What if, instead of paying for curtailed renewable power, NESO would use that budget to find the switch to individual heat pumps or heat pump fed district heating, possibly linked to (seasonal) solar or wind based heat storage? That could help absorb excess RES production locally while creating space on electricity grids.
Curtailment of renewable output will quickly rise to monstrous levels unless new markets can be developed for intermittent REe. A good candidate is massive thermal storage, heat reservoirs such as insulated waterproof pits, linked to district heating. Does not even have to be ultra-long duration interseasonal storage, as there is lots of wind output in the heating season. A short term answer that can sustain a fast roll-out is to use REe as available to displace gas heating, but Smart electricity tariffs need sorting. e.g. Low and negative prices at times.
This seems like you’ve estimated a future total annual demand and then estimated a future total annual supply using installed capacity multiplied by capacity factor. As long as the nuclear plus hydro plus solar plus wind exceed 95% of total annual demand you determine clean power was achieved. Am I wrong?
That is a very different approach to NESO which looked (albeit for only one year) at each half hour interval and generated the balance. Under this more realistic measure huge investment is needed at rates far exceeding current and historical build rates.
Which measure is “better” probably depends. Personally I believe NESO approach is more realistic of how the market will play out and what the resultant grid emission factor will be.
Without running any numbers I’d kind of assumed that Ed would hold back on decarbonising heat up to 2030 so as to not jeopardise CP2030, but after 2030 (assuming they are still in power) would push for clean heat 2040
I'm not sure I understand what you say. I don't think holding back is going to help anything - I don't see how the NESO's clean power plan is going to be impacted.
no I don't think so - we need to power as much heat off electricity asap - usually via heat pumps or heat pump supplied district heating - as fast as possible. Even now it will be several times more low carbon than gas heating. For starters every years over 200k new homes are being built with gas boilers!
I totally agree, but more heat pumps now make Ed’s 2030 target harder to achieve while more heat pumps after 2030 don’t. More gas boilers now actually help Ed
It’s not being managed to decarbonise in the best way, it’s being managed to win the election cycles
What if, instead of paying for curtailed renewable power, NESO would use that budget to find the switch to individual heat pumps or heat pump fed district heating, possibly linked to (seasonal) solar or wind based heat storage? That could help absorb excess RES production locally while creating space on electricity grids.
Curtailment of renewable output will quickly rise to monstrous levels unless new markets can be developed for intermittent REe. A good candidate is massive thermal storage, heat reservoirs such as insulated waterproof pits, linked to district heating. Does not even have to be ultra-long duration interseasonal storage, as there is lots of wind output in the heating season. A short term answer that can sustain a fast roll-out is to use REe as available to displace gas heating, but Smart electricity tariffs need sorting. e.g. Low and negative prices at times.
This seems like you’ve estimated a future total annual demand and then estimated a future total annual supply using installed capacity multiplied by capacity factor. As long as the nuclear plus hydro plus solar plus wind exceed 95% of total annual demand you determine clean power was achieved. Am I wrong?
That is a very different approach to NESO which looked (albeit for only one year) at each half hour interval and generated the balance. Under this more realistic measure huge investment is needed at rates far exceeding current and historical build rates.
Which measure is “better” probably depends. Personally I believe NESO approach is more realistic of how the market will play out and what the resultant grid emission factor will be.
Without running any numbers I’d kind of assumed that Ed would hold back on decarbonising heat up to 2030 so as to not jeopardise CP2030, but after 2030 (assuming they are still in power) would push for clean heat 2040
I'm not sure I understand what you say. I don't think holding back is going to help anything - I don't see how the NESO's clean power plan is going to be impacted.
If clean heat takes off now demand will rise and achieving CP2030 more difficult, so it needs to be kept ticking over but not pushed
no I don't think so - we need to power as much heat off electricity asap - usually via heat pumps or heat pump supplied district heating - as fast as possible. Even now it will be several times more low carbon than gas heating. For starters every years over 200k new homes are being built with gas boilers!
I totally agree, but more heat pumps now make Ed’s 2030 target harder to achieve while more heat pumps after 2030 don’t. More gas boilers now actually help Ed
It’s not being managed to decarbonise in the best way, it’s being managed to win the election cycles