By Paul Homewood

 

http://fes.nationalgrid.com/

 

I have sat on it for a while, but still want to focus on the National Grid’s latest Future Energy Scenarios.

As always, there are four scenarios, but I will concentrate on the “Two Degrees” one, which looks to be the central assumption, designed to achieve an 80% cut in CO2 emissions by 2050.

(There is a small section on the Net Zero plan, but this came along too late to incorporate into the FES main body).

In the FES, there is the usual nonsense about large scale hydrogen production, (requiring carbon storage), heat pumps, EVs and renewables.

But there are really just two tables which show how fanciful the whole thing is.

 

The first shows electricity peak demand rising to 83 GW by 2050:

The second lists the planned generation capacity:

Excluding intermittent wind and solar, we are left with:

	TD
Interconnectors	20.055
CCUS	12.1
Nuclear	16.606
Thermal	13.371
Other renewables	13.065
Storage	22.512
Total Dispatchable	97.709
Peak demand	82.512

 

If we allow 85% for de-rating (as plant is not available 24/7), the 97.7 GW comes down to 83 GW.

Storage is only good for an hour or so, which may be enough to cover early evening peaks, but take that out and we are left with about 60 GW. Worse still, we are reliant on imports via interconnectors for a third of that.

I have analysed the distribution of electricity demand during January 2019, using the official BMRS data based on half hour settlements.

Demand peaked at 48.6 GW and averaged 37 GW.

However, demand was within 10% of the peak demand (ie 43.7 GW or more for 355 half hour periods, that is 24% of the time.

https://www.bmreports.com/bmrs/?q=generation/fueltype/current

 

Quite clearly battery storage cannot supply power for six hours a day. Indeed, a couple of hours a day is the most we could rely on.

If we plug in that two hours a day, ie 8% of the time, the threshold rises from 43.7 GW to 45.9 GW. In other words, we need enough proper dispatchable capacity to cover 95% of peak demand. (45.9/48.6).

Translating that to the 2050 projection of 82.5 GW, we would need dispatchable capacity of 79 GW.

It is rather frightening that the National Grid thinks we can meet that demand with just 55 GW of domestic capacity, even before allowing for de-rating.

via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

https://ift.tt/2LuBjuH

September 12, 2019 at 02:30PM