Help with energy use/provision please

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Slim

Joined: 05 Mar 2006
Posts: 6612
Location: New England (In the US of A)

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 17 1:05 pm Post subject:

Clearly not knowing your situation from here I'll chime in those outsider questions that hopefully help (?)

Is there a dense city center, or at least enough large companies/institutions that would make co-generation of heat/hot-water and power a viable pursuit? A co-generation plant could be fueled with biomass, trash, or just straight natural gas and may still represent an increase in efficiency.

You mentioned moors for hydro storage, what do you think would be the cheapest renewable suited to your location to be producing the excess energy that you'd be storing?

I'm guessing that you don't have the area (or annual exposure) to be producing enough solar to be worth trying to store it. Better to just include any solar into your daily baseline (with the realization that it won't be consistent. It probably won't be a large percentage anyway).

Do you have good wind siting near you? Could the municipality (or county, or whatever scale your gov't is on) build off-shore wind elsewhere?

My (uninformed) ideal from my guesses of the area would be plenty of off-shore wind with excess off-peak power pumping water for the hydro storage. Serious investigation of co-generation as well.

Thanks for letting me play internet armchair quarterback

Hairyloon

Joined: 20 Nov 2008
Posts: 15425
Location: Today I are mostly being in Yorkshire.

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 17 4:59 pm Post subject:
I still think there is a lot of potential in flywheels. This project looked very promising, but a drop in the price of oil has put it on indefinite hold. I have wondered if it might be worth talking to him about a deal, but that's not a project I could manage.

Slim

Joined: 05 Mar 2006
Posts: 6612
Location: New England (In the US of A)

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 17 5:33 pm Post subject:
https://www.gereports.com/unique-combo-wind-hydro-power-revolutionize-renewable-energy/ This is the example of wind and hydro storage I was thinking of. I think it'll be a really nice system where topography and land use allow

Hairyloon

Joined: 20 Nov 2008
Posts: 15425
Location: Today I are mostly being in Yorkshire.

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 17 6:51 pm Post subject:

Quote:

Built into the hills will be a hydroelectric plant capable of producing 16 megawatts of power, while the wind farm on its own will produce 13.6 megawatts.

OK, but for how long? That does not look to be a very big water tank.

An interesting idea that was put to me recently is to use ice as an energy store. It is counter-intuitive, but all you need to run a heat engine is a heat gradient...

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46212
Location: yes

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 17 7:36 pm Post subject:

the moors are windy and there is a decent height difference in the area.
pumped storage and or hydro seem plausible.

locations and costings could be worked out which gets back to identifying peak and base loads.

having had a while to consider it and reading the comments i recon there are quite a few pennine communities that could become renewable energy hubs.
hudderfield with two steep rivers, plenty of redundant dam capacity at various heights and acres of flat windy moors seems a good candidate.

york however is not very promising as it has little gravity (unless we dammed a few of the dales valleys and got a long wire

) it isn't windy but although it isnt very sunny we could put pv/solar thermal water on the roofs for at least a partial local system if it was on grid as well . as to storage at the mo the NG would probably be the best option.
we are sitting over a couple of centuries of coal and shale gas

but that isn't quite the idea i would suggest.

OtleyLad

Joined: 13 Jan 2007
Posts: 2737
Location: Otley, West Yorkshire

Posted: Sat Jan 07, 17 7:09 am Post subject:

Slim wrote:

https://www.gereports.com/unique-combo-wind-hydro-power-revolutionize-renewable-energy/

This is the example of wind and hydro storage I was thinking of. I think it'll be a really nice system where topography and land use allow

Looks promising - the Yorkshire Dales provide a similar topography.
(of course there would be an outcry about it - but not perhaps when people realise the urgency/need to switch to renewables).

Just to mention a quote from the above:
"Wind is a clean, cheap source of renewable energy, but it�s also fickle. You can never be sure whether the wind will blow."

Even with current weather forecasting the availability of wind is becoming much more predictable - making the switching to other sources less of a problem (in terms of time).

OtleyLad

Joined: 13 Jan 2007
Posts: 2737
Location: Otley, West Yorkshire

Posted: Sat Jan 07, 17 7:13 am Post subject:

dpack wrote:

york however is not very promising as it has little gravity (unless we dammed a few of the dales valleys and got a long wire

) .

I am sure we could come ot some mutually beneficial arrangment

OtleyLad

Joined: 13 Jan 2007
Posts: 2737
Location: Otley, West Yorkshire

Posted: Sat Jan 07, 17 7:54 am Post subject:

Behemoth wrote:

Possibly of use.

https://ukerc.rl.ac.uk/DC/cgi-bin/edc_search.pl?GoButton=Detail&WantComp=42&WantResult=LD&WantText=profile&

https://ijeee.org/volums/volume7/IJEEE7PDF/Paper727.pdf

https://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/sites/default/files/reports/PoweringthenationreportCO332.pdf

Didn't read every page but yes useful.

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Sat Jan 07, 17 9:35 am Post subject:

OtleyLad wrote:

(of course there would be an outcry about it - but not perhaps when people realise the urgency/need to switch to renewables).

Of course your first step, which I assume you're doing, would be to tell people if they cut down on energy use they'd need a smaller power plant or less wind turbines? After all you can argue wind turbines are better than gas but they are not perfect. There's now evidence they slice & dice plenty of wildlife such as birds of prey and bats ( https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/nov/07/wind-turbine-collisions-killing-hundreds-of-uk-bats-each-month-study-finds ).

Slim

Joined: 05 Mar 2006
Posts: 6612
Location: New England (In the US of A)

Posted: Sat Jan 07, 17 1:42 pm Post subject:
The cheapest kwh is the one not generated and all.....

Behemoth

Joined: 01 Dec 2004
Posts: 19023
Location: Leeds

Posted: Sun Jan 08, 17 8:36 pm Post subject:
Otley has a nice river, a weir and a mill race. Handy for something I'd imagine. Last edited by Behemoth on Sun Jan 08, 17 11:22 pm; edited 1 time in total

Nick

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 34535
Location: Hereford

Posted: Sun Jan 08, 17 9:23 pm Post subject:

Slim wrote:

The cheapest kwh is the one not generated and all.....

Not in Northern Ireland. The ones you generate get you paid a subsidy more than the cost.

OtleyLad

Joined: 13 Jan 2007
Posts: 2737
Location: Otley, West Yorkshire

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 17 4:04 am Post subject:

Slim wrote:

Is there a dense city center, or at least enough large companies/institutions that would make co-generation of heat/hot-water and power a viable pursuit?

Otley is a modest town of about 7,000 households.

Slim wrote:

You mentioned moors for hydro storage, what do you think would be the cheapest renewable suited to your location to be producing the excess energy that you'd be storing?

Definately wind turbines.

Slim wrote:

I'm guessing that you don't have the area (or annual exposure) to be producing enough solar to be worth trying to store it. Better to just include any solar into your daily baseline (with the realization that it won't be consistent. It probably won't be a large percentage anyway).

You're right - its a beautiful place when its sunny though.

Slim wrote:

Do you have good wind siting near you? Could the municipality (or county, or whatever scale your gov't is on) build off-shore wind elsewhere?

Surrounded by open high moorland. But we are a long way from the sea.

Slim wrote:

Thanks for letting me play internet armchair quarterback

You're welcome

OtleyLad

Joined: 13 Jan 2007
Posts: 2737
Location: Otley, West Yorkshire

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 17 4:07 am Post subject:

Treacodactyl wrote:

OtleyLad wrote:

(of course there would be an outcry about it - but not perhaps when people realise the urgency/need to switch to renewables).

There's also conflicting evidence that that report should be filed in the dodgy dossier section.

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 17 7:56 am Post subject:

OtleyLad wrote:

There's also conflicting evidence that that report should be filed in the dodgy dossier section.

Care to post up any links to that or are you just dismissing the rather inconvenient truth?

It looks like you could argue over their total numbers but not the fact dead bats have been found under wind turbines. Do your reports suggest they died due to other factors, suicide perhaps?

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