid demand that is expected to double. And all of it is proposed to have Carbon Capture and Storage. From the White paper published last year below; it says 2050 but Government announced bringing it forward to 2035 In October.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

ah but when we have three times much offshore wind, that 2GW would be about 5

I know that’s not enough, by a long way.

The energy strategy sees the future being largely renewable, with 2-3 times more nuclear than now, and CCGT a relatively minor player by 2035. It would be 30-40% of what it generates now, compared with a grid demand that is expected to double. And all of it is proposed to have Carbon Capture and Storage. From the White paper published last year below; it says 2050 but Government announced bringing it forward to 2035 In October.

View attachment 107132

Umm 12-18GW of Nuclear would be great and AFIC is the only sensible way forward to decarbonise but not sure its going to happen unless there is some bold leadership to just get it on with it as we did in the 60's and 70's.

Now down to 1.97GW at 23.20 anyhow at least there will be some requests tomorrow to activate the Q paths to West Burton Power Station!!

 

[InOban]

And wind is now well under 1Gw.

 

[Annetts key]

Adding more nuclear power stations on there own are not the solution to dealing with sudden low wind conditions or covering for sudden failures of other generation systems. Conventional nuclear power power stations, being large thermal systems, are slow to bring online and once online, take some time to shutdown. You can’t just stop a nuclear reaction. Even when a site is not generating electricity, all the cooling systems have to be maintained to remove the heat that is still being generated (even though the control rods and other control systems will have reduced the amount of reactions).

Hence the normal practice is for nuclear power power stations to be on line and run at maximum capacity as long as it is safe to for each plant. Unless the facility is off-line for maintenance.

As more and more variable renewable sources are connected (wind turbines, solar PV, wave/sea generation), then some of the variably will be able to be averaged out. But yes, the (relatively quick starting) CCGT power stations we have will still have a role for many years to come.

Also, there must be consideration of how to cover a large nuclear power station suddenly going off line in the event of a failure or incident.

Plus, it would be unwise to ‘put all our eggs in’ in only a couple of baskets.

We also need to have more high power inter-connector links to adjacent countries. As that helps even out some of the variably of wind power.

To date the U.K. has done well in managing our electrical generation and distribution system as nearly all the coal power stations have been decommissioned. I don’t see why we cannot continue to make progress while continuing our record of a very reliable electrical power grid.

The primary objective is to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions (worldwide) to a low enough level that the planets natural processes can bring the concentration down. Trying to get to zero emissions of CO2 is unrealistic.

Also, large conventional nuclear power power stations are not zero carbon energy sources. Although the power station itself does not emit much CO2, the fuel deliveries, the construction and the decommissioning all generates CO2.

 

[Bald Rick]

Although the power station itself does not emit much CO2, the fuel deliveries, the construction and the decommissioning all generates CO2.

That’s the same for any type of power station.

 

[JamesT]

Adding more nuclear power stations on there own are not the solution to dealing with sudden low wind conditions or covering for sudden failures of other generation systems. Conventional nuclear power power stations, being large thermal systems, are slow to bring online and once online, take some time to shutdown. You can’t just stop a nuclear reaction. Even when a site is not generating electricity, all the cooling systems have to be maintained to remove the heat that is still being generated (even though the control rods and other control systems will have reduced the amount of reactions).

Hence the normal practice is for nuclear power power stations to be on line and run at maximum capacity as long as it is safe to for each plant. Unless the facility is off-line for maintenance.

As more and more variable renewable sources are connected (wind turbines, solar PV, wave/sea generation), then some of the variably will be able to be averaged out. But yes, the (relatively quick starting) CCGT power stations we have will still have a role for many years to come.

Also, there must be consideration of how to cover a large nuclear power station suddenly going off line in the event of a failure or incident.

Plus, it would be unwise to ‘put all our eggs in’ in only a couple of baskets.

We've run large nuclear stations for decades, the grid can cope with one going off relatively suddenly. Though thermal generators (nuclear/gas/coal/etc.) don't generally go off instantly. Even though the heat source may trip out suddenly, the turbines generating the power spin down more slowly, which allows for other generators to be brought online.
More problematic are the renewables, which use solid-state converters to connect to the grid. Those do trip out instantly.

So as we shift the balance of the grid away from the thermal systems we're losing some of the resiliency we had before. The proper answer is more storage that can be brought online instantly (batteries?) or quickly (hydro?).

But as we've seen this year, there can be extended periods with very low wind and those weather patterns can extend further than just the UK so building more interconnectors won't necessarily save us. There has to be a reliable source of low carbon energy available that doesn't depend on the weather, at the moment nuclear is pretty much the only one that fits.

 

[HSTEd]

Adding more nuclear power stations on there own are not the solution to dealing with sudden low wind conditions or covering for sudden failures of other generation systems. Conventional nuclear power power stations, being large thermal systems, are slow to bring online and once online, take some time to shutdown. You can’t just stop a nuclear reaction. Even when a site is not generating electricity, all the cooling systems have to be maintained to remove the heat that is still being generated (even though the control rods and other control systems will have reduced the amount of reactions).

Hence the normal practice is for nuclear power power stations to be on line and run at maximum capacity as long as it is safe to for each plant. Unless the facility is off-line for maintenance.

Whilst this is technically true you would be surprised at the ramp rates nuclear units, especially modern units, are capable of.

The main reason they are run flat out all the time is not because of technical limitations - its because fuel is almost free so there is almost always no point in ever reducing output.

 

[Annetts key]

Partly to prove the point on it always being windy somewhere (with the cororally that it can’t be wind6 everywhere) there is 24GW of installed wind capacity in this country, and the record for peak output (last Tuesday) is about 18.5GW.

This article is interesting, in that it shows one of the issues with the majority of our wind turbines being located in the northern part of Great Britain.

U.K. Grid Installs New Kit to Stop Green Power Going to Waste
* Smart valves alleviate congestion on the electricity network
* Technology will free up 1.5 gigawatts of capacity on the grid

By Rachel Morison
May 9, 2021, 7:01 PM EDT

National Grid Plc is installing new technology on the U.K. network that will remove bottlenecks of renewable power and free up enough power to supply a million homes that would otherwise be wasted.
When it’s very windy, too much electricity is sometimes being supplied to the network in one place, with parts of the system reaching maximum capacity while others are below their limit. The so-called smart valves will automatically route power to parts of the grid where there is available capacity.

Reaching carbon neutrality in the grid by the middle of this decade will cost the industry 3 trillion pounds ($4 trillion), according to the network operator. That makes it essential to maximize existing power lines and to use all of the electricity generated from the nation’s wind farms.

The smart valves will allow the company to “harness the full potential of renewable generation and lower costs for the end consumer – all helping toward our ambition of being able to operate the system at zero carbon by 2025,” said Julian Leslie, Head of Networks at National Grid’s electricity system operator unit.
The majority of the U.K.’s wind capacity is in the North Sea. The network can’t always cope with moving all the electricity at once to where it’s needed so National Grid is sometimes forced to pay operators to stop turbines spinning.

National Grid is installing 48 smart valves on five of its circuits at three substations in northern England, making 500 megawatts of new network capacity available at each site. The work will be completed by the end of the year. The company is also considering rolling out the same technology at two more sites in the autumn, which would unlock a further 500 megawatts.

link to article

That’s the same for any type of power station.

Nuclear power stations take a lot longer to decommission and require more energy to do so compared to any other type of conventional electrical power station.

We've run large nuclear stations for decades, the grid can cope with one going off relatively suddenly. Though thermal generators (nuclear/gas/coal/etc.) don't generally go off instantly. Even though the heat source may trip out suddenly, the turbines generating the power spin down more slowly, which allows for other generators to be brought online.
More problematic are the renewables, which use solid-state converters to connect to the grid. Those do trip out instantly.

So as we shift the balance of the grid away from the thermal systems we're losing some of the resiliency we had before. The proper answer is more storage that can be brought online instantly (batteries?) or quickly (hydro?).

But as we've seen this year, there can be extended periods with very low wind and those weather patterns can extend further than just the UK so building more interconnectors won't necessarily save us. There has to be a reliable source of low carbon energy available that doesn't depend on the weather, at the moment nuclear is pretty much the only one that fits.

Back when coal was king, a number of stations were run under capacity so that in the event of a power station dropping off the grid, one or more stations could quickly run up to maximum capacity.

As with any complex system, there are many failure modes. It may not be the heat source (in the case of thermal generators) that fails.

With a system where there are many, many wind turbines, an individual turbine (or a group) dropping out is not significant. The same goes for any distributed power generation system.

Battery systems by their nature have to use solid state converters/inverter systems.

Of course more inter-connectors are not the whole answer. They are however a tool that can be usefully used, as now, if a power network has more capacity than needed and an adjacent power network has a current lack of capacity (or wishes to use spare renewable energy instead of running a fossil fuel station).

The main reason they are run flat out all the time is not because of technical limitations - its because fuel is almost free so there is almost always no point in ever reducing output.

Yes, currently electricity from nuclear power stations is sold to the grid at ‘any price’. But then the current output from nuclear is only 5.36GW, approximately only 13% of the supply.

Given the uncertainty of future prices for electricity generation, if we make the assumption that electricity from renewable sources such as wind turbines will be cheaper than electricity from nuclear power stations, if there is an excess of power generation, what then?

Will keeping a nuclear power station on standby be acceptable?

 

[HSTEd]

Will keeping a nuclear power station on standby be acceptable?

Ultimately it would be far better economically, in this hypothetical zero carbon future, to just install low capital cost electrolysis cells adjacent to the nuclear plant and run them whenever there is a surfeit of power on the grid.

Or, if the accountants weren't killing it, use Radio Teleswitch to turn on some immersion heaters.

 

[Meerkat]

I like the concept of filling all the spare mining shafts in the country with big weights on strings. Winch them up to the top when there is spare power, drop them down and generate power when you need it again. A use for old infrastructure that you have to maintain anyway, and low visual impact.

 

[Watershed]

I like the concept of filling all the spare mining shafts in the country with big weights on strings. Winch them up to the top when there is spare power, drop them down and generate power when you need it again. A use for old infrastructure that you have to maintain anyway, and low visual impact.

A similar concept is already used for pumped storage power stations. The question here would be how efficient it is, and how much storage you get.

 

[Annetts key]

I like the concept of filling all the spare mining shafts in the country with big weights on strings. Winch them up to the top when there is spare power, drop them down and generate power when you need it again. A use for old infrastructure that you have to maintain anyway, and low visual impact.

Forgive me if I have this wrong, but my understanding is that most mines were only kept ‘dry’ because pumps were in operation. If a mine is disused (hence no pumps running) I would have thought that ground water would have at least partially filled the mine.

So maybe rather than using a weight and winch system, if there is sufficient land on the surface, install a small/medium scale pumped water hydro-electric system.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Adding more nuclear power stations on there own are not the solution to dealing with sudden low wind conditions or covering for sudden failures of other generation systems. Conventional nuclear power power stations, being large thermal systems, are slow to bring online and once online, take some time to shutdown. You can’t just stop a nuclear reaction. Even when a site is not generating electricity, all the cooling systems have to be maintained to remove the heat that is still being generated (even though the control rods and other control systems will have reduced the amount of reactions).

yes but 20GW capacity is needed

Also, there must be consideration of how to cover a large nuclear power station suddenly going off line in the event of a failure or incident.

NG already have to plan for the biggest loss power station in having sufficient system margin at all times to cater for such an event.

Plus, it would be unwise to ‘put all our eggs in’ in only a couple of baskets.

we wouldn't be with wind solar battery and CCGTs oh and the odd bit of hydro.

We also need to have more high power inter-connector links to adjacent countries. As that helps even out some of the variably of wind power.

We already ransom ourselves with 5GW to a EU neighbours plus 1.4GW to Norway. More are coming online over next two years and would suggest we need to have enough UK based generation kept available even if mothballed to cover worst case scenario of being switched off.

To date the U.K. has done well in managing our electrical generation and distribution system as nearly all the coal power stations have been decommissioned. I don’t see why we cannot continue to make progress while continuing our record of a very reliable electrical power grid.

because the balance between variable renewable and know dispatchable power stations means with to carry much more back up and fast response generators now. NG have spent over a billion already this year on system balancing costs that never existed in CEGB days.

The primary objective is to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions (worldwide) to a low enough level that the planets natural processes can bring the concentration down. Trying to get to zero emissions of CO2 is unrealistic.

Agrred

Also, large conventional nuclear power power stations are not zero carbon energy sources. Although the power station itself does not emit much CO2, the fuel deliveries, the construction and the decommissioning all generates CO2.

So does the construction of wind turbines and solar cells nothing is truly zero.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

And EVERYTHING interferes with the environment in someway.

 

[Bald Rick]

I like the concept of filling all the spare mining shafts in the country with big weights on strings. Winch them up to the top when there is spare power, drop them down and generate power when you need it again. A use for old infrastructure that you have to maintain anyway, and low visual impact.

Nowhere near enough useful and deep mine shafts to make any meaningful dent in power demands. Even if you had 1000 deep mine shafts, each 1km deep (deeper than any coal mine in this country), and had a 5,000 tonne weight in each, and got 75% efficiency from the system (optimistically) you could power the country’s current average demand for 20 minutes.

There’s one company thinking really big on the subject. I don’t know what the power storage system equivalent of ’crayonista*’ is, but I suspect this is it.

Gravity Storage

A new solution for large scale energy storage Investing in the Future of Energy Storage The worldwide rapid construction of fluctuating renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar energy, has created an increasing demand for storing large quantities of energy at low costs. Further, energy...

heindl-energy.com

*I’m going to christen them “Watt-a-batterists”

 

[Meerkat]

Nowhere near enough useful and deep mine shafts to make any meaningful dent in power demands. Even if you had 1000 deep mine shafts, each 1km deep (deeper than any coal mine in this country), and had a 5,000 tonne weight in each, and got 75% efficiency from the system (optimistically) you could power the country’s current average demand for 20 minutes.

There’s one company thinking really big on the subject. I don’t know what the power storage system equivalent of ’crayonista*’ is, but I suspect this is it.

There's always some boring sod coming along and spoiling things with facts and numbers........
I assumed they weren't expected to keep things going, more as the instant response whilst the slower sources spool up - that's partly how pumped storage is used isn't it, and there aren't that many of those IIRC.

 

[JamesT]

There's always some boring sod coming along and spoiling things with facts and numbers........
I assumed they weren't expected to keep things going, more as the instant response whilst the slower sources spool up - that's partly how pumped storage is used isn't it, and there aren't that many of those IIRC.

There are 4 big pumped storage sites in the UK. They can spit out 2.8GW instantly and have a total capacity of 30GWh. Good for handling a big power station dropping out whilst you spin up a replacement, not so much for sustained demand.
I think you have to assume the best sites for pumped storage have already been chosen, so massively ramping up capacity won’t be easy.

 

[tomuk]

There are 4 big pumped storage sites in the UK. They can spit out 2.8GW instantly and have a total capacity of 30GWh. Good for handling a big power station dropping out whilst you spin up a replacement, not so much for sustained demand.
I think you have to assume the best sites for pumped storage have already been chosen, so massively ramping up capacity won’t be easy.

There were plans, now probably festering in the archives, to build a second Dinorwig pumped storage station on Dartmoor.

 

[Bald Rick]

There were plans, now probably festering in the archives, to build a second Dinorwig pumped storage station on Dartmoor.

two new pumped storage proposals live in Scotland, at least one is consented: Coire Glas. That will be 1.5GW and 30GWh.

Edit, two consented, the other is Red John at Loch Ness. 450MW, but ‘only’ 2.8GWh of capacity.

 

[alf]

Whilst this is technically true you would be surprised at the ramp rates nuclear units, especially modern units, are capable of.

The main reason they are run flat out all the time is not because of technical limitations - its because fuel is almost free so there is almost always no point in ever reducing output.

It is often said, as HSTd says, that nuclear power fuel is almost free.
It seems likely.
It would be interesting to know the marginal cost of running a nuclear power station.
What is the extra cost per 12 hours of switching from idling & producing no power to full economic generation for 12 hours?

Presumably it is just the cost of the weight of uranium isotope consumed in 12 hours & turned into heat.

If our railways are the biggest single user of UK electricity( but maybe not, street lighting?) & a key force in moving to a carbon free economy it could be argued they be charged the marginal cost ..which might be 0.5p per kWhour instead of the average cost of 20p a kWh.

 

[HSTEd]

It would be interesting to know the marginal cost of running a nuclear power station.
What is the extra cost per 12 hours of switching from idling & producing no power to full economic generation for 12 hours?

Presumably it is just the cost of the weight of uranium isotope consumed in 12 hours & turned into heat.

It is actually less than the weight of the fuel - because power cycling plants like this has actually been demonstrated to increase maintenance requirements, due to thermal cycling and what not.
But even ignoring the maintenance impact, the fuel cost is of the order of 1p/kWh of electricity.

 

[Annetts key]

It is often said, as HSTd says, that nuclear power fuel is almost free.
It seems likely.
It would be interesting to know the marginal cost of running a nuclear power station.
What is the extra cost per 12 hours of switching from idling & producing no power to full economic generation for 12 hours?

Presumably it is just the cost of the weight of uranium isotope consumed in 12 hours & turned into heat.

If our railways are the biggest single user of UK electricity( but maybe not, street lighting?) & a key force in moving to a carbon free economy it could be argued they be charged the marginal cost ..which might be 0.5p per kWhour instead of the average cost of 20p a kWh.

I’m not sure that ‘free’ or ‘almost free’ are particularly helpful here when describing the cost of nuclear fuel as obviously this is only one part of the overall cost of electricity generated by a nuclear power station.

Yes, the relative cost is very different to the fuel cost of a fossil fuel power station. But an off line fossil fuel power station once it’s cooled down requires minimal staffing and minimal power. It’s rather different for a nuclear power station that has to have enough staff to monitor and control the reaction and the cooling systems. And if the site is not producing electricity, this has to be imported from either the grid, or generated on site from diesel generators. As the control and cooling systems have to be maintained at all times.

I don’t know how big the railways are in terms of ‘single user’ of electricity. If you don’t include stations, depots and offices, non-electrified lines don’t use very much power. The main load being the signalling system (which is not that much really) unless the outside temperature drops to freezing or below. Then the point heating systems add quite a lot to the cost.

However, if you add everything up, overall the railways are a relatively big consumer. But how this compares to say a large supermarket chain (with all the lights, fridges and freezers) I don’t know.

 

[Bald Rick]

The railway is the single biggest user of electricity in the country. It takes about 1.5% of the total. However the marginal rate of generation is, of course, the most expensive, which is why the deal is done with a big baseload supplier. It’s safe to say that NRs electricity bill is at a substantial discount to the rate paid by domestic consumers.