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Iceland's volcanoes could power the UK: but at what cost?

Am I missing something or is it the DECC? When the wind is blowing and the sun is shining and there is surplus electricity available it will be cheap. When it is calm and dark and energy demand peaks it will be expensive. No one is going to want to buy our surplus electricity if they have enough of their own already. No one is going to sell us cheap power if they can get more money for it elsewhere. Intermittent renewable energy will only provide a secure supply if a. everyone has installed enough surplus capacity to be able to supply their own requirements and be able to supply the requirements of other countries when they are short of power (these other countries will in turn supply our needs when we are short) and b. we have interconnectors over a long enough distance so that wind failure doesn’t affect all parts of the shared super grid at the same time. It will mean that most of the time a lot of capacity is lying idle waiting for a need. However there was considerable anxiety when it was revealed we only have a few days of gas in store during the winter. The idea of having zero seconds of electricity in store is not going to go down at all well. I would have thought that working on controlling the demand for electricity so some of the peak demands can be lopped and developing storage technologies would be more secure than a massive integrated pan-European supply system. That and building a few nuclear power stations.

13 Apr 2012

5:51 pm