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The Quiet Driving Force Behind Rising Curtailment Costs in Great Britain

59 points by jayflux 1y ago

mytailorisrich 1y ago
> Well, that brings us to the oft-ignored elephant in the room: transmission capacity. This is a well-known issue in the UK, which impacts new solar and wind projects but also charging stations, and large-scale charging in general, and even new developments in areas of too much demand.
- benrutter 1y ago
  Yeah - I wondered about how "quiet" this driving force was. It's certainly a big issue, but the network operator (NESO) published a big paper after the government asked them to suggest how achievable net-0 by 2030 was, which really specifically called out the need for much larger transmission capacity. I work in the energy sector and hear it mentioned a lot, but I don't really see it published in the media a lot. In all honesty, most of the dialogue around energy is just unhelpful and partisan - a lot of it seems critical of the idea of a cleaner network, mainly on the assertion that it's making things more expensive. My understanding is that the opposite is true, but either way, I don't often see much discussion of anything past "clear energy bad".
  - amiga386 1y ago
    My understanding - from https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crkep1vx3mro https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crkep1vx3mro - is that. 1. Gas-powered electricity generation sets the wholesale rate (for _all_ forms of generation) more often than not, and gas is expensive, especially after we had to find alternative sources in order to punish Russia for invading Ukraine. 2. Other than the wholesale rate, we need to _build_ all this clean energy, we need to attract investment, and it's our promise to pay for that CapEx over 15-20 years (the strike price) that we'll be paying for in our bills once gas is out of the picture, moreso than the actual cost of generation. Also, Tories in 2023 failed to attract any investment, no capacity added: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66749344 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66749344 Whereas Labour in 2025: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly8ynegwn4o https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly8ynegwn4o ... we will find out if this worked, after the auction is finished and they announce the results (around November 2025 - February 2026)
  - pjc50 1y ago
    > In all honesty, most of the dialogue around energy is just unhelpful and partisan That's just the media. No interest in making things actually work, just in covering the fight, and quite often sponsored by fossil fuel backers or weird overseas media monopolists.
throwawayben 1y ago
it is insane to me that they rejected moving to zonal pricing. zonal pricing would give incentive to move power demand closer to production, create costs to nimby-ism, and give the benefits of lower costs to those who live closer. but it might make energy cost more down here in the south east and (in particular) London while benefiting the North and Scotland so we can't have that
- mytailorisrich 1y ago
  They abandoned it because it does not solve anything and it is political suicide. Most people would have ended being forced to pay more than they already pay without alternative, so would not have helped solve grid constraints, either.
  - throwawayben 1y ago
    Could you explain more? It appears economically self evident to me that it would improve the situation but I'm not in the industry and there's probably much I don't understand. I would say that improving transmission seems like a much better solution but again I think zonal pricing can help there as it could then be more easily sold to the public as being able to import the cheaper (say) Scottish energy to your local zone, whereas at the moment there's no apparent direct cost associated with blocking pylon projects forever.
    - RobotToaster 1y ago
      The majority of the population live in regions that would become more expensive. Additionally the majority of Scottish constituencies vote for their nationalist party, so the major national parties don't have any chance of getting seats from Scotland, where energy prices may fall slightly under such a scheme.
      - mytailorisrich 1y ago
        > The majority of the population live in regions that would become more expensive. Yes, and if you are an individual, family, or even the vast majority of businesses you aren't going to move to Scotland over this, you are going to pay, no choice. So effectively this would have increased bills for most people, so bad politically, with only a marginal change to demand.
ZeroConcerns 1y ago
Yeah, this whole "let's sell off state-owned infrastructure on the Free Market" hasn't worked out so well: not only in the UK, but also elsewhere in Europe, the handsome profits of those moves have pretty much evaporated, investments in upgrades have been severely lacking, and now everyone is pointing fingers due to the inevitable capacity meltdowns. (Note that I'm not opposed to privatization in general, and it has worked out very well in other sectors, noticeably Telecoms, but I'm not aware of it bringing long-term happiness anywhere when it comes to Energy)
- philipallstar 1y ago
  > the inevitable capacity meltdowns Capacity is constantly being hit by very large population growth. Just like water and housing. Money available is lowered by state-enforced price caps. Purchase prices are raised by state-mandated net zero rules that subsidise green sources.
  - adolph 1y ago
    > Capacity is constantly being hit by very large population growth. What population growth? https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/uk-population/ https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/uk-population...
    - mytailorisrich 1y ago
      The UK has experienced the 2 largest annual growth on record in the last 5 years, with +755k mid-23 to mid-2024 alone [1]. Even your link shows about 11% growth since 2010 and higher growth rates since ~2004. So we can argue about what "very large" means, but population growth is significant. [1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/bulletins/annualmidyearpopulationestimates/mid2024 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populati...
      - onraglanroad 1y ago
        > about 11% growth since 2010 So much less than 1% a year. > we can argue about what "very large" means Yeah, you can argue that less than 1% a year is "very large". I'm not sure anyone else will be convinced.
fragmede 1y ago
> This usually means turning wind farm output down in Scotland, because we can’t safely export it south, and replacing that energy in the South, typically with gas generation. Thats super fucked!
thelastgallon 1y ago
There are two things we can do with energy, move it across space or move it across time. Moving it across space requires transmission infrastructure (which is state owned or rapacious corp owned -- very slow to build or upgrade; rent seeking, regulatory capture). The other option is to move across time, which is using batteries. Cars are rarely driven more than ~20 mins/day which make them the ideal energy storage devices. We could even say their primary purpose is energy storage. Just like today's 'phones' are no longer for making calls but for content consumption. When all cars are EVs and can do V2X (vehicle to grid, to load, to home, to anything), it becomes a gigantic, resilient, distributed energy reservoir. For providing this service, all car (EV) owners must be paid to give the utilities permission to dump excess production and to supply energy back to the grid when needed. Right now, most of the electricity costs are from peak costs (mostly peaker electricity costs). There is no reason that this infrastructure can't be provided by the EV car owners.
- mishagale 1y ago
  Bear in mind that in the UK, a large chunk of the populations lives in either rented accommodation, high-rise flats, or both. And also, standard housing policy in London is for new developments to have fewer parking spaces than homes (to encourage public transport use over cars). For many people in the UK, having an EV charging port on the side of your house isn't possible, because they don't have a house, or they don't have a parking space near their house.
  - edent 1y ago
    Well, lots of terraced houses and flats do have a garage or off-street parking. Mine certainly did. Depending on which research you believe, only 25% of homes don't have a dedicated space - https://www.field-dynamics.co.uk/25-drivers-no-off-street-parking/ https://www.field-dynamics.co.uk/25-drivers-no-off-street-pa... and https://www.racfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/standing_still_off_street_parking_by_LA_A-Z.pdf https://www.racfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/standing_st... Lots of local authorities are installing on-street charging. Basically, the vast majority of people in the UK do have off-street parking. Running a cable to a garage or from a street-lamp isn't overly expensive. Those who park on public streets also have lots of options for charging.
diklon 1y ago
Here is a really good write up of this topic from 2023: https://archy.deberker.com/the-uk-is-wasting-a-lot-of-wind-power/ https://archy.deberker.com/the-uk-is-wasting-a-lot-of-wind-p...
- scythe 1y ago
  Beat me to it. UK must construct additional pylons. Unfortunately this too is controversial: https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-government-electricity-pylons-country-energy-system-2030-annual-bill-climate-net-zero/ https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-government-electricity-py...
jayflux 1y ago
Transmission is a real problem and just like Nuclear, we haven’t improved it in the past 30 years. So both eastern green link projects (offering more capacity) are due to be finished in 2029, “ok” I think “but surely we’re doing some work onshore to improve the existing network in the meantime..” > Due to ongoing project work for increased power flow from North to South across two Transmission Owner (TO) regions and the interaction of the outage plans, increased capacity across the boundary will be limited and intermittent till 2029 So basically no transmission, onshore or offshore is going to be improved until 2029, but we’re still green lighting wind farms in Scotland. I’m amazed someone has the foresight to increase generation but not transmission until now, how were these green lit in the past knowing full well this bottleneck existed. Maybe it’s controversial, but id argue for stopping more generation until transmission or storage is sorted, otherwise curtailment is going to be even higher in the next few years.
- pjc50 1y ago
  I suspect part of the foresight was exactly to create this situation, where the problem is framed as lack of transmission capacity. Because the alternative - building transmission capacity before it was needed - is even less politically feasible. Public money can only be spent when the need is so blatant it can no longer be ignored, and then everyone sits around and says "well why didn't we do that sooner".
  - scythe 1y ago
    It's not just the cost of building. There's huge NIMBY opposition to the construction of transmission lines: https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-government-electricity-pylons-country-energy-system-2030-annual-bill-climate-net-zero/ https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-government-electricity-py... Of course, the same arguments killed the construction of onshore wind in England, which would have prevented needing the new powerlines (or at least not so much).
  - penteract 1y ago
    From the article, it looks like the problem is partially caused by significant parts of the transmission network being temporarily shut down due to ongoing upgrades. These could probably have been started slightly sooner, but they are already underway, so I don't think your point is weel supported.
pjc50 1y ago
The B6 boundary: https://www.neso.energy/publications/electricity-ten-year-statement-etys/electricity-transmission-network-requirements/scottish-boundaries https://www.neso.energy/publications/electricity-ten-year-st... The power lines follow the two main road links, the A1 and the A74/M6. I suppose that's not surprising from an access point of view. What is surprising is that the solution to NIMBY opposition is to route offshore and underwater, at considerable expense - and still getting opposition at the landing points. Fortunately one of the landing points is Torness, which already has a scenic nuclear reactor and associated transmission infrastructure. I do understand the argument that the Borders is "unspoilt", but also .. hardly anybody lives there because it's an odd economic dead zone. Run another line of pylons within sight of the existing ones and call it a day. I also wonder to what extent building more storage on either end would help. That's got to be brought into the equation. Don't say pumped storage because all the suitable geology for that and one of the biggest existing installations is also in Scotland, we need some in the Midlands. And should probably be asking why new high usage AI datacenters are still happening in London.
- deleted 1y ago
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- eggfriedrice 1y ago
  I recall at the Torness tour that the guide, who's a local, remembered at public the planning meetings that they were told the building wouldn't really be visible from the A1! At least they painted it grey to match the sky...
  - arethuza 1y ago
    Many years ago I used to work with a very senior project manager from Scottish Nuclear who was responsible for Torness - he had some great stories about various accident scenarios they considered. One was that the refuelling machine would fail causing it to act like a gun shooting irradiated fuel rods into the sky - every time I go past Torness on the train I check for flying fuel rods....
- subscribed 1y ago
epgui 1y ago
It seems to me that a bigger issue is lack of storage. With battery storage acting as buffers we would normalize/smooth out required transmission rates.
- blauditore 1y ago
  All I keep hearing is that storage is crazy expensive. Otherwise this would be a very obvious solution to everyone.
  - philjohn 1y ago
    But storage has dropped in cost over the last 10 years, by a factor of around 5x. And with cell chemistry that is more resilient to charge and discharge cycles (LFP) coming to fruition in the last 5 years (and at a lower cost than NMC) it makes sense that we're only now seeing large-scale investment - the yield curve has hit the sweet spot.
  - epgui 1y ago
    I don’t know, apparently Tesla’s battery deployment in Australia paid for itself really quickly as one possible counter-example.
- ZeroGravitas 1y ago
  Some of the largest batteries in Europe have been built recently beside these two grid boundaries. There's a nice diagram of the Scottish side in this article: https://www.zenobe.com/news-and-events/blackhillock-battery-storage-launch/ https://www.zenobe.com/news-and-events/blackhillock-battery-...
benbojangles 1y ago
How do other countries cope
- teamonkey 1y ago
  Different geography. The majority of the UK’s population is in the South; it has a lot of wind capacity in general but especially in the very North. So the problem is getting it from North to South, not helped by how mountainous Scotland is.
  - willvarfar 1y ago
    Most countries have generation a long way from populated areas. They also typically have much better and more modern and being built out transmission architecture so it is less of a problem though.
    - teamonkey 1y ago
      > Most countries have generation a long way from populated areas. Sweden and Norway are the only European examples I can think of. Power generation is often outside cities, yes, but closer. I'm 50 miles from a Nuclear power station, for example, which is not atypical. That's 1/10 the distance we're talking about. Ideally it would be closer to the population, but I think the correct the way of looking at it is that there is a large, mostly untapped resource in the North which somehow has to be transported.
  - appointment 1y ago
    Not many countries where supply and demand are evenly distributed. Britain does have the significant difficulty of high population density in the Midlands and South England, but the main problem here sees to be in Scotland and North England, so this should be less of an issue. Learned helplessness in the political class has more to do with it, I think.
- myrmidon 1y ago
  Similar problem in Germany, also mostly on a north/south axis. A mitigating factor is PV+storage coming online mostly in the south and balancing this out somewhat. According to grid operators, total projected grid expansion costs of ~$250 billion until 2045, but the majority is required sooner rather than later (~$200 billion within the next decade). See: https://www.netzentwicklungsplan.de/sites/default/files/2023-06/EN_GDP_2037_2045_V2023_2E_1.pdf https://www.netzentwicklungsplan.de/sites/default/files/2023...
rswail 1y ago
Opening a new wind or solar farm is much more photogenic than opening a new transmission line.
dhx 1y ago
Generation curtailment is expected though in a 100% VRE power grid because it's necessary to overbuild, and this strategy is found to be economically viable almost anywhere on the planet.[1][2] Generation curtailment could be minimised though with demand-side flexibility (eg. turn on aluminium smelters when it's windy), not necessarily just with pumped storage hydro and/or lengthy transmission line builds to other regions where solar generation can be used to supplement wind generation. Relevant quotes: "this report infers that, almost anywhere on the planet, nearly 100% VRE power grids firmly supplying clean power and meeting demand 24/365 are not only possible but would be economically viable, provided that VRE resources are optimally transformed from unconstrained run-of-the weather generation into firm generation."[1] "VRE overbuilding and operational curtailment (i.e., implicit storage) are key to achieving economically acceptable firm 24x365 solutions. Because firm power generation could be achieved locally/regionally in many cases with a small premium, optimum implicit storage solution could alleviate the need for major power grid enhancement requirements."[2] [1] https://iea-pvps.org/key-topics/firm-power-generation/ https://iea-pvps.org/key-topics/firm-power-generation/ [2] https://iea-pvps.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Report-IEA-PVPS-T16-04-2023-Firm-Power-generation.pdf https://iea-pvps.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Report-IEA-P...
- friendzis 1y ago
  > Generation curtailment could be minimised though with demand-side flexibility Demand-side flexibility is synonymous with surge-pricing, ensuring peak demand energy is a luxury good. Ensuring that energy availability is only mostly guaranteed to those able to outbid the bottom something-percentile: those using energy for economically productive work and otherwise rich. This is quite opposite of an utility.
- pyrale 1y ago
  > eg. turn on aluminium smelters when it's windy I'd be curious to learn how you intend to amortize that aluminium smelter, while also being competitive on aluminium markets. > The variable-to-firm transformation enablers include energy storage, the optimum blending of VREs and other renewable resources, geographic dispersion, and supply/demand flexibility. Yeah... provided someone else does that for them, VREs are very cheap.
ZeroGravitas 1y ago
Generally fair take, though most of the comments here don't seem to reflect the article's take that it is high gas prices and ongoing work to upgrade transmission that accounts for much of the cost. They don't mention the previous government effectively banning onshore wind in England which seems relevant. The current version of that party is abandoning net zero to win back gullible voters they themselves misinformed about renewables. If we want to point fingers for mismanagement I'd start there and probably also allege corruption.
- krona 1y ago
  The capacity factor of onshore wind in UK (~27%) is far worse than offshore (~40%). So we'd need even more reliable generation if we wanted to cover the hills in windmills and actually depend on them to do anything useful. Let's not even talk about the capacity factor of solar in the UK.
  - ZeroGravitas 1y ago
    Solar capacity factor in good locations like Australia averages about 22 and peaks under 30%. That isn't going to stop it being the primary source of energy for the human race soon. It's just weird numerology that gets people hung up on these numbers. It's not clear people even understand what they mean when they bring them up.

59 points by jayflux 1y ago

> Well, that brings us to the oft-ignored elephant in the room: transmission capacity. This is a well-known issue in the UK, which impacts new solar and wind projects but also charging stations, and large-scale charging in general, and even new developments in areas of too much demand.

benrutter 1y ago
Yeah - I wondered about how "quiet" this driving force was. It's certainly a big issue, but the network operator (NESO) published a big paper after the government asked them to suggest how achievable net-0 by 2030 was, which really specifically called out the need for much larger transmission capacity. I work in the energy sector and hear it mentioned a lot, but I don't really see it published in the media a lot. In all honesty, most of the dialogue around energy is just unhelpful and partisan - a lot of it seems critical of the idea of a cleaner network, mainly on the assertion that it's making things more expensive. My understanding is that the opposite is true, but either way, I don't often see much discussion of anything past "clear energy bad".
- amiga386 1y ago
  My understanding - from https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crkep1vx3mro https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crkep1vx3mro - is that. 1. Gas-powered electricity generation sets the wholesale rate (for _all_ forms of generation) more often than not, and gas is expensive, especially after we had to find alternative sources in order to punish Russia for invading Ukraine. 2. Other than the wholesale rate, we need to _build_ all this clean energy, we need to attract investment, and it's our promise to pay for that CapEx over 15-20 years (the strike price) that we'll be paying for in our bills once gas is out of the picture, moreso than the actual cost of generation. Also, Tories in 2023 failed to attract any investment, no capacity added: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66749344 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66749344 Whereas Labour in 2025: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly8ynegwn4o https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly8ynegwn4o ... we will find out if this worked, after the auction is finished and they announce the results (around November 2025 - February 2026)
- pjc50 1y ago
  > In all honesty, most of the dialogue around energy is just unhelpful and partisan That's just the media. No interest in making things actually work, just in covering the fight, and quite often sponsored by fossil fuel backers or weird overseas media monopolists.

throwawayben 1y ago

it is insane to me that they rejected moving to zonal pricing. zonal pricing would give incentive to move power demand closer to production, create costs to nimby-ism, and give the benefits of lower costs to those who live closer. but it might make energy cost more down here in the south east and (in particular) London while benefiting the North and Scotland so we can't have that

mytailorisrich 1y ago
They abandoned it because it does not solve anything and it is political suicide. Most people would have ended being forced to pay more than they already pay without alternative, so would not have helped solve grid constraints, either.
- throwawayben 1y ago
  Could you explain more? It appears economically self evident to me that it would improve the situation but I'm not in the industry and there's probably much I don't understand. I would say that improving transmission seems like a much better solution but again I think zonal pricing can help there as it could then be more easily sold to the public as being able to import the cheaper (say) Scottish energy to your local zone, whereas at the moment there's no apparent direct cost associated with blocking pylon projects forever.
  - RobotToaster 1y ago
    The majority of the population live in regions that would become more expensive. Additionally the majority of Scottish constituencies vote for their nationalist party, so the major national parties don't have any chance of getting seats from Scotland, where energy prices may fall slightly under such a scheme.
    - mytailorisrich 1y ago
      > The majority of the population live in regions that would become more expensive. Yes, and if you are an individual, family, or even the vast majority of businesses you aren't going to move to Scotland over this, you are going to pay, no choice. So effectively this would have increased bills for most people, so bad politically, with only a marginal change to demand.

ZeroConcerns 1y ago

Yeah, this whole "let's sell off state-owned infrastructure on the Free Market" hasn't worked out so well: not only in the UK, but also elsewhere in Europe, the handsome profits of those moves have pretty much evaporated, investments in upgrades have been severely lacking, and now everyone is pointing fingers due to the inevitable capacity meltdowns. (Note that I'm not opposed to privatization in general, and it has worked out very well in other sectors, noticeably Telecoms, but I'm not aware of it bringing long-term happiness anywhere when it comes to Energy)

philipallstar 1y ago
> the inevitable capacity meltdowns Capacity is constantly being hit by very large population growth. Just like water and housing. Money available is lowered by state-enforced price caps. Purchase prices are raised by state-mandated net zero rules that subsidise green sources.
- adolph 1y ago
  > Capacity is constantly being hit by very large population growth. What population growth? https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/uk-population/ https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/uk-population...
  - mytailorisrich 1y ago
    The UK has experienced the 2 largest annual growth on record in the last 5 years, with +755k mid-23 to mid-2024 alone [1]. Even your link shows about 11% growth since 2010 and higher growth rates since ~2004. So we can argue about what "very large" means, but population growth is significant. [1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/bulletins/annualmidyearpopulationestimates/mid2024 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populati...
    - onraglanroad 1y ago
      > about 11% growth since 2010 So much less than 1% a year. > we can argue about what "very large" means Yeah, you can argue that less than 1% a year is "very large". I'm not sure anyone else will be convinced.

fragmede 1y ago

> This usually means turning wind farm output down in Scotland, because we can’t safely export it south, and replacing that energy in the South, typically with gas generation. Thats super fucked!

thelastgallon 1y ago

There are two things we can do with energy, move it across space or move it across time. Moving it across space requires transmission infrastructure (which is state owned or rapacious corp owned -- very slow to build or upgrade; rent seeking, regulatory capture). The other option is to move across time, which is using batteries. Cars are rarely driven more than ~20 mins/day which make them the ideal energy storage devices. We could even say their primary purpose is energy storage. Just like today's 'phones' are no longer for making calls but for content consumption. When all cars are EVs and can do V2X (vehicle to grid, to load, to home, to anything), it becomes a gigantic, resilient, distributed energy reservoir. For providing this service, all car (EV) owners must be paid to give the utilities permission to dump excess production and to supply energy back to the grid when needed. Right now, most of the electricity costs are from peak costs (mostly peaker electricity costs). There is no reason that this infrastructure can't be provided by the EV car owners.

mishagale 1y ago
Bear in mind that in the UK, a large chunk of the populations lives in either rented accommodation, high-rise flats, or both. And also, standard housing policy in London is for new developments to have fewer parking spaces than homes (to encourage public transport use over cars). For many people in the UK, having an EV charging port on the side of your house isn't possible, because they don't have a house, or they don't have a parking space near their house.
- edent 1y ago
  Well, lots of terraced houses and flats do have a garage or off-street parking. Mine certainly did. Depending on which research you believe, only 25% of homes don't have a dedicated space - https://www.field-dynamics.co.uk/25-drivers-no-off-street-parking/ https://www.field-dynamics.co.uk/25-drivers-no-off-street-pa... and https://www.racfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/standing_still_off_street_parking_by_LA_A-Z.pdf https://www.racfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/standing_st... Lots of local authorities are installing on-street charging. Basically, the vast majority of people in the UK do have off-street parking. Running a cable to a garage or from a street-lamp isn't overly expensive. Those who park on public streets also have lots of options for charging.

diklon 1y ago

Here is a really good write up of this topic from 2023: https://archy.deberker.com/the-uk-is-wasting-a-lot-of-wind-power/ https://archy.deberker.com/the-uk-is-wasting-a-lot-of-wind-p...

scythe 1y ago
Beat me to it. UK must construct additional pylons. Unfortunately this too is controversial: https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-government-electricity-pylons-country-energy-system-2030-annual-bill-climate-net-zero/ https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-government-electricity-py...

jayflux 1y ago

Transmission is a real problem and just like Nuclear, we haven’t improved it in the past 30 years. So both eastern green link projects (offering more capacity) are due to be finished in 2029, “ok” I think “but surely we’re doing some work onshore to improve the existing network in the meantime..” > Due to ongoing project work for increased power flow from North to South across two Transmission Owner (TO) regions and the interaction of the outage plans, increased capacity across the boundary will be limited and intermittent till 2029 So basically no transmission, onshore or offshore is going to be improved until 2029, but we’re still green lighting wind farms in Scotland. I’m amazed someone has the foresight to increase generation but not transmission until now, how were these green lit in the past knowing full well this bottleneck existed. Maybe it’s controversial, but id argue for stopping more generation until transmission or storage is sorted, otherwise curtailment is going to be even higher in the next few years.

pjc50 1y ago
I suspect part of the foresight was exactly to create this situation, where the problem is framed as lack of transmission capacity. Because the alternative - building transmission capacity before it was needed - is even less politically feasible. Public money can only be spent when the need is so blatant it can no longer be ignored, and then everyone sits around and says "well why didn't we do that sooner".
- scythe 1y ago
  It's not just the cost of building. There's huge NIMBY opposition to the construction of transmission lines: https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-government-electricity-pylons-country-energy-system-2030-annual-bill-climate-net-zero/ https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-government-electricity-py... Of course, the same arguments killed the construction of onshore wind in England, which would have prevented needing the new powerlines (or at least not so much).
- penteract 1y ago
  From the article, it looks like the problem is partially caused by significant parts of the transmission network being temporarily shut down due to ongoing upgrades. These could probably have been started slightly sooner, but they are already underway, so I don't think your point is weel supported.

pjc50 1y ago

The B6 boundary: https://www.neso.energy/publications/electricity-ten-year-statement-etys/electricity-transmission-network-requirements/scottish-boundaries https://www.neso.energy/publications/electricity-ten-year-st... The power lines follow the two main road links, the A1 and the A74/M6. I suppose that's not surprising from an access point of view. What is surprising is that the solution to NIMBY opposition is to route offshore and underwater, at considerable expense - and still getting opposition at the landing points. Fortunately one of the landing points is Torness, which already has a scenic nuclear reactor and associated transmission infrastructure. I do understand the argument that the Borders is "unspoilt", but also .. hardly anybody lives there because it's an odd economic dead zone. Run another line of pylons within sight of the existing ones and call it a day. I also wonder to what extent building more storage on either end would help. That's got to be brought into the equation. Don't say pumped storage because all the suitable geology for that and one of the biggest existing installations is also in Scotland, we need some in the Midlands. And should probably be asking why new high usage AI datacenters are still happening in London.

deleted 1y ago
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eggfriedrice 1y ago
I recall at the Torness tour that the guide, who's a local, remembered at public the planning meetings that they were told the building wouldn't really be visible from the A1! At least they painted it grey to match the sky...
- arethuza 1y ago
  Many years ago I used to work with a very senior project manager from Scottish Nuclear who was responsible for Torness - he had some great stories about various accident scenarios they considered. One was that the refuelling machine would fail causing it to act like a gun shooting irradiated fuel rods into the sky - every time I go past Torness on the train I check for flying fuel rods....
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epgui 1y ago

It seems to me that a bigger issue is lack of storage. With battery storage acting as buffers we would normalize/smooth out required transmission rates.

blauditore 1y ago
All I keep hearing is that storage is crazy expensive. Otherwise this would be a very obvious solution to everyone.
- philjohn 1y ago
  But storage has dropped in cost over the last 10 years, by a factor of around 5x. And with cell chemistry that is more resilient to charge and discharge cycles (LFP) coming to fruition in the last 5 years (and at a lower cost than NMC) it makes sense that we're only now seeing large-scale investment - the yield curve has hit the sweet spot.
- epgui 1y ago
  I don’t know, apparently Tesla’s battery deployment in Australia paid for itself really quickly as one possible counter-example.
ZeroGravitas 1y ago
Some of the largest batteries in Europe have been built recently beside these two grid boundaries. There's a nice diagram of the Scottish side in this article: https://www.zenobe.com/news-and-events/blackhillock-battery-storage-launch/ https://www.zenobe.com/news-and-events/blackhillock-battery-...

benbojangles 1y ago

How do other countries cope

teamonkey 1y ago
Different geography. The majority of the UK’s population is in the South; it has a lot of wind capacity in general but especially in the very North. So the problem is getting it from North to South, not helped by how mountainous Scotland is.
- willvarfar 1y ago
  Most countries have generation a long way from populated areas. They also typically have much better and more modern and being built out transmission architecture so it is less of a problem though.
  - teamonkey 1y ago
    > Most countries have generation a long way from populated areas. Sweden and Norway are the only European examples I can think of. Power generation is often outside cities, yes, but closer. I'm 50 miles from a Nuclear power station, for example, which is not atypical. That's 1/10 the distance we're talking about. Ideally it would be closer to the population, but I think the correct the way of looking at it is that there is a large, mostly untapped resource in the North which somehow has to be transported.
- appointment 1y ago
  Not many countries where supply and demand are evenly distributed. Britain does have the significant difficulty of high population density in the Midlands and South England, but the main problem here sees to be in Scotland and North England, so this should be less of an issue. Learned helplessness in the political class has more to do with it, I think.
myrmidon 1y ago
Similar problem in Germany, also mostly on a north/south axis. A mitigating factor is PV+storage coming online mostly in the south and balancing this out somewhat. According to grid operators, total projected grid expansion costs of ~$250 billion until 2045, but the majority is required sooner rather than later (~$200 billion within the next decade). See: https://www.netzentwicklungsplan.de/sites/default/files/2023-06/EN_GDP_2037_2045_V2023_2E_1.pdf https://www.netzentwicklungsplan.de/sites/default/files/2023...

rswail 1y ago

Opening a new wind or solar farm is much more photogenic than opening a new transmission line.

dhx 1y ago

Generation curtailment is expected though in a 100% VRE power grid because it's necessary to overbuild, and this strategy is found to be economically viable almost anywhere on the planet.[1][2] Generation curtailment could be minimised though with demand-side flexibility (eg. turn on aluminium smelters when it's windy), not necessarily just with pumped storage hydro and/or lengthy transmission line builds to other regions where solar generation can be used to supplement wind generation. Relevant quotes: "this report infers that, almost anywhere on the planet, nearly 100% VRE power grids firmly supplying clean power and meeting demand 24/365 are not only possible but would be economically viable, provided that VRE resources are optimally transformed from unconstrained run-of-the weather generation into firm generation."[1] "VRE overbuilding and operational curtailment (i.e., implicit storage) are key to achieving economically acceptable firm 24x365 solutions. Because firm power generation could be achieved locally/regionally in many cases with a small premium, optimum implicit storage solution could alleviate the need for major power grid enhancement requirements."[2] [1] https://iea-pvps.org/key-topics/firm-power-generation/ https://iea-pvps.org/key-topics/firm-power-generation/ [2] https://iea-pvps.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Report-IEA-PVPS-T16-04-2023-Firm-Power-generation.pdf https://iea-pvps.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Report-IEA-P...

friendzis 1y ago
> Generation curtailment could be minimised though with demand-side flexibility Demand-side flexibility is synonymous with surge-pricing, ensuring peak demand energy is a luxury good. Ensuring that energy availability is only mostly guaranteed to those able to outbid the bottom something-percentile: those using energy for economically productive work and otherwise rich. This is quite opposite of an utility.
pyrale 1y ago
> eg. turn on aluminium smelters when it's windy I'd be curious to learn how you intend to amortize that aluminium smelter, while also being competitive on aluminium markets. > The variable-to-firm transformation enablers include energy storage, the optimum blending of VREs and other renewable resources, geographic dispersion, and supply/demand flexibility. Yeah... provided someone else does that for them, VREs are very cheap.

ZeroGravitas 1y ago

Generally fair take, though most of the comments here don't seem to reflect the article's take that it is high gas prices and ongoing work to upgrade transmission that accounts for much of the cost. They don't mention the previous government effectively banning onshore wind in England which seems relevant. The current version of that party is abandoning net zero to win back gullible voters they themselves misinformed about renewables. If we want to point fingers for mismanagement I'd start there and probably also allege corruption.

krona 1y ago
The capacity factor of onshore wind in UK (~27%) is far worse than offshore (~40%). So we'd need even more reliable generation if we wanted to cover the hills in windmills and actually depend on them to do anything useful. Let's not even talk about the capacity factor of solar in the UK.
- ZeroGravitas 1y ago
  Solar capacity factor in good locations like Australia averages about 22 and peaks under 30%. That isn't going to stop it being the primary source of energy for the human race soon. It's just weird numerology that gets people hung up on these numbers. It's not clear people even understand what they mean when they bring them up.