National Grid Share Discussion Threads

[muffinhead] 06/2/2021 19:50

If price keeps banging on support, eventually it goes and leads to a rush of selling

Weekly timeframe chart

[utyinv] 02/2/2021 13:37

That’s why there is such a massive disconnect in what Politicians believe is possible in terms of cost and time and what is realistically feasible.

The Gov and especially OFGEM (bunch of pen-pushing egotistical idealists), need to be honest with the public and tell them what the score really is.

NG will always deliver, but it will cost and NG is not a charity.

[m100] 02/2/2021 11:33

@POR The peaks quoted are the actual measured ones (at the Grid Supply Point) the equivalent of Transmission System Demand, so power station demand etc has already been netted off

The actual full output usable for two days ahead, including 100% import interconnectors and an assumed seasonal level of grid connected wind is currently 51964MW

[m100] 02/2/2021 11:20

This is a KitKat wrapper calculation, happy to be corrected, sources quoted or provided if asked

Assume you want to match the output from a wind turbine to be equivalent of that from gas (either CCGT or OCGT), or nuclear. That means you'll have an availability of between 91% & 95% with an average load factor (2019 figures) for CCGT of 43% and nuclear 62.9%, the former due to load following and balancing highly cyclical wind generation, the latter due to graphite / boiler issues, some nukes run much closer to 100% load factors (for instance Sizewell B in 2015, 110.1% load factor)

Lets for the sake of simplicity assume you have 1MW of wind generation and a constant 1MW demand. Assume a 33% capacity factor, onshore will be worse, offshore better, the actual capacity factor (for 2019) is 26.2% onshore and 39.6% offshore. (from BEIS Digest of UK Energy Statistics 2019)

Whilst you could generate 1MW x 8760h x (around 90%) = 7884MWh from gas or nuclear it will be lower unless you are running a closely connected aluminium refinery, oil refinery, chemical works or similar.

Using the actual load / capacity factors for 2019

In one year 1MW of UK wind will produce 1MW x 8760h x (33%) = 2900MWh
In one year 1MW of UK gas will on average produce 1MW x 8760h x (43%) = 3767MWh
In one year 1MW of UK nuclear will on average produce 1MW x 8760h x (62.9%) = 5510MWh

So to be equivalent in terms of annual Wh output you need at least

3767/2900 = 1.3MW of wind to be somewhat equivalent of 1MW of gas
5510/2900 = 1.9MW of wind to be somewhat equivalent of 1MW of nuclear

But the wind doesn't blow on demand, it doesn't provide its rated output for '67% of the time' (dispersed randomly across the year)

To maintain 1MW output when 67% of the time you aren't generating requires another 5869MWh of energy supply from somewhere else, normally in the UK this would be gas but for this exercise in saving the planet it's 'storage'

For the purposes of this discussion assume the storage is in the form of the Tesla Powerpack 2 providing 200kWh storage and 55kW continuous output weighing around 2000kg
Its cost in March 2020 is USD 172,707 or in February 2021 the equivalent of £125k

For reference the Powerwall is the industrial sized version of the domestic Tesla Powerwall

To maintain 1MW of wind output with a fully charged battery requires 18 Tesla Powerpack 2's, but it will only maintain that output for five hours, at a cost of £2.25m, whilst its capacity is for unlimited cycles the reality is that after a few thousand ups and downs it will be knackered, possibly arounud the same time as the wind turbine becomes time expired, lets say 15 years to be optimistic.

In addition the storage requires recharging, so whilst satisfying a demand of 1MW you need more wind generation for recharging, so around 200% overbuild of wind generation is required. The wind may cease to blow for hours or even days, that is the big unknown and with 1TWh of demand a day on average for every day of the year it can go wrong really quickly. under 0.5GW of wind generation from 18GW of grid connected wind is not uncommon.

So in low wind conditions, in around five hours, your lights go out, your fridge stops working, your heating fails (decarbonisation means no gas or oil) you can't charge your electric car, you have no internet, you have no mobile or fixed line phones, your supermarket can't order new supplies, the logistics chain totally collapses.

When renewables operators have no absolutely desire to pay for the costs of their intermittency balancing with gas will go on forever whilst the choice for decarbonisation is wind and solar.

[pierre oreilly] 02/2/2021 11:18

But the winter report has the cold weather peak at 60.4GW.They do seem to have a hell of a lot of adjusted peaks these days. But the peak peak - the realistic one which has to be satisfied if it occurs, seems to me to be 60.4GW.The list of descending peaks you quoted seems to be the peaks if we don't have a cold spell ..... I think.

[m100] 02/2/2021 11:04

Yes, the Average Cold Spell peak is around 55GW but it's not being near that for ages.

I'm quoting from the winter outlook report, the demand suppression due to covid is assumed by NG to be 5% (p9 in the winter outlook report) Plus the peak demand seen by NG at grid supply points is increasingly offset by embedded generation and triad avoidance.

Demand has been dropping year on year since about 2005/6

For the past few years it has been as follows (GB excluding NI)

2015 51,100MW
2016 51,858MW
2017 50,608MW
2018 48,800MW
2019 46,802MW

From BEIS Digest of UK Energy Statistics 2020 Plant Loads Demands and Efficiency

[pierre oreilly] 02/2/2021 09:42

m, yes, but that's just mainly down to covid. Any grid planning will be using around 55GW as the current peak (down from 60GW a few years ago) i would imagine. Or is the 'normal, non-covid affected' peak even less than that these days?

Ian, There are quite a few ng people on here, I hope one of them will have a bash at answering you. I'll post my thoughts in a few days time if noone else does.

[m100] 02/2/2021 09:19

@POR The highest demand so far this winter was just under 47GW

Elexon Peak Demand, Indicative Peak & Triad Information


That is broadly in line with what is in the NG 2020/21 winter outlook published in October 2020 (p8)

The equivalent firm capacity assumed by NG for wind is, for this winter, 16%, down from 18% for the previous winter (EFC is analogous to the availability factor for conventional plant) (p11)

The maximum generation capacity is declared at 100.7 GW (p7)

Winter Outlook Report

[ianguerin] 02/2/2021 06:28

How far can battery storage address that problem of wind production being intermittent ?

[pierre oreilly] 01/2/2021 19:18

Peak demand is about 55GW these days

Night time demand can be around 25GW.

Wind capacity on the grid is about 25GW.

So theroetically, at times, wind can supply 100% of demand.

Generation from wind at 31% capacity factor will be about 9GW on average. But the important thing as far as the grid is concerned is that the range for that average will be from near zero to near 23GW i would think. That's what causes ng to put in place very expensive measures to maintain a stable grid with that level of intermittent penetration.

[samwn1] 01/2/2021 16:20

Wind contribution to the grid peaks at about 12GW, UK peak demand about 43GW so not 50% - see here :hxxps://gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

[pierre oreilly] 01/2/2021 08:48

Lippy, wind is intermittent and uncontrollable. With the extremely high penetration of wind on the grid, it can pretty quickly switch from supplying 0% to a high%. That is wind's major problem. The grid has to instantaneously match power all the time, and that is a major cost to the grid with increased primary reserve and increased availability cost. The capacity market, which ensures sufficient dispatchable power, costs about a billion pa, and this is a new market being a direct result of excess intermittent penetration. As more wind comes online, all these costs will rise to (hopefully) accommodate even more wind. When people say wind is cheap, the extra mega cost the grid bears to accommodate it is never taken into account.

[lippy4] 30/1/2021 14:26

how is wind supposedly supplying nearly 50% of our power the other day,when its normally about 5%,is some one telling porkies or pigs are flying???

[coxsmn] 30/1/2021 09:22

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/fair-wind-behind-supplier-of-energy-h7wkr325w

[samwn1] 29/1/2021 16:06

Where is the 6% loss to make 100%?

[beckers2008] 29/1/2021 12:50

A,

Strange the share price is nearly where it was with the threat of Corbyn!
Anything under £9 seems a bargain to me for the yield alone, plus getting rid of the ESO thorn and growth in the US, especially Biden's pledge on Green? BWTFDIK!

[action] 29/1/2021 12:26

Why this is hitting new lows? Any ideas guys?

[coxsmn] 29/1/2021 10:42

Thanks Dart.Its great we are becoming less reliant on the UK business.I invest in Ent and there is a parallel, increased regulation in UK being offset by huge growth in the US.

[dartboard1] 29/1/2021 10:31

64% US revenue 42% US profit

[coxsmn] 29/1/2021 10:12

Does anyone have NG's profit numbers for US versus UK or revenue split.

[utyinv] 28/1/2021 14:52

Everything is great in theory until you quantify.

That’s why imo if Gov are serious in wanting a greener mix then they have to be straight with Joe public and tell them it will cost. Yes that may result in cheaper bills in ten / twenty years time but Governments don’t always understand the engineering behind their promises.

NG is not a charity, just as you wouldn't expect a builder to build you an extension to your house for free.

[pierre oreilly] 27/1/2021 09:26

Bicycle guy, you made a very impassioned post listing tens of ideas on how you think grid issues should go for a greener cheaper grid.It's very difficult taking all of those many ideas and views forward. I hoped we could take the embedded generation to flatten the demand curve forward to a quantitative analysis to see if they have any real substance than just quite emotive words. Not trying to catch you out, appear all knowing, trying to put you down or anything else apart from taking your views to the next step forward.I would hope you would want to investigate further your views. Do you?If you do, and if you don't think the embedded generation and storage isn't suitable, could you pick another of your views on how the grid should proceed and we'll try to put numbers on those just to see where it leads.It has to be done in the real world. If for example you want more batteries to solve a grid issue, someone ultimately has to order X batteries. The question is, what is the value of X.If you just state 'batteries on the local network will flatten the demand curve' isn't really a great help if you don't know and can't work out how many batteries and at what cost. Would you agree with that statement?

[beckers2008] 27/1/2021 08:51

I thought the share price would react more positively regarding the spin off of the ESO. For a tiny proportion of NG.business plus OFGEM beating us with the stick time after time, surely this is good news for shareholders?

[lippy4] 26/1/2021 22:56

did any one see that experiment making hydrogen for the air which did work,it was quite a large amount installation of equipment as i remember it was in the cambridge area..

[ccraig69] 26/1/2021 22:43

Hydrogen is produced by electricity. I see a problem