Talk:Impact of renewable energy on UK power transmission costs
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er ummm
I'm terribly sorry but spinning reserve does not turn on & off at the flick of a switch; a coal fired station that has had its burners off for more than an hour will take several hours to come on line; at vast expense. If it was that easy don't you think that is the way it would work now ? It costs money to keep machinery spinning - not just fuel costs but wear and tear.
Having got something so basically wrong in the introduction I suspect most of the rest of the article is seriously amiss.
It doesn't matter how much you may want something to be; in the real world where engineers and economists work - wanting doesn't matter - what is is.
Petedtm 23:15, 24 December 2006 (UTC)Petedtm
No, you would not use nuclear (that has a problem it is always on, and can't be switched off) or coal, but you could use gas turbines. These are cheap to build and flexible but expensive in terms of money and of CO2)Mike Young 12:59, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Merge?
It seems that this article title is very long, and its subject very specific. I would like to suggest that it be merged into a larger, more broad subject regarding power (in the United Kingdom), though I could not think of what article it would be best merged into. Does anyone agree, and/or have any ideas on this? *Vendetta* (user talk contrb) 05:37, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
Before it's merged, it needs a fairly brutal pruning, checking of facts, and removal of unsourced statements. A good place to start would be the notes from the [NG Operational Forum].
In addition, the article is clearly biased in favour of wind generation, to the point where it glosses over or just blindly ignores several of the key points that you need to consider when going for renewables - lots of wind farm projects are located in the North of Scotland, where it's hellishly difficult to get TEC, and you're plugging into the already overloaded Scottish 132kV transmission system. Combine that with the maximum power flow of 2.2GW through the Cheviot interconnector (which is going to have to be reinforced at some point - power stations are being constrained off in Scotland fairly often), and you're left with a whole host of reinforcement works needed that will either add to the cost of comissioning the power station, or be picked up by the industry as a whole through TNUoS charges.
The assertion about BSUoS charges is ludicrous. If you're using wind as baseload power, then it's natural that CCGTs and the like are going to submit high-priced offers, to ensure they keep their margins up. This necessarily leads to high BSUoS charges. Which means that when the low-pressure system inferred in the NG presentations comes along, you're going to end up either paying through the nose to keep the system in balance, or the system runs out of margin, and NGET will be forced to start shedding load. Which is a Bad Thing.
Spot the 'leccy geek? RDevz 18:00, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
