Guardian article here:
I guess my inherent distrust,
of anything related to climate
change, made me suspicious.
I also treat corporate CEOs
as master bull-shitters,
including the former CEO
now in the While House.
I quote the Scottish Power
CEO here, only to show you
how a CEO can "talk positive",
and tell you nothing important.
This true story
revealed the following,
but without actually
telling us directly:
(1)
Europeans are wasting
a lot of money on expensive,
intermittent wind energy.
(2)
It is possible to imply only
good news about batteries,
while telling readers nothing
important, such as their
high cost, and low capacity.
(3)
The cost of the project
is not mentioned,
so it must be expensive,
nor was there any mention
of taxpayer subsidies.
(4)
Most important, the capacity
of the batteries is obscured
by using a strange comparison,
that is meaningless
to at least 99% of readers.
( The Nissan Leaf comparison )
(5)
The battery storage
will not provide
continuous electricity supply,
for the UK energy system.
Lithium-ion batteries
do not generate electricity.
They store a little energy,
at a very high cost.
This is the biggest
battery power project
in Europe.
Of course, not mentioned
is the fact that there are
no big battery farms
in Europe !
Scottish Power
will connect
a huge battery farm
to the Whitelee
onshore wind farm
early next year
to store unneeded
(at the time) wind power,
from its 215 wind turbines.
The lithium-ion battery farm
will help Whitelee,
one of the largest onshore
windfarms in Europe,
by storing electricity
when wind speeds are high,
for use when wind speeds
are low.
This project will allegedly lead
to similar projects for at least six
of Scottish Power’s largest
renewable energy sites,
over the following 18 months.
Scottish Power claims
the 50MW battery systems
promise a “significant step”
for continuous electricity supply,
for the UK energy system.
The battery farm
will have more than
double the power capacity
of any existing
battery farm in the UK.
It is said to take an hour
to fully charge.
And it is said to store enough
electricity over that hour
to fully charge
806 Nissan Leaf vehicles
over a total of 182,000 miles,
according to a spokesman
for Scottish Power.
What the hell does that mean ?
I'll tell you later !
Keith Anderson,
Scottish Power’s CEO,
said:
“Batteries will take
renewable energy
to the next level."
"It is a nice, neat solution
to help use more and more
renewable power in the UK,
because that’s what we need
to be doing to reach a
net zero-carbon economy.”
“Over a period of time,
we will get to use much more
wind output from the project,
and across the whole of the country,
because even at times of low demand
we will be able to capture far more
of the wind rather than wasting
that potential energy,” he said.
ANALYSIS:
The Nissan Leaf, mentioned above
has a battery capacity of 40 KWh,
so 806 Leafs would equal 32 MWh.
The Whitelee's wind farm
is rated at 539 MW.
So the new battery storage
could replace
Whitelee’s FULL capacity
for only 3 minutes,
if the wind stopped blowing.
But the wind farm’s
typical average power
utilization is only 30%,
not 100% -- there's not a
fast wind 100% of the time!
The three minutes power
at 100% utilization
would rise to about
12 minutes of power,
at 30% utilization.
To store enough
power to cover
a week’s loss
of wind power
at Whitelee,
you would need
27,048 MWh,
at 30% utilization.
That’s 845 new batteries of this size.
Whitelee’s new battery farm
will cost about £20m, according to
Wind Power Monthly.
So 845 of them would cost £16.9bn
What's the incentive
for Scottish Power ?
I'm not sure.
Public relations ?
Or maybe this:
The Capacity Market mechanism
was set up to provide standby capacity
to cover intermittent renewables.
Although still under investigation
by the EU, the CM could be
paying out £30/KW/Yr,
which would net Scottish Power
about £900,000 annually.