There really is a Renewable Energy Revolution Going On!
I’ve just read about the record breaking wind energy records for a day in August 2014. 5.0 GW of electricity supplying 17% of the UK demand on a Sunday night. At the same time hydro was delivering 2.0% and biomass 2.5%. So we had 21.0% of electricity being delivered by renewable`s.
However, it appears that these figures from the trade organisation Renewables UK and other data from DECC don’t include anything other than the half hourly metered generation ie the big MegaWatt sized wind and solar farms, big Scottish high head hydro plant and old coal fired power stations converted to burn wood pellet or chip. What about all the Solar PhotoVoltaics on house and industrial estate roofs or the small 20 kW wind turbines on farms or the small hydro plant at old mill sites? These don’t appear to be captured in the data because up to the minute (well half hour) generation data is not available. They are only metered on a quarterly basis. Luckily you can get an idea of what is happening with these small kW sized installations from the ofgem Feed In Tariff`s statistical reports – Click Here and go to FIT installations statistical report – or direct to the report: Here
My calculations indicate an additional 1% of UK demand over the course of a year. Less than I was hoping for but growing quickly all the time. Especially Solar PV, which is apparently found on 1 in every 32 houses in the south west. I know from my own generation from 4 kW of PV and the generation from the South Somerset District Council PV portfolio that 2014 has been a bumper year.
More on the tumbling RE generation records! Our opponents focus so much on the times when a particular individual RE technology isn’t performing – here’s evidence of how a “perfect storm” can benefit RE output and how, with increasing capacity of a varied bag of technologies the chances of an overall failure of RE will become less and less. Add in the potential for storage and demand side management and it shows that there is an answer to RE intermittency as long as 1. We build plenty of capacity which means we cannot rely purely on RE sites miles and miles from the nearest house and 2. We spread our efforts across a wide range of technologies and locations which means that trying to rule out any one technology on the grounds of marginal differences in cost per MWh is pointless and really just a smoke screen for objecting to the RE proposed for your neighbourhood.
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2360329/uk-renewables-industry-celebrates-record-start-to-2014?utm_term=&utm_content=Government%20figures%20confirm%20renewables%20generation%20was%20up%2043%20per%20cent%20compared%20to%20first%20quarter%20of%20201&utm_campaign=BG.Breaking_News_RL.EU.A.U&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=BG.DCM.Editors_Updates