Vision 2020 and beyond – Dr. Gregor Czisch Ex Kassell University discussed the integration of African Power production internally and with Europe to fully exploit the vast hydro power available at the Inga Dam site

” The Grand Inga dam can provide 2/3 of African power needs and some of Europe’s”

While integration – meaning electrical inter – connections of neighbours – on the

one hand may enable cheap electricity, on the other, it can cause dependence.

Therefore, to avoid a single source dependency, it might be seen as a better

solution, to use less favourable resources inside a given country, and accept higher

costs and other disadvantages. Another way out of this dilemma is diversification of

interconnections. Therefore regional integration may be more attractive when the

number of participating countries rises.

In some cases, regional integration is the only reasonable way of using known

resources which are too big for a national approach.

An extreme example is the hydropower potential near Inga, by the Congo River, in

the Democratic Republic of Congo. The African Power Pools have been formed in

order to erect large scale regional integration projects – leading in a structure one

may call an African Supergrid – to be able to handle the tremendous amount of

electricity which could be produced here at very low prices, and which would be

enough to deliver two thirds of the current African consumption. But the huge

capacity makes it difficult to bring the different objectives together.

Read More
Baseload nuclear power not needed in an all-renewable future

What square of land area of wind turbines would be needed in reasonable sites in the UK to in one year generate all UKs power demand?

Data

A 5 MW turbine rotor diameter is 126m ( from the Repower website http://www.repower.de/index.php?id=12&L=1 )

According to Martin Alder, a wind farm owner and developer:

Across wind turbine spacing = 3 x dia (Assume tower to tower)

Down wind turbine spacing = 5 x dia

According to Colin Palmer, of Wind Prospect, a leading wind farm developer, load factors of 30 – 35% onshore, and 40% offshore are readilly achievalbe.

So assume 33%.

Calculation

Take a 70 mile by 70 mile square. This equals 112 km by 112 km

So downwind, turbine spacing (tower to tower) will be 126 x 3 = 378m. Thus in 70 miles / 112 km we can accommodate (112 x 1000 / 378 ) +1 = 297.3 towers (allowing half blade length to protrude out of area at edges).

Similarly, cross wind, we need 5 x 126 = 630 m. Thus in 70 miles / 112 km we can accommodate (112 x 1000 /630) +1 = 178.8 towers (again allowing half blade length to protrude out of area at edges).

Thus a 70 mile by 70 mile square can accommodate 297.3 x 178.8 = 53,157 turbines..

At 5 MW each, these will generate at peak 265.7 GW.

Assuming reasonable sites and a 1/3 , 33% load factor, this will generate on average 79.73 GW.

Read More

Senior Electrical Engineer questions political risk of Czisch type supergrid

Bernard is a senior electrical engineer and has sat on many generation industry committees. He writes:

“I unfortunately missed the House of Commons presentation. I think we all agree the we could overcome technical problems at a price. However how do we overcome the political risk ? In the coal, nuclear, oil and gas areas this is dealt with by storage and multi sourcing. I don’t know how we factor in the cost of occupying a country while alternative supplies are built – even if it were possible. Any comments”

Admin writes:

Regarding political risk.

All turbines can be in EU not in dodgy foreign countries.

First of all, lets be clear, the Czisch concept / proposition is not built solely on the assumption that supplies coming from Egypt, Kazakhstan and so on as many people in this group seem to wrongly assume. The key point is that a supergrid be built linking up the EU states including Iceland and Norway. This has enormous technical and economic benefits for all power generation (but not the companies owning them – it introduces a free market which I am in full support of, but they are not), and will make the whole thing more efficient, by allowing plants to run smoothly, and lead to the obsolescing of numerous inefficient existing stations which will no longer be needed and a massive reduction in expensive spinning reserve and hot standby (- this is the key reason why there is no support form the big players – it will strand many of their assets and make it unnecessary to build a lot of the new coal plant they want to, irrespective of any renewables. Just as building the UK supergrid in 1930 made a lot of UK power stations redundant, and forced a lot of those local monopolies out of business.) However putting a lot of wind farms in far flung places is the cheapest way of getting power – but that is only one option!. If we don’t do it, and put all the turbines within EU proper, it costs a bit more, but not a lot. (Mark Barrett has already shown this

Read More

National Grid's views on 36% wind in UK power generation mix

Dear all,   Regarding the concerns expressed in this dialogue (on the claverton mailing list – ed) regarding the intermittency of wind and the risk to the transmission network of having a large percentage of wind generation on the network.   The National Grid has in the last year established what it calls its “Gone […]

Read More

Why Do We Need The Supergrid, What Is Its Scope And What Will It Achieve?

Claverton House of Commons Presentation, 19th June 2009  Note – The Claverton Energy Groupcomprises about 300 independent energy experts who discuss energy issues. Not all members support the Supergrid concept, however a significant proportion, if not most, do. Dr Czisch presented at a recent Claverton Conference held at the Headquarters of Wessex Water in Bath […]

Read More

Note from TREC on extra supergrid / DESERTEC links

Hi Andrew, House of Commons presentation, June 18th 2009- European Supergrid and 100% Renewable Energy Congratulations on organising the above meeting at the HoC about supergrids and thanks for your support in that area. In connection with supergrids, you may be interested to put some or all of the following links on to the website […]

Read More