"Green Grid" – Excellent article in New Scientist by David Strahan (The Last Oil Shock) on HVDC supergrids

Articles “Green grid” A version of this article was published in New Scientist on 12 March 2009. Original is here (This article was in part stimulated by the last Claverton conference held at Wessex Water, Bath where Dr Czisch spoke, and various discussions, (various discussions2),   (various discussions3)  (varous discusions4) on this website.  Graeme Bathhurst is […]

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UK National Grid talking about wind in the future, when there is a high penetration

Slide 14 of the presentation labelled future system operation at :  http://www.nationalgrid.com/uk/Electricity/Balancing/operationalforum/2009/               – presented to all and sundry at the Operational Forum (open to all comers) by National Grid at the Ardencote Manor 2 weeks ago, may interest. The following three slides after that are also interesting, as […]

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Time is running out for UK flagship wind project London Array

Gregory Barker, the Shadow minister for climate change writing in the Sunday Times, 1st Feb, “Brown has a Power Failure” points out that unless a decision is made soon to go ahead with the London Array in the Thames Estuary, then National Grid will miss the slot allocated to upgrade the Grid in time. Apparently […]

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Myth of technical un-feasibility of complex multi-terminal HVDC and ideological barriers to inter-country power exchanges – Czisch

From Dr Gregor Czisch.

There are two subjects in Nigel Wakefield’s email I would like to address:

First Subject- Technical feasibility of complex multi-terminal HVDC systems:

Nigel Wakefield wrote

> One of the problems that needs addressing with HVDC is, I believe
> the problem of multi-nodal links. … However I understand that
> technology linking individual point supply into an HVDC link is
> not available yet.

Can anyone elucidate on this?

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European Super Grid – "Wrong to suggest this would make Europe more vulnerable than importing Russian Gas and Middle East fossil fuels" – ?

The above slide from Czisch (“An affordable renewable power system for Europe”) shows that Europe is unlikely to be vulnerable to sudden disconnection / sabotage of say a single or several, North African regions since there is considerable redundancy in connection and diversity of supply areas, and European grids of necessity already have existing sophisticated […]

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"Real energy security" – Prof. David Elliott, Open University

(Originally Letter to Guardian Newspaper)     With the battles continuing over the EU’s access to Russia’s gas supplies via transit arrangement across the Ukraine, it may be worth looking to the future, when a different set of energy options may change the geopolitical realities.  Currently we are fighting over the dwindling and increasingly expensive oil and […]

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New Study Puts The Generation Costs For Power From New Nuclear Plants Triple Current U.S. Electricity Rates

A new study puts the generation costs for power from new nuclear plants at 25 to 30 cents per kilowatt-hour — triple current U.S. electricity rates.

see: http://climateprogress.org/2009/01/05/study-cost-risks-new-nuclear-power-plants/ rel=no follow

Current CSP costs (still substantially less than nuclear):
Vinod Khosla gives current CSP at 16 cents kWh (and note PV far higher at 22.4 cents kW/hr – see slide 124 onwards at http://www.slideshare.net/guest76ed37/khosla92507 rel=no follow
Also, good summary of costs can be found here: puts current CSP at 13 – 17 cents kWh: http://peakenergy.blogspot.com/2008/04/concentrating-on-important-things-solar.html/ rel=no follow
Makes CSP look very attractive indeed at 11 cents per kWh by 2011 (cf Ausra & Bright Source CSP plants signed up with PG&E in South West America) – compatible with gas prices, and estimated to reduce to 4-6 cents per kWhr by 2020. Nuclear costs unlikely to reduce, but instead are on an upward trajectory.

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