It’s all go in the UK, I tell you!

Due to lower energy demand during the ongoing coronavirus shitshow:

“Hundreds of renewable energy projects may be asked to turn off this weekend to avoid overloading the grid as the UK’s electricity demand plummets to record lows.

“Britain’s demand for electricity is forecast to tumble to a fifth below normal levels due to the spring bank holiday and the shutdown of shops, bars and restaurants mandated by the coronavirus lockdown.”

No-one could have predicted sunshine and coronavirus happening at the same time in Britain.

No-one.

There may be more solar power produced than required at certain times in upcoming days there.

However, the UK’s power supply is still backed up (and to be honest constantly partly powered) by natural gas all through the day. Here’s the last 24 hours for instance:

You can see that even at the peak solar and wind power times of the day, natural gas keeps chugging along at the bottom, like an evil shadow.

What I don’t currently know is if there’s a “lower limit” to the natural gas “input” into the UK’s system. Can it be completely closed off like coal can be?

To be investigated further…

(As I write this post, the UK has now gone 44 days without coal! Check out the counter here to see if the record is still standing.)

In this frankly flabbergasting context, the UK is nevertheless full steam ahead with new solar developments. A 900 acre one is Kent is about to break ground.

It’ll provide enough clean electricity to power 91,000 homes.

During the day.

Why on earth should the Brits be building new solar capacity when—as you’ve seen above—they’ll have to turn some of what they already have off in the next few days?

Welcome to intermittency, green power’s dastardly twin.

The sun don’t shine at night, and the wind does whatever the hell it wants, whenever it wants.

This is of no help to Bob who wants to cook his vegetarian pizza after sunset on a windless day.

Currently, Bob’s best friends are nuclear, hydro, and good ol’ natural gas.

(Bob’s already said, ‘Hasta la vista baby’ to coal. Bob is a good man underneath his gruff exterior.)

Intermittency is a big problem in the renewable energy world.

This is why you’ll probably be hearing more and more about battery storage for renewable energy.

You pump excess solar and wind energy into batteries during the good times, and siphon it back out during the bad. For the new solar project in Kent:

“A boom in battery projects could mean the electricity generated by solar panels during the day could help to keep lights on at night too, helping to cut carbon emissions and domestic energy bills.”

Batteries have their own issues too, around scarcity of key minerals and the impact of mining these—on both the people doing the mining and the environment.

We’ll leave that debate for another day when I’ve researched the costs and benefits of battery storage a bit more. Contact me if you have some great sources on this subject.

Aside from batteries, there’s another trick you can use to deal with intermittency, if you have hydro energy sources.

Basically, you can use excess renewable power to pump water back up behind the hydro turbines, keeping it up there until it’s magical power-bringing electrons are once again needed, bursting back into action with another toboggan ride down the pipes.

The technical term for this is Pumped-storage Hydroelectricity.

Expect to hear more about this.