It's an interesting solution

The UK currently has about 31.5 GW of dispatchable energy. 25 GW gas, 2.5 GW pumped, 2.0 GW biomass and 2.0 GW coal.

Let's just stop oil and replace the 25 GW gas and 2 GW coal with solar and wind! Let's insulate Britain and bring the usage down! How much do you reckon that drops demand? Let's also all move to electric cars. New petrol/diesel cars are being banned soon aren't they? How much does that increase demand? Hypothetically, let's say they balance.

So how much dispatchable storage do we need? 31.5 GW for how many hours? That depends on the wind:solar balance. Let's say we have 16 GW installed wind and 16 GW installed solar. We get spells with very low wind. So, say 2 days without wind? Need 48 hours x 16 GW = 768 GWh storage to cover that. Then diurnal storage for solar 16 GW x 12 hours = 192 GWh.

How much energy does the system in your link store? 0.024 GWh. Can you see the difference in magnitude between what we need and what some of these systems provide? So the Dinorwig pumped power station is 9.1 GWh and it cost 425 million - in 1974.

Sorry for being a cynical old bastard but look at the fuss over HS2 - zero emissions public transport. Building that much dispatchable storage is an engineering challenge that would dwarf HS2. How long is HS2 expected to take to build? What is the shortest timescale to finish HS2. How much would it cost if we wanted it finished in that timescale? Maybe it is the 'just' in just stop oil that irritates me...

Posted By: Timmy_Goat, Nov 11, 18:11:15