Where are existing climate-obsessed energy policies taking us? The drive toward renewable energy production in new building developments can make microgrids susceptible to outages, this research article suggests. Batteries are not a solution, they say.
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The abstract of the article says:
Contemporary proliferation of renewable power generation is causing an overhaul in the topology, composition, and dynamics of electrical grids. These low-output, intermittent generators are widely distributed throughout the grid, including at the household level. It is critical for the function of modern power infrastructure to understand how this increasingly distributed layout affects network stability and resilience. This paper uses dynamical models, household power consumption, and photovoltaic generation data to show how these characteristics vary with the level of distribution. It is shown that resilience exhibits daily oscillations as the grid’s effective structure and the power demand fluctuate. This can lead to a substantial decrease in grid resilience, explained by periods of highly clustered generator output. Moreover, the addition of batteries, while enabling consumer self-sufficiency, fails to ameliorate these problems. The methodology identifies a grid’s susceptibility to disruption resulting from its network structure and modes of operation.’
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Full research article here: Science Advances, March 2022
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
In plain English then; get a grip Bojo Starmer and Co and lets do this coherently and separate to any economic and social benefit which is hoped will ensue. In which case we need to get back our strategic energy mix of coal oil gas biofuel hydro and keep our erstwhile robust national grid. PV Wind and Tidal can develop alongside this and prove it can deliver the goods competitively i.e. not be a financial burden for our economy with the massive subsidies these and nuclear are getting.
The Executive Summary of “NET ZERO – KEEPING THE ENERGY SYSTEM BALANCED” (A briefing note by Dr Keith MacLean OBE of Providence Policy and Dr Grant Wilson and Noah Godfrey of the Energy Informatics Group, Birmingham Centre for Energy Storage, Birmingham Energy Institute)
….. is insightful:
https://zenodo.org/record/5172034#.YiJl4C-l2gQ
Especially:
Joe Public:
South Australia has wind and solar (mostly household). There is enough solar that at times (on some days) that it supplies demand (or more correctly reduces demand as household generation isn’t monitored). Yet our State Wide blackout (3 to 7 days) occurred when wind was the dominant ‘supplier’ of electricity.
We still have plenty (too much) wind, so that has to be curtailed at times (the average Capacity Factor has reduced about 3-4% due to not being wanted). The latest idea is for the Grid Controller to have the ability to shut down household solar panels remotely.
In practice the State relies on gas (and diesel) generation and some of that runs all the time, and that generation gets exported interstate (at a cheap rate). The State & Federal govt. are currently building another interstate connector to allow more electricity to be exported at a loss. “Fortunately” the various State governments have driven most of the industry out of the State, so South Australia doesn’t need that much electricity, esp. that at the highest cost n Australia.
so basically, wind and solar for base load energy supply in large markets is… in a word… STUPID. But we already knew that before they started installing that nonsense.
Cuadrilla, the energy company, is due to concrete over its two wells in Lancashire on March 15, having been ordered to do so by the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA).
In their letter to Mr Johnson, sent to Downing Street on Saturday night, the MPs state: “We urge you to pause and conduct a review of this decision. At a time of such geopolitical strife, we cannot refrain from actions that would improve the position of the UK and its allies.
“We have seen how a reliance on imported gas affects the responses of other countries during the initial stages of Russian aggression.”
The intervention was organised by Craig Mackinlay and Steve Baker, the chairman and deputy chairman of the Conservative Net Zero Scrutiny Group, following an earlier letter sent to the Prime Minister before Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Mr Johnson has yet to respond to the first letter, signatories to which included Lord Frost, the former Cabinet Office minister, who said that overturning the fracking ban would herald a “British energy renaissance”.
‘Lancashire isn’t Texas’
The latest letter is signed by more MPs, with backers including the former Cabinet ministers Lord Lilley and Esther McVey, and 2019-intake parliamentarians including lee Anderson, the MP for Ashfield.
Last night a source at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy resisted the call, saying the MPs should “get real”. The source claimed: “Fracking causes earthquakes, is hated by local communities, would take a decade to kick-start, and won’t even lower the price… Lancashire isn’t Texas; any shale gas we do find won’t be enough to lower the European price, and Cuadrilla aren’t exactly going sell their gas below market rate, are they?”
Last week, The Sunday Telegraph revealed that a report commissioned by the OGA showed that larger tremors cited by ministers when they announced the ban in 2019 affected just tens of buildings with, at the most, “slight non-structural damage”.
In their letter, the MPs state: “As you said last week, Europe has developed an ‘addiction’ to Russian gas. This has gifted the Kremlin considerable influence at the heart of our democracies and with it a literal war-chest of cash that we now see very brutally being unleashed upon the people of Ukraine.”
They add: “Filling these wells with cement as Europe stands on the brink of all-out war would send the wrong signal to our allies and to our enemies… Nato’s Secretary-General has previously warned the west that the Kremlin will do all it can to stop us following this path to energy independence.”
Last week, Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6, also called for an immediate reversal of the ban, to help Britain “become reasonably independent in our ability to produce energy”.
Funny how the US can drill for gas, produce it in vast quantities and earn a fortune, but Britain is supposed to be too delicate to cope with such things and couldn’t gain any benefit anyway.
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We can forget about Russian gas or oil arriving by ship.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/mar/04/dockers-on-merseyside-refuse-to-unload-russian-oil-stanlow-kent-netherlands-ukraine
Fracking will wake the dreaded Balrog! 😇
Synchronous condensers for EVERYONE! (Because heavy spinning discs of metal make so much sense.)
[…] Study: the effect of renewable energy incorporation on power grid stability and resilience […]