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Interesting insight into the Grid economics

see here, it is the cost of wind to us all.

wattsupwiththat.com/2022/01/21/grid-balancing-costs-rocket/

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  • I don't know why people might think Germany is having poor experience with wind energy. We are not. We are having a good experience, rather better in fact than anticipated when the decision was made many moons ago to proceed with the Energiewende, as it is called. 

    A good place to start to inform oneself about the German renewable energy stats is https://www.bmwi.de/Redaktion/EN/Dossier/renewable-energy.html although this is from 2017. This says the contribution from wind turbines (in 2017) was 18.6% of total. It has gone up since 2017.

    The short report on "renewables" for 2020 https://www.erneuerbare-energien.de/EE/Navigation/DE/Service/Erneuerbare_Energien_in_Zahlen/Aktuelle-Informationen/aktuelle-informationen.html   (in German) says that the contribution from renewables was 41.8% in 2019 and 45.3% in 2020, this rise largely due to favourable wind conditions. Of course, if conditions can be "favourable", they can also be "unfavourable". 

    Anyone who is concerned on a regular basis with the development of renewable energy in Germany, and can read German, can read the monthly government reports on it available from https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/themen/klima-energie/erneuerbare-energien/erneuerbare-energien-in-zahlen/monats-quartalsdaten-der-agee-stat#datenaktualisierung-und-konsistenz which are full of detailed graphical comparisons. 

    One major difference with the UK, as I have pointed out before, is the entirely different economic structure under which this public good is supplied. For a critical look at the UK situation under a shortage of gas supply, see https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/19/big-six-energy-providers-bailout-cost-of-living-crisis 

    German consumers pay quite a lot for electricity in comparison with neighbours, it is true. The flip side to that is that heating does not supervene on electricity supply to any great extent. People don't use electric-power space heaters. (I do; I have a Dyson hot+cool for when spot heat is necessary.) Buildings are generally heated by hot water from a central boiler and have been for well over a century (my heating structure; exposed pipes and radiators, is 115 years old). Most forms of heating, of course, do depend nowadays do depend on some electricity to run the control systems.

    And now for the spoiler. Yes, grid balancing and control for turbines does come at some cost in supply. But of course it can be done in the wind farms themselves. If you are a wind farm, it seems to be cheaper at the moment to have other plant do it for you. But if that gets to be a system-wide problem, you just put in the kit to do it yourself. 

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  • I don't know why people might think Germany is having poor experience with wind energy. We are not. We are having a good experience, rather better in fact than anticipated when the decision was made many moons ago to proceed with the Energiewende, as it is called. 

    A good place to start to inform oneself about the German renewable energy stats is https://www.bmwi.de/Redaktion/EN/Dossier/renewable-energy.html although this is from 2017. This says the contribution from wind turbines (in 2017) was 18.6% of total. It has gone up since 2017.

    The short report on "renewables" for 2020 https://www.erneuerbare-energien.de/EE/Navigation/DE/Service/Erneuerbare_Energien_in_Zahlen/Aktuelle-Informationen/aktuelle-informationen.html   (in German) says that the contribution from renewables was 41.8% in 2019 and 45.3% in 2020, this rise largely due to favourable wind conditions. Of course, if conditions can be "favourable", they can also be "unfavourable". 

    Anyone who is concerned on a regular basis with the development of renewable energy in Germany, and can read German, can read the monthly government reports on it available from https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/themen/klima-energie/erneuerbare-energien/erneuerbare-energien-in-zahlen/monats-quartalsdaten-der-agee-stat#datenaktualisierung-und-konsistenz which are full of detailed graphical comparisons. 

    One major difference with the UK, as I have pointed out before, is the entirely different economic structure under which this public good is supplied. For a critical look at the UK situation under a shortage of gas supply, see https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/19/big-six-energy-providers-bailout-cost-of-living-crisis 

    German consumers pay quite a lot for electricity in comparison with neighbours, it is true. The flip side to that is that heating does not supervene on electricity supply to any great extent. People don't use electric-power space heaters. (I do; I have a Dyson hot+cool for when spot heat is necessary.) Buildings are generally heated by hot water from a central boiler and have been for well over a century (my heating structure; exposed pipes and radiators, is 115 years old). Most forms of heating, of course, do depend nowadays do depend on some electricity to run the control systems.

    And now for the spoiler. Yes, grid balancing and control for turbines does come at some cost in supply. But of course it can be done in the wind farms themselves. If you are a wind farm, it seems to be cheaper at the moment to have other plant do it for you. But if that gets to be a system-wide problem, you just put in the kit to do it yourself. 

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