Bishop Hill Salmond's leap
Aug 11, 2012 Energy: grid OilPrice.com features an interview with Scotland's green-energy-obsessed First Minister, Alex Salmond. Here's an excerpt.
Oilprice.com: Scotland is famously doing very well in achieving its renewable energy goals with provisional generation statistics confirming that 2011 was a record year for renewable generation in Scotland, up 28.1 % from the previous record in 2009. Your well publicized target is 100% renewable electricity by 2020. How are you coming along with that? Is this figure really achievable?
Alex Salmond: Our Electricity Generation Policy Statement confirms that our 100% renewable electricity is technically feasible although we are not complacent and accept that it will be challenging. Delivery of the target will require around 16GW of capacity. We currently have almost 5GW operational. With a further 3.3 GW consented or operational and over 20GW in planning or scoping we are confident that the target can be delivered.
These numbers don't seem to quite stack up. Peak demand in Scotland appears to be 6GW, and an optimistic assessment of wind turbine efficiency would be 20% or so. Therefore, to meet peak demand you'd need 30GW of capacity. If Salmond is assuming that he can double the efficiency of wind farms then it's quite a leap.
Reader Comments (26)
Don't they have a lot of hydroelectric as well?
Your Grace
You are making the big assumption that Mr Salmond is technically literate. From the rest of his pronouncements over the years, I don't think that is a valid pronouncements. Unfortunately, he is like most politicians nowadays, who don't have the courage of their convictions but whose actions are driven by focus groups and speak in soundbites.
Meanwhile, in a you-couldn't-make-it-up speech, also relating, however, to government green-energy policy, it appears (according to http://www.politicshome.com/uk/story/28610/ ) that Danny Alexander :-
'The Chief Secretary fo[r] the Treasury will criticise his Coalition partners for blocking green policies and trying to force through changes to employment law "without clear, robust evidence". '
Anyone else see a touch of irony in that combination of his two complaints?
Just come back down south from a week in Scotland. The number of wind "turbines" spoiling beautiful countryside has certainly increased. What surprised me was how many weren't turning, despite a light breeze. Last night the NETA website showed large imports of electricity from France. What's going on?
How much of our (Scottish) wind power is being donated by the accursed English?
Interestingly enough according to BME reports the WHOLE of the UK (his included) wind output for the last 24 hours has been 656 MWe, 2% of the total. This has dropped to 1% in the last half hour. This, compared to 37.5% from coal and 6% from the French nuclear power stations.
So good luck with your target Alex
Ivor Ward
Salmond is a confidence trickster. The only way the Scots can have 100% renewables is if they revert to crofting and sail trawling and England become a dumping ground for excess wind energy. The other part of the con. is for Scotland to use England's fossil and nuclear plant as standby at 1/3rd the price they get for wind power.
This is another Darien Gap scheme by stupid Scots [the clever ones have emigrated yet again].
Isn't the SNP wish to export electricity to England as well. I wonder if they have included that as well. But there again in political terms, 2020 is a long way off.
Energy Minister Fergus Ewing said:
"I welcome this major investment in the electricity grid between Scotland and England. Scotland is already a net exporter of electricity, and this link will help us more than double our electricity exports to England from Scotland by 2020."
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/Releases/2012/02/electric16022012
It's all smoke and mirrors. Scotland needs to meet the target of producing enough renewable electricity to meet tha annual average demand. That doesn't mean Scotland will meet its peak demand or will only use renewable electricity. At times of excessive generation it will hope sufficient new grid capacity is built to export the surplus and at times of low wind (and hydroelectricity), it will import electricity through those same grid lines. Because of the huge subsidies, the rest of the UK will be subsidising Scotland's renewable electricity.
Those foreign companies owning the wind farms will be the main benefactors and the Scottish landscape and thus tourism will be the main losers, together with all electricity consumers and the economy, which will go down the pan as industry relocates to those countries with a sensible energy policy.
Dividing peak demand of 6GW by 20% annual capacity factor to get 30GW as the needed capacity as done in the head post is a meaningless calculation.
Since 20% is an average over a year, to reliably supply the 6GW peak using only renewable sources and no storage capability, the installed capacity would have to be much, much greater. Even 100GW of installed wind turbine capacity would often fail to deliver 6GW of power.
As you add more storage capability (battery banks, pumped hydro, etc) you can shave the peaks. In the limit, you only need to have an installed generating capacity of _average_ load times the annual capacity factor.
I suspect that First Minister assumes the equivalent of infinite storage --- that any excess wind power is used in England, and returned later when Scottish demand exceeds the instantaneous generating capacity.
Bush, you make the mistake as the wind fanatics. It won't be enough to have 20% x 30 because that is only a long term average output. On any day it could be 2% x 30 or a mere 0.6 gw. How will Scotland fair then?
Salmond mentions ''hydrogen'' as a renewable (?). Hydrogen requires a lot of electrical energy to generate, difficult to store due to high leakage rates, gives poor performance when compared to petrol, and is very dangerous to handle. Apart from those problems hydrogen is OK but it is not renewable in the true sense of the word.
Aug 11, 2012 at 11:18 AM John Marshall
.... hydrogen is OK but it is not renewable in
the trueany sense of the word."If Salmond is assuming that he can double the efficiency of wind farms then it's quite a leap."
Well I noticed - chuckle.
Renewable is not just wind, hydro must be in this mix somewhere (I think we can ignore solar), how does that affect the figures?
Let us assume he achieves 100% renewables predominantly through additional wind mills. If Scotland stays in the UK they will receive huge feed in tariffs from the rest of the UK. However, if Scotland votes to become an independent nation they will have the most expensive electricity in Europe, which will surely frighten off investors. Does Salmond really want independence?
Does Salmond really want independence?
He really wants a referendum on independence to keep his supporters happy, once he has lost it he can continue to play the subsidy game, which he is good at but being a accomplished subsidy junky is hardly someone you would want to look up to.
Wind energy production requires 100% stand-by back up. There is NO hydro power in Scotland (AFAIK) that provides a 'continuous' source of electricity - they are intended for peak period production only. Any claim that Scotland can survive on wind generated power is pure fallacy. Salmond needs to be brought to task.
David C
According to the neta website http://www.bmreports.com/bsp/bsp.php non-pumped-storage hydro is currently providing 315MW to the national grid. I guess that most of that is Scottish. When I visited Skye a couple of years ago, their 1950s hydro plant was not switched on due lack of water. Fortunately Skye is now on the grid.
I must agree with Jockdownsouth.
I was in the hills between Stirling and Fintry on Wednesday and only one of the nine huge ugly things was going round. In retrospect it seems that it was being powered by the grid to stop it seizing up.......There was no discernible wind that day.
To use that wonderful Scottish expression, Alex Salmond is 'awa' with the faeries...'
In the past few days (Olympic sailing cancelled on Thursday due to NO WIND) - wind contribution to UK electricity demand has been below 0.1% at 30MW - or 0.6% of 'nameplate' available capacity, whatever makes you laugh the most.
I can't wait for the Climate Change Act to come into force, because in 2020 30% of demand has to be met by renewables. This must assume that there is a clause in the Act to require the wind to blow 24/7 steadily at 25 knots across the whole UK, otherwise there'll be days when we get the conditions mentioned above. That mustn't happen - because the government has decided that it can't be deflected from is blundering lunacy...
David: awa' with the faeries is quite common amongst non-technological politicians. Thus in California, the State Legislature imagines it can control Ca's climate: http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/08/10/california-government-now-controls-the-climate/
'They have a super secret El Nino/La Nina switch in Sacramento.'
These control freaks have been given the opportunity to micro-manage the lives of everybody yet the IPCC science has been faked by 6 bad mistakes.
David C, 11:57am - "hydro must be in this mix somewhere"
Dave_g, 12:12pm - "There is NO hydro power in Scotland (AFAIK) that provides a 'continuous' source of electricity"
I'm not claiming any expertise, but I understand that the definition of "renewable energy" dictated by the EU (or perhaps some other undemocratic enforcing agency) does not include non pumped storage hydro. That is why it's shown separately on the Neta website. Thus Cruachan pumped storage is renewable but Loch Faskally hydro power station at Pitlochry isn't. Hydro power, is, however, the most instantly available so at the end of Andy Murray's gold medal winning performance (or more boringly a "major" East Enders episode), they turn on the turbines at Pitlochry. There is little incentive to use non pumped storage hydro as a base source and I suspect much (most?) of the water is allowed to flow unused over most of the dams most of the time.
Simply call Salmond's bluff.
Ask him if by 1/1/2021 he'll have disconnected Scotland from the (English) grid. Oh the irony.
It's a renewable electricity policy, rather than a complete renewable energy policy, so it starts off on a lame footing in my opinion, however...
The secret is to drastically reduce electricity demand to the point where the planned capacity (16-20GW) can fill the demand (1GW ?).
This could be achieved by making everyone to switch from electrical to gas heating, cooking, and lighting. Smart meter technology could be used to optimise remaining electrical demand, since if the users are disconnected from the supply they are not technically demanding electricity, therefore the supply can meet demand perfectly.
Simples.
Where to start with Mr Salmond eh?
One has to assume that politicians (or anybody for that matter) don't know everything and that authoritative advice should be sought to correct cases of ignorance. Mr Salmond is either a stupid berk or is monumentally ill informed / briefed by people who are...
Hubris personified it looks like from here.