German energy.
Ray Furlong writes: "This week we've been looking at renewable energies. In Germany, the renewable sector is booming - while ours is still in its nappies. Germany's success is largely due to a system called Feed-In Tariffs, where anyone can use renewables to generate electricity - and then sell it back to the energy companies for a guaranteed and inflated price." There will be more on the programme tonight - Ray has sent these photos.
This one was taken by the people at this place, the Innovation Academy at Baden-Wuertemberg.
Below is Fritz Merkle and his solar roof:
And Ray recommends this link: this is tipped as being good for general info.
Listen to PM
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~03~RS~)
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We had two windmills on our farm, but we took one of them down. We found we didn't have enough wind for two.
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Eddie – You are a very intelligent man, so why do you assume that each one per cent of wind power will save one per cent of fossil fuel from being burnt? With hundreds of wind turbines now operational, our power stations still burn the same amount of fossil fuel on windy days as they do on windless days. The reason is quite simple – the grid has a statutory obligation to guarantee meeting any anticipated peak in demand, plus 20% extra in case of system breakdown, and although what we consume is generated at the instant we use it - the conversion of fossil fuel into steam has have already taken place to make that possible. And Eddie, as the wind doesn’t blow but gusts, there is no way of harmonising wind force with our demand – therefore the grid controllers will never reduce the amount available from conventional sources because of a favourable wind forecast.
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Just a thought; Germany is a Federal state, where the Laender (or regions) have considerable autonomy from the Berlin Govt.
Does that make it easier for them to get these kinds of projects adopted quickly?
(for the pedants; no typo above, I just don't know how to put an umlauted 'a' into L*nder, so I chucked in the implied 'e')
WR.
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White Rat (3),
I thought the German spelling reform removed all umlauts and stuck in the "e" after the vowel in consequence. So "fuer" instead of "für", and Laender instead of Länder.
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Did you know that in this country power stations are not obliged to generate power?
That was one of the most gob-smacking facts I picked up on a visit to Ratcliffe power station a couple of years ago.
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DeepT;
Is that right? When did that happen?
Maybe it's the influence of the Web, where addresses have to be broadly in un-accented letters? The Academie Francaise must hate it, no acutes/graves/cedillas and so on.
Fifi, yep that's right. During bidding for contracts to supply (set in 30 minute slots) each generator offers whatever plant it wishes and names the price it wants for power from each genset. If they choose not to offer the plant (even if it's available) then that's their business.
There were suspicions in the last month of forms of market-rigging by at least one generating company, which kept its plant out of the bidding process, hoping to leave the electricity pool short of power. That requires National Grid to purchase power from them at the (far, far higher) reserve price to fill the demand. Thus putting up their profits dramatically. Reported in the 'Times' just after the recent scare when a decent number of consumers lost their supply and the system was creaking under the lack of available power. Grid had to reduce the voltage across the country to maintain the amps in the wires.
WR.
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Ha!
When I posted (4), the umlauts on the u and a showed up correctly in preview *and* after I had posted.
Few minutes later, they are converted to question marks. Explanation, please!
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White Rat (6)
"German Spelling reform" on W*k*p*d** gives a lot about what is happening to german spelling, but does not mention the status of the umlaut.
However at this time, a lot of our translations came back with not an umlaut in sight, so I thought it was part and parcel of the reform in general. But not mentioned in this article.
In any case, the French definately are *not* losing their accents, even if the ^ does nothing in practice - I think it means that there used to be the letter "s" after the vowel it is placed over.
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Genfly may or may not be intelligent, I have no way of knowing, but he/she is certainly ignorant of the whole field of wind power and renewable energy if she/he thinks the same old objection - wind doesn't blow steadily, it gusts - is worth repeating. Ever heard of storage? Every heard of batteries? Ever heard of the myriad of ways energy can be stored until needed?
1. Pump water up hill using excess energy, let it down through turbines when that energy is needed.
2. Do the same with compressed air, which can also drive turbines when released.
3. Reservoirs already store huge amounts of water, turbines fitted where the water exits equals energy.
4. Electric cars, charged at night on off-peak electricity, use it during the day. A million cars is a million batteries.
There are many more ways energy can be stored, either in the form of electricity, or as heat or any other form of latent energy. The intermittent nature of wind is no bar to using it to generate power. And we are not talking about just one site, the wind is unlikely to be still across the whole of the country ever.
I'd like to see some evidence that 'With hundreds of wind turbines now operational, our power stations still burn the same amount of fossil fuel on windy days as they do on windless days' rather than bald statements like this without a shred of proof.
Now you're a very intelligent man Eddie, you can understand that can't you? I wonder why Genfly fails to.
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Petepassword (9),
Of your list:
(1) is already done somewhere in Snowdonia, and used to take the baseload's excess at night.
(2) is tricky, although one or two plants do this, (e.g. into a german salt-mine), but also an interesting pilot project in the US does this (a recent New Scientist for more details).
(3) Reservoirs for power and storing water; not sure how viable this is, because the generator will reduce the water pressure, but then have to boost the water pressure to deliver to homes - suspect no gain here.
(4) Of course already done with milk floats and the few electric cars there are already. I suspect there are a lot of hurdles before there are sufficient electric cars to make this significant use of electricity at night.
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Does anyone know how big a windmill will have to be to produce enough electricity for one house?
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I’m afraid, Petepassword, the grid is not a storage reservoir, what we don’t use at one instant isn’t available in the next instant - that is why 79% of the power made available by the grid every 24 hours isn’t used, so called off-peak power, that is because we randomly kept switching items on and off (longer off than on) and the grid has to assume that we may switch many on at the same time.
Of course we could use wind power to pump water uphill, as you say, to produce a reservoir of potential energy, the problem with such schemes is they have a very short duty cycle and a very long recharging cycle, so their overall efficiency is extremely low, they could never be cost effective as there is no way of guaranteeing they will be charged when we need them. Wind power could also be rectified to supply its own d.c. grid to charge replaceable batteries for electric vehicle – now this is a good idea – however, we would need hundreds of battery swap stations to be build, before we revert to electric vehicles, and be prepared swap their batteries at drive through service stations every 100 miles or so. Drop down emergency wind turbines generations have been installed in many commercial airlines but no designed has ever been foolish enough to parallel their output with the aircrafts grid.
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Deep 7, This blog ain't very up to date with umlauts, the pound sign, etc.
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Genfly,
A simple question for us ignoramouses. Can you explain where all this unused wind power goes? Your entry @2 looks like the reverse of perpetual motion.
I had understood that if you keep putting too much energy into the grid then the voltage and/or frequecy will go up. Neither of which is good practice.
Petepassword @9. Option 5 is to use electricity to make hydrogen. If we are to have the government's preferred option of hydrogen-powered cars then this has to be made possible, and will permit storage and long-distance distribution with much lower energy loss than the current grid.
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Nigel_N the voltage and frequency output of all generators connected to the grid is the same as the grid, what determines what percentage of the total load each generator supplies is proportional to its relative phase angle (how much internally its three phases leads or lags the grid) if it leads it takes more of the load, if it lags it can be taking nothing or even act as a drag on the grid, (like two on a fixed wheel tandem – both peddling at the same speed but the one applying more power take the load whilst the one lagging takes none, or maybe even applying drag). So which generator is supplying the kettle you have just switch on is determined by which has the greater reserves of turning power (torque) at this very instant. The chances of that being from a wind turbine is the square root of nothing, and as its torque (not its spin) is proportional to each gust of wind even if it supplying some now it will not be by the end of this sentence.
And as the notion that our roof top micro-generator can supply the grid assumes its turbine produces more torque than a steam turbine
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Genfly (15) and others,
More likely any excess power from a rooftop photo-voltaic/wind generator system will *not* go to the grid; it'll just be used by neighbours or other neighbourhood power users. You don't actually put your power into the grid at 40kV or whatever, "the Grid".
The German example on PM, where it's better for the guy to sell his entire output at E0.49/kWh and then buy what he needs at a lower rate - the effect of the feed-in tariff - does seem rather daft - why not power his own home first!
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Renewable energy is our future.
:)
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All very neat and tidy isn`t. Germany. That reminds me I must cut my hedge tomorrow.
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Does anyone know what the price difference is between what German energy companies pay to microgenerators vs what UK companies (like Good Energy and Ecotricity) are paying?
Dale Vince (Ecotricity founder) has been saying on his Zerocarbonista blog recently that ROCs (Renewables Obligations Certificates) are pretty much OK, and that FITs are not going to change things much at all.
Planning consent - now there is an issue. And feeding into that is the NIMBY's and the idiots (some of whom are commenting here) who thing there is some kind of green conspiracy to make their lives miserable and poop the oil party. Guys... the earth is not limitless in it's resources.
THERE ARE NOT PLENTY MORE FISH IN THE SEA!!!
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Firstly a reflective moment while I read back my own post...
3 mistakes I spotted:
1. I used the 'i' word - that was a bit harsh and 'flamey'
2. There aren't any idiots on this thread (it was the other renewable one that had some loons on)
3. How did 'think' become 'thing'..?
I blame that extra cup of coffee
Anyway - back to the point...
Energy storage *is* important and will become increasingly so. We can't rely on the sun's energy stored as coal, oil and gas for much longer... We might be lucky and still be burning it till the end of our lifetimes - but it will surely cost us!
Genfly (and others that know how the grid works) - doesn't it feel a little awkward when you have to explain that 'the grid is not a storage reservoir' ? I mean, it is a fact, but it's a fact that's not only counter-intuitive but also highly illogical!
Here we are burning all this increasing expensive and scarce carbon rich stuff and creating loads of nuclear waste that we can only bury - and most of the time we aren't even using all the electricity produced and we aren't able to save it!
To me it feels soooo last century - like having to make lots of little explosions in a metal case to make wheels turn round in order to provide personal transport... ;-)
I don't know as much about the science involved as some of the people here, but I do know that the grid *needs* to be a storage reservoir...
We get fairly reliable powercuts in our village during heavy weather -I have lost one expensive PC to a power surge - I need a UPS. I would like to drive an electric vehicle to work... I can't afford microgen, but the village could do with CHP and Biogas (we don't get mains gas but have a sewage processing plant that could be converted to produce biogas)...
If the will was there - it wouldn't take much to join the dots and create a new grid - a grid 2.0 (Rebecca Wills coined that term I believe) that could actually come close to allowing life to continue as we know it in a world of post-peak oil (and coal and natural gas).
I think when we talk about a renewable future - we need to try and move on from our present illogical practices and addictions and instead envision a future that is informed by mistakes of the past, but that doesn't continue to make them. We need a vision to give us something positive and viable to believe in - so we can innovate in that direction. And we will make it so if we want to.
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There is no substitute for a scientific education. Arts wont cut it.
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Any and all forms of energy are welcome in this time of crisis....
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RJMolesworth - I think you will find that the most innovative solutions come from polymaths ;-)
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Quite right. Should have said arts alone won't cut it.
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Every new house built in the UK could have a zero energy footprint. In Denmark, houses are so energy efficient that occupants don’t turn on their heating until the outside temperature falls below minus 20 degrees! If almost half of our energy use (should we say wastage?) goes upon heating the UK’s building stock, how much could be saved by this single measure?
Michael Sosner,
Wales
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Hey, I know, why doesn't some nice company develop, ooh say, much more efficient and cheaper solar PV panels based on commonly available molecules. Then we won't have to worry so much about feed-in tariffs etc, because solar PV will become economically viable without subsidies.
Hold on, isn't that what my company has been trying to do for a while now, and yet is finding it almost impossible to get sufficient funding? Solar panels made out of plant leaves anyone? (well, actually certain molecular complexes extracted therefrom, but you get the idea)
Really green energy!
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oops just posted this on the wrong thread sorry mods
There is an E-petition asking for "regulation setting 'feed in tariffs' for renewable energy production, along the lines of the German model" at;
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Feed-In-Tarrifs/
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In pm today, Eddie mentioned home gas boilers producing electricity in the Netherlands and Germany. Micro-generation! Fanatstic: surely the answer to the whole power equation! Where can we buy such boilers?
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@ 28
ynda20 - I presume that Eddie was talking about Combined Heat and Power units (CHP) - they are more suited to community use, but there are domestic versions being developed called microCHP.
You can find out more about CHP here: http://www.chpa.co.uk/
Hydrogen fuel cell based CHP could be interesting, as electricity from wind or other variable sources can be used to create hydrogen as a form of storage and would require very little carbon in the process.
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Germany has set a great example in front of whole world.A developed and G-8 member has shown that it is on the way to cut carbon di oxide emmissions by using these technologies of renewable energy sources.Other nations should follow the suit.
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I get very annoyed now that the government keeps boasting that the UK is Number 1 in Europe in terms of wind energy. We have only just overtaken Denmark, a country with little more than one tenth of our population, and the Danish wind turbine industry has been allowed to get such a head start that it supplies most of our wind farms.
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