Offshore wind will produce enough electricity for every home in the country by 2030 with floating offshore wind accounting for 1GW of a 40GW target set by the government.
This is the ambition of prime minister Boris Johnson whose “build back greener” plans are predicted to create jobs, cut carbon emissions, and provide a boost to exports.
IEA report shows huge offshore wind potential
To this end, £160m is being made available for ports and infrastructure upgrades in areas of the UK where offshore wind capacity can be increased. This is expected to lead to the creation of around 2,000 construction jobs and support up to 60,000 jobs directly and indirectly by 2030 in ports, factories and the supply chain.
Further plans include setting a target to support up to double the capacity of renewable energy in the next Contracts for Difference auction, which will open in late 2021. The government has also made a commitment to create jobs by onshoring manufacture of the components for offshore wind.
In a statement, Johnson said: “Our seas hold immense potential to power our homes and communities with low-cost green energy and we are already leading the way in harnessing its strengths.
“Now, as we build back better we must build back greener. So we are committing to new ambitious targets and investment into wind power to accelerate our progress towards net zero emissions by 2050.
“This sets us on our path towards a green industrial revolution, which will provide tens of thousands of highly-skilled jobs.”
Commenting on today’s announcement from the virtual Conservative Party conference, Prof Jon Gluyas, director of the Durham Energy Institute, Durham University, said: “Electricity generated from offshore wind is not a silver bullet for decarbonising heating nor for decarbonising transport. It is not even a silver bullet for decarbonising power generation.
“The roles of geothermal energy, solar thermal, solar photo voltaic, hydro power, biomass, hydrogen production as well as improved building and insulation standards need to be part of that future.”
“Eventually UK homes will be heated through electricity from offshore wind – but to be able to build that infrastructure through a COVID-ruined economy by 2030 – in just 9 years’ time – is a massive target,” added Prof Bikash Pal, Professor of Power Systems at Imperial College London.
Good news in essence if the government sticks to it’s promise. It’s about time a UK government supported green energy and engineering at the same time.
At a £1million/MW (approx. current offshore wind farm costs) that gives 160MW, this is a drop in the ocean as far as power output is concerned. If the amount that is usually invested in nuclear (£6-8B) was invested , then I would consider the government was interested.
Sadly, bumbling Boris believes all the nonsense he spouts (did Covid addle his brain? ), this 3rd rate churnalist & his chums will turn us into a 3rd world country.
Who is going to supply 40GW of reserve when the wind stops ( but then that’s what ‘smart meters’ are all about ).
On a personal note I’m all right, having built a small CHP unit that will run on any liquid or gaseous hydrocarbon.; but I pity the poor sods in urban tower blocks.
“Electricity generated from offshore wind is not a silver bullet for decarbonising heating nor for decarbonising transport. It is not even a silver bullet for decarbonising power generation.”
Absolutely right, but this political ‘target’ is also a deceptive twist on the reality of the situation, which is – our current wind capacity of 18GW can already supply “enough electricity for every home in the country.” (when demand is not at its peak.) The problem is, we’d have to turn off ALL the nuclear and fossil fuel generation in order to USE IT, when that potential is available!!
“Across the Spring Bank Holiday (22nd – 25th May) just over 68GW of generation was turned down to help keep the electricity network in balance.”
There appears to be no case whatever for over-building RE. (e.g. 40GW UK offshore wind.) Anti-renewables consultants tend to mistakenly estimate a requirement for up to 100% over-capacity!
“In reality, a UK powered largely by renewables and having ~10TWh of TMES together with a slight (~5%?) over-capacity of renewable generation with the correct mix of solar and wind power is probably the cost-optimal solution for a secure, affordable and net-zero-CO2 energy system.”
Tidal power is certainly the way to minimise the total capacity of energy storage required and TMES is the least appropriate technology. Of the TMES technologies mentioned, PHES is the only one with no thermal element to speak of. Strictly speaking, they are all electricity storage and as such, do not even justify the additional CapEX.
“Thermo-mechanical energy storage (TMES) technologies such as compressed air energy storage, pumped heat energy storage, liquid air energy storage, pumped hydro etc. are well suited to play a major role in future energy systems that have high penetrations of renewables. This article addresses two grotesque misunderstandings in widespread circulation.”
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/2019/12/17/busting-myths-around-baseload-generation-lcoe-and-energy-storage/?topic=263635
“The combination of good turnaround efficiency (typically 60% – 85%) and low cost per unit of energy storage capacity is what makes the TMES solutions preferable for handling of the storage through-flow. A set of turbines or fuel-cells rated at 300 MW would be sufficient to discharge a 25TWh store over one year and that is the real role for long-term energy storage in the UK.”
Before-Generator Energy Storage has NO ‘round trip’. You can’t get more efficient than that.
Well done in taking what is a positive statement about tackling climate change and turning it into a negative! Congrats “The Engineer”. Of course, many other things are required but this is surely a positive step? Sure, it’s ambitious, but our days of “We’ll sort it out eventually” are gone.
Wind power is great as part of a balanced energy supply, but it does need alternatives and predictable sources such as tidal barrage type projects.
I can see huge mechanical storage farms in the future. Huge grain silo sized flywheels, or mass/gravity systems can be used for decades – possibly centuries – with no loss of storage capacity or efficiency and with no toxic or unsustainable requirements. There is no ‘Greener’ solution.
So we’re going to power homes from wind by 2030 but aren’t going to be carbon neutral until 2050?
Can you clarify what’s happening between 2030 and 2050? I can only assume we’re powering homes with wind but powering industry and commercial with something else?
Wind needs to be a big part of the answer but it can only be part of the answer.
What surface area of sea will be ‘used’ by this amount of wind power?
This could work but the contract for difference (CfD) auction process needs a complete overhaul. Companies bid to supply electricity at a single, fixed price £/MW-h irrespective of demand – day or night, winter or summer and without any obligation to provide either storage or backup generation. Based on the 2019 CfD round, the ‘going rate’ for offshore wind is around £40/MW-h. Because CfD is a competitive tendering process and the lowest bids win, companies naturally want to maximise the return on their investment – basically by never stopping unless they have to. And since wind power varies by wind velocity-cubed their earnings, supported as they are by a government-backed price floor are skewed towards the windiest times – precisely when grid demand is reaching or exceeding capacity
What’s needed is a two-tier tariff structure – still subject to a sealed bidding process. A high rate perhaps £80-90/MW-h supported by a CfD style ‘top-up’ from the market price (so comparable to nuclear) and a low rate £10/MW-h? sold to special ‘interruptible-tariff’ customers at times of deemed ‘surplus’ production (either adjudicated by National Grid/Ofgem or spot price thresholds). These customers would have exclusive access to this low-cost power, in return they would be prohibited from consuming electricity at other times. A typical user might be a large electrolysis farm; at a 3:1 price ratio they could make hydrogen for £30/kW i.e. competitive with natural gas
Interesting comments from people who obviously know far more about RE than I do, but I am in favour of well thought-out strategies which may eventually halt the planet’s demise.
From my position of ignorance, my questions are more fundamental:
Do we know how much energy is in the wind that we experience in the UK and how much of that energy are we proposing to suck out to make the electricity of the future?
Is there a global energy capacity in “the wind” that we will reduce if we convert that to electricity, and what effect might that have on climate change, if any? Or is wind energy infinte?
If we take the energy out of the wind, does that have any negative effects on other things that a more energetic wind might do? It might be beneficial to reduce windspeeds and energy if that leads to less structural damage etc, but has anyone looked at this or modelled it thus far?
Given that winds tend to be directional and other countries close to our borders are also looking to use wind power in the future, are there any “shadow” effects such that the wind we were expecting to use has already had much its energy extracted before it reaches us? I know that on our side of the country many of the winds come across the Atalantic, which would be hard to block, but is this true on a more countrywide basis? I am sure the wind farm planners have taken account of this but I have never seen it talked about when RE is discussed.
I would welcome any comments which can enlighten me or put me right.
* when grid supply is reaching
* £30/MW-h i.e. competitive
“Public investment had the potential to generate between 5 and 14 jobs for every $1m spent on research and development, green electricity and efficient buildings, the IMF said.”
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/oct/05/nows-the-time-for-big-infrastructure-projects-says-the-imf
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/oct/06/boris-johnson-uk-must-not-return-to-status-quo-after-covid-pandemic
“The prime minister also mounted a robust defence of the private sector, saying ‘free enterprise’ must lead the recovery and that he intended to significantly roll back the state intervention the crisis had necessitated.” Is that the same (foreign) free enterprise that has been ruining the UK economy and balance of payments for the past 30 years? Much of that ‘free enterprise’ is owned and run by the French, Chinese, Norwegian and other states – don’t y’know, Boris?
“Johnson had Brexit and free trade on his mind. Any hint of draconian action to fight coronavirus that might hurt the economy was the last thing he was entertaining. In a speech on Brexit in Greenwich on 3 Feb, he made clear his views on Wuhan-style lockdowns. “We are starting to hear some bizarre autarkic rhetoric,” he said, “when barriers are going up, and when there is a risk that new diseases such as coronavirus will trigger a panic and a desire for market segregation that go beyond what is medically rational to the point of doing real and unnecessary economic damage.”
The ‘free’ market “status quo” before Covid-19 led directly to the failures of governance since the pandemic. i.e. An unprepared NHS, fatal delays in test and trace and an expensive, panic import of poor quality PPE. Private care homes, free enterprise tests and outsourcing has a price measured in the number of fatalities, in comparison with Germany, Korea or Hong Kong.
There seems to be a limitless amount of hot air coming from the general direction of Westminster on this. Perhaps this can be channeled positively?
What will happen in winter with a large static anti-cyclone (no wind) and dark overcast days? A neat new excuse for train delays?
Domestic demand is about 25% of total national demand so industry (we still have this) and commerce will obviously exist on other sources. This got ducked in the central message. I suspect it is not understood. Who wrote the speech?
All of this suggests the need for a better balanced energy mix including numerous small nuclear plants.
Is there room for UK optimism? In less than 10 years Wind and Solar Energy has gone from 1% of UK Energy to around 20% today. This is a massive Green Energy success. When there is excessive Wind or Solar availability in future (with extra installations) we must consider converting to Hydrogen storage. Hydrogen can power heavy Transport and can even be mixed with Natural Gas facilities for heating our homes.
With a World population approaching 8 Billion people we need Green Energy opportunities. The uk could be leading the way?
Around 30 years ago, we had a weird weather event that covered England for about two weeks just before Christmas. It was a dirty smog, that blocked the week Winter Sun, so no solar power & no wind to shift the smog or provide wind power. Back then, renewables were such a small part of power generation it did not matter, but in the future, we could be in trouble if a big part of our wind & solar shut down for a fortnight. I still think building the Severn & Wash barriers would be a better idea.
The UK policy of green-energy no matter what the cost is verging on economic suicide. In simple terms wind energy is costing about £ 140/MWh, energy from gas is about £ 40/MWh, and from coal below £ 30 /MWh (hence Germany, Japan, China and India are basing their power generation on coal). Even worse, windmills are guaranteed their income if there is wind available even if the power is no wanted, so we all pay a massive constraint payment, which is unique in world power systems and amounts to a blank cheque for the owners.
There is regular publicity for promises of lower prices for wind power, but these are all based on a projected carbon tax of £ 70 /tonne, which makes all fossil fuel power uneconomic. This would be an internal (taxation) transfer of cash if it were not for the fact that electricity users have to compete with countries which do not place massive cost barriers in the way of their manufacturing industries.
The other myth that must be addressed is the jobs creation one, we have imported all of our windmills with massive job creation in Denmark and Germany. We have virtually no know-how to sell in this business sector and are certainly not world-leaders.
Jack Broughton – offshore wind certainly used to be costly, however the contract-for-difference (CfD) auctions (three so far) have steadily driven down prices – as competitive tendering is wont to do. Your intermittency and supply/demand mismatch points are perfectly valid
CfD Round 1 (2015)
Project // Capacity (peak) // Strike price per MW-h
EA 1 // 714 MW // £119.89
Neart na Gaoithe // 448 GW // £114.39
CfD Round 2 (2017)
Project // Capacity (peak) // Strike price per MW-h
Triton Knoll // 860 MW // £74.75
Hornsea 2 // 1.4 GW // £57.50
Moray // 950 MW // £57.50
CfD Round 3 (2019)
Project // Capacity (peak) // Strike price per MW-h
Doggerbank A // 1.2 GW // £39.65
Doggerbank B // 1.2 GW // £41.61
Doggerbank C // 1.2 GW // £41.61
Seagreen 1 // 454 MW // £41.61
Sofia 1 // 1.4 GW // £39.65
*448 _MW_ (that’ll teach me to mix units!)
The extra electricity is going to be turned into hydrogen. The off shore turbines are sitting in their own feedstock.
As for running out of wind if that becomes a problem maybe we have to think again.
If I had anything to do with nuclear I would be worried to just not bothering.
Wind and solar are going to be supplying most if not all the power we need long before even the reactors that are being built are going to come online. As for the price of what more than 3 times what renewables are costing nuclear is pointless except for making bombs we are never going to use.
I must admit to being surprised by the ambition -and the amount of funding.
Yes I would like to see wind technology being developed – and, most importantly, the high value bits being designed and made in the UK (rather than China & Denmark) – possibly even innovative design and manufacturing (advanced materials for the blades perhaps?) – bringing down the price.
However I must admit to being concerned with those periods when wind power has delivered less than 1% of capacity; this might be taken to imply that a 100 times capacity is required! (for two week, or so, period of calms). I do not believe that this is a necessity – but see little signs that there is interest in the development of sufficient AND affordable storage capacity (either local/distributed or large scale) – rather than just batteries; the best I have seen was Bill Gate’s nuclear power which had 5 hours of before generator storage
Come on folks, this is Boris saying, again, what you want to hear. He has form, think of his ‘promises’ re. Heathrow expansion, HS2, NI Border, EU deals, etc. etc.
Where is the substance, where is the science, where is the money ?
Nuclear is the only real, reliable, baseline, green alternative. Wind and Solar may have a part to play but it won’t be the starring role. And, there are a lot of environmental downsides to renewables that conveniently get brushed under the carpet, as well as a lot of money to be made by some.
Seems you can fool some of the people all of the time.
@Trevor. Maybe I’m a cynic, but the bidding for the wind power jobs is purely bidding for future projects that will be index linked to fossil fuels with the massive carbon tax that is planned, so they will be able to renegotiate once this is in place. The current cost of all wind power is about £ 140 / MWh guaranteed for the life of the projects and of course includes constraint payments if the power cannot be used and excludes the cost of back-up power when they fail to generate to demand. In the days of the CEGB, which had long-term responsibility for the power system, reliability had to be guaranteed or large non-generation penalties were applied.
The bidding and purchase based system in use is okay until investment is needed. There is no incentive to invest in anything but renewables at present (as renewables are guaranteed base-load supply by a pricing structure where they are paid even if their power is not wanted). This madness puts the UK just behind Denmark and Germany in the power pricing league table, but they don’t penalise industry with massive costs: they pass it to the consumers as a subsidy method.
Jack Broughton: as far as I’m aware CfD’s are indexed according to the Consumer Price Index. In addition to renewables, new nuclear power generation also benefits from a CfD support mechanism, though in this case the strike price appears to be set by UK government on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. Hinkley Point C was offered £92.50/MW-h and is being built. Wylfa was offered £75/MW-h and Hitachi ‘left it’, cancelling the project – so we can infer the ‘going rate’ to attract investors into nuclear would be £80-90 MW-h
Jack Broughton 6,57 Oct 6th. ‘The other myth that must be addressed is the jobs creation one, we have imported all of our windmills with massive job creation in Denmark and Germany. We have virtually no know-how to sell in this business sector and are certainly not world-leaders.’
Is this correct?
There are two very large Wind Turbine manufacturing facilities. Vestas in Newport Isle of Wight. Siemens Gamesa in Hull. These are factories in the uk not in Germany or Denmark.
If the lunatics’ continue running the asylum, then I guess at some point in the future we are going to hit the scenario where on a cold, windless night we will have to break out the candles to provide lighting and to heat our tin of beans as our smart meters turn our power off so that the financial institutions in the city can keep running. What a brave new world awaits us …
@ Dr John Wahlers 6th October 2020 at 3:28 pm
“Is there a global energy capacity in “the wind” that we will reduce if we convert that to electricity, and what effect might that have on climate change, if any? Or is wind energy infinte?”
John it’s too big a subject for much detail here, So simply – the wind is the product of solar energy evaporating moisture from earths surface primarily in the tropics, the convective air current rises & heads for the colder poles via ‘Hadley, Ferrel & polar cells’ + Coriolis effect, this is what drives the global atmospheric circulation engine; it controls us completely – where we live, what we eat, who we are, { these Metoffice vids will give you the basics on how it all works – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fd03fBRsuU }.
As long as the sun shines & earth spins, we’ll never be short of wind (but keep eating beans just in case (:-)) .
Although collecting, using & storing that low density intermittent energy is a different can of worms !
You mention ” climate change”. Definition of Climate is – the long-term average of weather over time; typically averaged over a period of 30 years.
The climate in the United Kingdom is defined as a temperate oceanic climate & has been so since the final closure of the Isthmus of Panama at ∼3.5 Ma divided the American tropical ocean into two separate and different oceanographic regions & formed the Atlantic as we know it.
Planet-wise & geologically, the climate has been incredibly stable for the last ~ 6,000yrs of the Holocene with a minor cold blip ( ‘The Little Ice Age’ roughly between AD 1300 and 1850 ). Modern humans developed because of the benign climate… we live in the Goldilocks era.
All this talk about off shore wind turbines, Why off shore ? the Ettridge Wind Turbine is an Improved Rotary Wind Powered Turbine ( Savonius Rotor ) that is agricultural in design which would be much cheaper to produce and maintain. They could easily be wholly made in the United Kingdom, and produce on shore renewable energy without the issues of the propeller type wind turbines, and at a much low cost. The issue of no wind is not allowing that no where in the UK would have no wind, that is most unlikely to happen, but if there is a mixture of other renewable energies, they can supply the grid with electrical energy
There have been some good and some interesting points made, in the discussion.
The suggestions that reduced cost and ease of manufacture of vertical axis wind turbines, is one I like. But going down the route of bigger is better is not always the best (I think some of the construction of nuclear shows this).
I do think that the missing link for wind-power, of whatever stripe, is storage.
There was a link to an article which talked about “myths of windpower”; this seemed, to me, to be straw arguments – focussing on averages rather than the potential intermittent wind events. “Blocking” meterological conditions can exist over large areas (for upto 14 days, I believe) and may result in little or no wind (see https://euanmearns.com/uk-grid-january-2017-and-the-perfect-storm/ — with wind only providing circa 3% of total power).
This particular one (“blocking”) was only for 7 days in January 2017 — when the nation’s 14.4 GW of installed (wind) capacity managed to output <<2 GW for most of the time. Such weather events are common at this time of year.
I must admit I do not know where the figures are coming from (such as 10 or 25 TWh ) for required storage- nor what assumptions they are based upon.
10 days is roughly 250 hours – so 25 TWh would equate to an average of 10 GW spread over 10 days….
or 50 GW over 2 days (or 40 GW over 2.5 days….); so wind only (for a 14 day calm would require a factor of 14/2.5 = 5.6 i.e.140 TWh of storage….).
Obviously lower cost installation of wind power might assist in having excess capacity – to ammeliorate the time when the wind does not blow, (though one would need to be aware of the curtailment costs for when the wind doth blow…).
But there seems to be little consideration as to building large scale energy storage (or the distributed version of this) and how, for example, one gets electricity out of such storage – all in an affordable manner. Given energy volume density for, for example heat or hydrogen storage, one would still need gas & steam turbines to driver generators.
The company Isentropic developed low cost heat storage centred around non-corrosive fluids (argon) – but was not supported; it would be good to see more about large scale or distributed (affordable) energy storage – and associated research and costings. That is the missing link
If Julian Spence – or anyone else – is still reading you may care to look at http://windgod.fluke.org.uk/ for a little light entertainment
It does seem that the key to practical and commercial viability lies in having storage and conversion facilities, perhaps hydrogen as it’s both versatile and well understood, although others may also be appropriate. Getting this message through to the politicians and general public is also key, in order to get the necessary support to achieve it. Previous comments re Mr Johnson and his reliability or otherwise are also relevant; as are the comments pointing out how small this funding actually is in the scale of things. I don’t for a moment doubt that this is the route we ought to be on, but I’m not convinced that the announcement isn’t just the usual lip service we are used to hearing from politicians.
And there was me thinking that bumbling Boris was the missing link !!
It is not turning into a negative at all. As engineers we are expected to implement ideas such as this in order to derive some perceived benafit. The amount of additional energy promised is woefully short of what will be needed to sustain close to 100% of the energy we use today. Pointing out the pitfalls and omissions or broad marketing statements is not being negative but identifying significant hurdles that need to be addressed simultaneously. Very much an engineering role especially if they have the potential for significant impact on funding and delivery timescales, let alone public and user confidence, and of course credibility of the person making the grand sweeping announcement (but then in this instance not going to make a lot of difference).
I have read the comments made, but nearly all assume that only wind or solar are to be used. I have stressed that all forms of renewable energies should be used. It is interesting to note that the Ettridge Wind Turbine can also be used under water effectively. So the risk of no wind, no solar and no tidal flow, all at the same time is very unlikely, but I am expecting others to show other wise.
Trevor that link is ace, … have you sent it to bumbling Boris ? not that he’d understand the results or even what ‘instantaneous power rating’ means.
Those ‘real’ statistics actually disprove the naysayers false arguments:-
“Your proposed storage would require 5 Coire Glas scale storage schemes at an estimated cost of £4 billion.” That’s dirt cheap – the price of just two (‘over-capacity’) offshore wind farms! There is something uniquely incompetent about a government that subsidises the building of intermittent wind farms, but simultaneously denies any support to construct a single PHES facility.
But, if all the wind/wave and tidal power installations built in the 2020s were integrated ENERGY-storage designs, that £4bn of PHES wouldn’t be needed. We wouldn’t need the £8bn of HVDC interconnectors – laid, planned or under construction – either. Win/win. . . . Energy storage costs absolutely NOTHING on a whole-system basis. The industry needs vertical integration – period.
Don’t forget; the hideously expensive nuclear plant we built needed Dinorwig PHES (1974-84). That cost £1bn at today’s prices. Nobody complained or laughed – they’re all proud of it and rightly so. It was simply an act of intelligent National Infrastructure planning, which we now lack.
The Idea that the National grid will be obeyed through government control is as bad as the red flag in front of motor cars at the behest of horse riders-what is coming is not viewed in the last few comments and it scares the suppliers of energy to the point of fear -When the power pack of Tesla is on a wall and a car that can hold a charge which will be able to smooth out the demand and lead to large battery packs (chemical-hydro-air) as green paths to the future power stations I would be scared of the future if I owned a large share in Nuclear or fossil fuels-
In 2013, Boris Johnson wrote a column for The Sun on Sunday titled “Turbines won’t do job.. let’s go nuclear,” in which he described wind farms as a “disease” that have blighted Britain’s countryside and the UK should instead … embrace fracking.
Ref: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/5-fibs-johnson-trump-sunak_uk_5f7efaa6c5b6e48b1684626b
saveenergy: thanks! I shall look at updating the figures to include the rest of 2019 and into 2020 to cover all four seasons
Dave Smart: source for statistics – which are real – https://gridwatch.co.uk/downloads
Please do share technical details of your scheme that can store energy at zero cost – preferably referenced & with some numbers attached