| ▲ | ricardo81 4 hours ago |
| Canada is blessed with cheap energy, the abundance of hydro surely helps to bridge any intermittency other renewables have. I lived there 10 years back, your energy is less than half the cost of mine in Scotland. In Scotland's case we're part of the UK and the rest of the UK is less blessed with the geography for hydro. The incumbent Scottish government also has an anti stance to nuclear. I hope the incentives for cleaner energy continue to stack up. With the surge in demand from AI surely productivity will be more tightly coupled with energy usage and cost. |
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| ▲ | JetSetWilly 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| In Scotland one issue is that the UK electricity market is national (unlike in eg norway). So even if local supply is very high and interconnects are not large enough to export to england - we must pay the higher national rate. As octopus ceo suggested if the UK energy market has regional pricing then electricity in scotland would often be a lot cheaper and in some cases industrial demand would move there. But that would disadvantage the SE of England so will never happen. Conversely, standing charges ARE regionalised - because that does advantage the SE of England. Oh well! |
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| ▲ | kieranmaine 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Related to UK energy I read this interesting article on transmission congestion between Scotland and England and how this is increasing energy costs due to curtailment of renewables. https://ukerc.ac.uk/news/transmission-network-unavailability... TL;DR - Until new interconnectors between Scotland and England are finished in 2029, there will be significant curtailment of Scottish wind power which increases costs. This is also an interesting site for seeing curtailment per wind farm -
https://windtable.co.uk/data?farm=Seagreen |
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| ▲ | ricardo81 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It has been a long standing problem. Ideas crop up like generating hydrogen with the curtailed energy or maybe at least in Winter, use it for heat generation. The problem would seem to be the capex and the inverse of intermittency being the problem for them in utilising that energy, i.e. waiting for curtailment. At least with available hydro you can pump water back up hill using a reliable and cheap tech. | | |
| ▲ | patapong 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | I find it fascinating that we have not identified a use for almost free intermittent electricity. You'd think there would be plenty of things to do, but it seems like with the capex investment things like smelting etc need to always be running. Maybe electric car charging can come to the rescue? But even there people need their cars charged usually at certain fixed moments. | | |
| ▲ | kieranmaine 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | EV smart charging is a solved problem in the UK IMO, at least for those with a parking space. OVO[1] and Octopus[2] offer smart charging tariffs that give EV owners reduced electricity rates. The usual caveat is you can only benefit if you can install a charger and park near that charger. Still, based on this 2021 article [3] 65% of UK homes have at least one off street space, so the potential for a majority of homes to smart charge is there. To extend the benefit of cheap smart charging to more people, it would be good to see legislation that makes it easier for leaseholders and renters to require the installation of a smart charger where technically possible. 1. https://www.ovoenergy.com/electric-cars/charge-anytime
2. https://octopus.energy/ev-tariffs/
3. https://www.racfoundation.org/media-centre/cars-parked-23-ho... | |
| ▲ | ricardo81 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Agree. It seems to be a fairly unique problem that intermittent energy sources introduce. Charging batteries definitely seems like part of the solution and electricity tariffs that adapt to wholesale costs on a shorter time basis help incentivise it. There are times over weekends/holidays where the wholesale price enters negative territory, essentially paying you to charge your battery. Electrolysing hydrogen to burn is inefficient vs that kind of thing but at least acts as a battery itself, though there's costs/problems in storing it. And the general problem of how long do you need to store energy vs what the weather forecast may be. It seems like it's not a solved problem and it'd be exciting to move towards a point where it is. Hard to believe in the 50's they thought nuclear would solve everything and would be "too cheap to meter" |
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| ▲ | hexbin010 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The UK will perpetually have "issues" that lead to higher pricing. We just put up and pay. It is unspoken energy policy to be expensive Oh no we messed up nuclear oops sorry made it very expensive. Pay up Oops sorry we messed up transmission pay up Oops sorry we let people get into huge energy debt pls pay off their debt in your bill... |
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| ▲ | fullstop 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Everything that I learned about energy in Scotland comes from Still Game, so I must ask -- how many bars? |
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| ▲ | toomuchtodo 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| There is enough wind potential in Europe to power the world [1]. Combined with interconnects to Europe and battery storage, there is no reason power costs can't be driven down. To not do so is a lack of will. Scotland currently generates a surplus of renewables [2], exported. kieranmaine's sibling comment citations dives into the lack of will part. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38722022 (citations) [2] In Scotland, Renewable Power Has Outstripped Demand - https://e360.yale.edu/digest/scotland-renewable-energy-100-p... - January 30th, 2024 (at the rate it takes to deploy transmission, might as well start dropping TBMs in the ground and let them grind towards each other from interconnect landings, potentially faster than the approval grind, complaints from locals about land use and right of ways, etc) |
