Power Line Bringing Wind Energy to the EU Planned That Crosses a 730-Mile Sea (apnews.com) 72
Once part of the USSR, the nation of Georgia seceded in 1991. Still located on Russia's southern border — and on the eastern edge of the Black Sea — it's now part of a four-country system that plans to transmit wind-generated electricity from Azerbaijan (to Georgia's east, also located on Russia's southern border) across an undersea cable below the Black Sea, through Romania and then on to Hungary.
Expected to be completed within three or four years, it could become "a new power source for the European Union amid a crunch on energy supplies caused by the war in Ukraine," reports the Associated Press, with Hungary's foreign minister hailing it as a major step toward diversifying energy supplies and meeting carbon neutrality targets.
Finalized today, the deal comes as Hungary "is seeking additional sources for fossil fuels to reduce its heavy dependence on Russian oil and gas." Hungary's foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, said in August that Azerbaijan would soon produce "large quantities of green electricity" with offshore wind farms, and that by signing on to the connector project which could bring that energy to Europe, Hungary was fulfilling a requirement that two EU member nations participate in order for the investment to receive funding from the bloc.... BR>
This week, Szijjarto met with officials from both Qatar and Oman on the potential future import of oil and natural gas to Hungary from the two Middle Eastern countries, a further sign that Hungary is taking steps to level down the 85% of its natural gas and more than 60% of its oil that it currently receives from Russia.
The article also points out that the country of Romania has also signed a deal with Azerbaijan's state oil company for natural gas deliveries starting on January 1.
Expected to be completed within three or four years, it could become "a new power source for the European Union amid a crunch on energy supplies caused by the war in Ukraine," reports the Associated Press, with Hungary's foreign minister hailing it as a major step toward diversifying energy supplies and meeting carbon neutrality targets.
Finalized today, the deal comes as Hungary "is seeking additional sources for fossil fuels to reduce its heavy dependence on Russian oil and gas." Hungary's foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, said in August that Azerbaijan would soon produce "large quantities of green electricity" with offshore wind farms, and that by signing on to the connector project which could bring that energy to Europe, Hungary was fulfilling a requirement that two EU member nations participate in order for the investment to receive funding from the bloc.... BR>
This week, Szijjarto met with officials from both Qatar and Oman on the potential future import of oil and natural gas to Hungary from the two Middle Eastern countries, a further sign that Hungary is taking steps to level down the 85% of its natural gas and more than 60% of its oil that it currently receives from Russia.
The article also points out that the country of Romania has also signed a deal with Azerbaijan's state oil company for natural gas deliveries starting on January 1.
Hey Editors (Score:2)
Hungary's foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, said in August that Azerbaijan would soon produce "large quantities of green electricity" with offshore wind farms, and that by signing on to the connector project which could bring that energy to Europe, Hungary was fulfilling a requirement that two EU member nations participate in order for the investment to receive funding from the bloc.... BR>
This is what I get for reading TFS for once.
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HTML brocquote is very fruent design!
Looks like there was just not enough pressure... (Score:4, Informative)
And suddenly, things start to work. And with HVDC, that distance is not a problem and has not been for quite a while.
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Yeah. But setting all those power poles is going to be a bitch.
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In the Black Sea? Yep. That is why you do not do it that way...
Well *I* got it (Score:1)
Man, sorry Slashdot seems to be chock full of humorless scolds now.
"BUT THAT NOT POSSIBLE IN WATER ME MOD DOWN NOW UGH".
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I think it's because the Slashdot moderation system doesn't have a -1: Groan choice.
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I agree that should a mod option except that I would make it +1 Groan... :-)
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Things didn't "start to work". They always worked. There was just far more low hanging fruit to pick first.
Brilliant Idea (Score:1)
Now I don't know this is happening here, but if you had a country way off where no one goes and someone 700 miles away wanted to buy power... why not build some wind farms, and a whole Buch more coal power plants, then sell all of your energy generated by both wind and coal as coal at a hefty premium?
It's not like you are ever going to be audited...
Just make sure to turn power output down when the wind is flat.
Re: Brilliant Idea (Score:2)
Anchor-proof cable (Score:1)
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If Russia is really to be taken as an hostile nation, then undersea power cables are a target. Breaking them just need a plain boat that badly cast its anchor.
Any plans of some global electrical network will be subject to sabotage like you describe. It may not even be a "planned accident" but just out in the open turning off the power to watch someone sweat. Or freeze. It's no accident that the natural gas line from Russia to Europe was destroyed. Well, maybe it was an accident but it does seem oddly convenient for Russia that the pipeline is no longer able to carry fuel which makes the world wonder.
Every nation must be able to provide the necessities of life
Re:Anchor-proof cable (Score:5, Insightful)
Every nation must be able to provide the necessities of life to consider themselves an independent nation.
Man, I was almost thinking, here's MacMann making some sensible, if a bit extreme points. What's gone wrong? Then I realise it's just a build up. Let's just comment for now that, in this definition, Europe effectively counts as one nation. The whole area of the European is indeed smaller than half the size of the USA and so some countries just have to rely on some level of trade with each other.
They don't have the land area to rely on wind and sun for power.
Scotland alone has enough wind power potential for the whole of Europe. Probably Scotland could do that based on onshore wind but actually what they are building is offshore wind. They have 43GW planned and could easily build 100GW. That's much more power than the whole of Germany needs at peak.
What adding Georgia (and Morocco) into the mix does is means that you can ensure that there is always wind blowing on several of your power areas so that power is no longer intermittent.
Europe has three choices, fossil fuels, nuclear fission, or energy poverty
And here MacMann is to rescue us Europeans with Nuclear power. Except what we need is affordable power and within the next year, not unaffordable nuclear 20 years from now. Wind can deliver that easily. However if we are going for long term fantasy projects, how about building the Iceland interconnect and, instead of building it at 2GW, build it at say 5 or 10 GW? That might actually be useful instead of another white elefant delayed nuclear plant.
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The EU started as a way to make France and Germany dependent on each other for coal, so that in future war would be impossible.
This is another way to create interdependence, with a view to admitting more countries to the EU.
It also means that there are going to be new wealthy countries in the EU. Liked oil wealth, only clean.
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Have you actually seen the math on how much land, labor, and materials would be required for the wind power project you proposed? I have. They aren't going to be built in a year, or a decade, or even two decades. While it may take 20 years to build a nuclear power plant it is a power plant that will provide power in any wind conditions, take less land and labor, and last for 80 years. Like any power plant they go down for maintenance so we should plan on several of them so we can rotate these down times
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If the plan is to put in batteries to manage these times when the wind blows then why not just use them with the nuclear power plants instead? Batteries don't care where the electricity comes from.
Because the electricity from Nuclear power plants costs much more and so won't be competitive. And in any case, the wind is always blowing somewhere so the main plan should be to distribute the wind widely enough that it supplies energy at least as reliably as a nuclear power plant.
The land required for getting enough wind power is not trivial. While we can use the land under the windmills for crops, grazing, parks, and so forth, that is land that will still be limited in use so the windmills can catch the wind and produce power.
The land required for off shore wind is what I should call, less than trivial.
If Russia is willing to sabotage undersea pipelines then they might not be above cutting loose some windmills in the North Atlantic,
Or using a nuclear power plant as a form of dirty bomb. Given Zaporizka plant and the threats Russia has made with it I hope we have learned a lesson.
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you have to factor all those costs in before you can compare the price of wind power vs nuclear
Sure, absolutely. That calculation is called the "Levelized cost of electricity" [wikipedia.org] and the value calculated for offshore wind in the United States is below $20 per MWh for wind whilst it's over $150 (there's a nice diagram in the link I just gave). Obviously, in Scotland, with sustained strong winds, those costs are even more in favour of wind. This means that not only can you match nuclear for 1/5 of the price but, given the electricity is massively cheaper with almost no marginal costs, you can afford to b
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The LCOE "represents the average revenue per unit of electricity generated that would be required to recover the costs of building and operating a generating plant during an assumed financial life and duty cycle"
It doesn't factor anything about batteries, grid expansions and overbuilding and that's exactly my point, you are comparing apples to oranges as without those things wind can't be used for base-load.
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And in any case, the wind is always blowing somewhere so the main plan should be to distribute the wind widely enough that it supplies energy at least as reliably as a nuclear power plant.
Sure. Everyone should rely on power from "somewhere else". If everyone does that means there will always be power somewhere. You may not be first in line for it though.
You build a nuclear plant, and it is yours. You get first dibs. Germany, OTOH (for example) can rely on there always being wind in Scotland, or Morocco, or Azerbaijan. It is as far away from self-sufficient as you can be, but will probably work most of the time. We'll laugh when it doesn't though. Much like we laugh about the exact
Re: Anchor-proof cable (Score:2)
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Proof by TED talk. This was ten years ago which is a long time in renewables. Since that time, wind power in the UK has increased 5 times. And that was despite the government nobbling the onshore market in the middle of it. In that time, we have managed to get a nuclear power plant from planning to producing in the next few years hopefully.
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They have 43GW planned and could easily build 100GW. That's much more power than the whole of Germany needs at peak.
That sounds really cool, but what to do when you need 100GW of power and the wind won't supply that much?
100GW wind farm doesn't mean you'll have a reliable source of 100GW whenever YOU need it...
The entire wind capacity in the US is about 134GW:
More than 60,000 utility-scale wind turbines are installed in the U.S., with a cumulative capacity of 134.2 GW. U.S. wind capacity grew from 40 GW in 2010 to 134 GW in 2021, a 12% average annual increase.
Source: https://css.umich.edu/publicat... [umich.edu]
How big is a 100GW wind farm?
Well the Roscoe Wind Farm in Texas is a 781MW (or 0.781GW) and is 400Km^2:
Covering 400km of farmland, the 781.5MW wind farm comprises 627 wind turbines placed 900ft apart from each other.
Source: https://www.power-technology.c... [power-technology.com]
So, dividing 100GW by 0.781 GW gives us a multiplier of about 128, so we'd need a
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Source: https://www.power-technology.c... [power-technology.com]
So, dividing 100GW by 0.781 GW gives us a multiplier of about 128, so we'd need about 128 x 400Km^2 of land, or about 51,200Km^2 (about 19768 square miles).
That seems kinda big, considering all of Scotland is about 30,000 square miles.
Maybe the solution isn't as trivial as you imagine it is?
A hint of the primary error in your calculation (the secondary one is the type and size of turbine) would be that there's lots more wind in Scotland than in Texas. Really lots.
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So, dividing 100GW by 0.781 GW gives us a multiplier of about 128, so we'd need about 128 x 400Km^2 of land, or about 51,200Km^2 (about 19768 square miles).
That seems kinda big, considering all of Scotland is about 30,000 square miles.
Maybe the solution isn't as trivial as you imagine it is?
Scotland has a huge coast line and a lot of water around it. Dogger Bank alone has an estimated capacity of 110 GW [wikipedia.org] and Belgium, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands are planning [windeurope.org] to build a 150 GW offshore wind capacity by 2050.
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781 MW from 627 wind turbines. So 1MW turbines, built in 2007. These are absolutely tiny. State of the art, offshore is now 16MW or more per turbine. Hornsea has a capacity of 1GW with 100 turbines. Bigger there are, the less land (or sea) they take.
Re: Anchor-proof cable (Score:2)
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The problem is that you keep quoting installed power, not actual. 43 GW nameplate is about 14 GW average. Median will be even lower, maybe 10 GW. So fully half the time your 43 is putting out less than 10.
What's the backup plan?
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Build more of it over a wide area. The North Sea alone could power all of Europe if we went really nuts with it.
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The problem is that you keep quoting installed power
That's only a problem if he were talking about something maxed out in capacity. He's not. He's talking about the tiny country of Scotland. Which leaves us with:
So fully half the time your 43 is putting out less than 10.
What's the backup plan?
Your dumb question has a dumb answer: Build more. It also has a smarter answer: This was just as an example and precisely zero people here are suggesting we power the entire EU from Scotland using just wind turbines.
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Offshore now routinely has capacity factors of 50%+, so this is probably on the low size. Still a lot lower than nuclear at 85% but rather higher than the 14GW you suggest.
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Sure.
https://energynumbers.info/uk-... [energynumbers.info]
The best given here are just under 50%, so I may have been slight optimistic, but not much. The two most interesting ones are Hornsea (which is the newest). It should be beaten by Dogger Bank A, B and C which is in basically the same place, but with slightly newer (i.e. taller) turbines when it comes on stream. And Hywind Scotland; this is one of the more expensive wind farms (per MWh) and is small but it is floating demonstrator and should be an indicator of the future
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You need to look at the variation over time also. Further offshore, big towers, higher capacity. At least if you want to make predictions about future technology.
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If you have data to support that claim then great.
I have the BPA's data,
https://transmission.bpa.gov/B... [bpa.gov]
The best month in 2022 was May with a 35% capacity factor. Median was 29%. The worst month so far was January with an average of 14.5%, and a median of 2.4%. In January the turbines were becalmed 40% of the time. In May they were only becalmed 6.4% of the time. By the way, I defined becalmed as less than 1% of installed capacity. The installed capacity is 2827 MW. There are multiple wind farms on the Eas
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mods Re:Anchor-proof cable (Score:2)
Re: Anchor-proof cable (Score:2)
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Re: Anchor-proof cable (Score:1)
Russia also has long made claim to Georgia, they invaded the nation way back in 2008 and âoeliberatedâ the strategically important areas of it, much like they did to Ukraine. If ever this line becomes important to the EU, Iâ(TM)m sure they will liberate some more.
You have three choices, and only three. (Score:1, Interesting)
As a society we can choose global warming, energy poverty, or nuclear fission. Unless or until there is some huge leap in technology we have only those three choices. Some regions of the world are blessed with an abundance of geothermal and/or hydro power and so can choose to do without making those difficult choices, at least until their population or desired living standards exceed the power those natural resources allow for. For the rest of the world there's a choice that must be made, and none of the
Re: You have three choices, and only three.. (Score:2)
Re: You have three choices, and only three.. (Score:1)
You mentioned various problems which have nothing to do at heart with the technology itself. In the 50s and 60s it was envisioned we could build nuclear reactors small enough to fit in a car. We can solve any technical issue, the problem, as always, is politicians and government. Remove them from the equation and you will have your emission free utopia.
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energy from wind and sun is very resource intensive. It takes an economy with considerable reserves in energy to have the luxury to extract energy from wind and sun.
Photovoltaic solar energy has come down massively in price, and is rapidly becoming a significant part of the energy mix. So you need to acknowledge that, if you have any intention of persuading people instead of just antagonising.
Of course the economic viability of solar grid electricity comes with one huge caveat - most has to be used within a fraction of a second of being generated.
Battery storage is only just beginning to be viable as a replacement for automotive gasoline, and we are a long way from lar
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Just look at UK solar, here:
www.gridwatch.co.uk
Its completely useless for three months of the year. There is a sharp midday peak, sometimes, and then nothing. And often not even the midday peak!
Maybe its usable at the equator, but not in European latitudes. A complete waste of space.
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Better numbers on solar here:
www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk
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Maybe its usable at the equator, but not in European latitudes. A complete waste of space.
Solar power is a great match for air conditioning. It's absolutely fine in most European latitudes in fact totally great in places like Italy and Greece and actually semi useful in the UK in summer. However that's kind of irrelevant. The UK's renewable of choice is wind for which Scotland is one of the foremost places in the world.
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No, solar is not fine at European latitudes. Its not fine because it stops in winter for three months. And it stops all year round after dark.
To take the UK as an example, there is an installed parc of about 15GW of solar. If you look at
www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk
you will see that at this time of year solar is only working from 10am to 2pm, and that even then its producing at best 2GW. On cloudy days even less. There is no grid level storage to spread this generation across the hours of demand, and the
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No, solar is not fine at European latitudes. Its not fine because it stops in winter for three months. .
So does air conditioning, which is a primary load in a bunch of warmer climates. If you look at Greece there is a huge peak in demand in the summer at a time when wind power is likely to be more expensive than in Winter. The solar fills in nicely.
Re: You have three choices, and only three. (Score:2)
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If I look out my window I can see three houses with rooftop solar and there are many more. So if people living in 800 year old villages can afford solar, then I think the problem is largely solved.
Are they off the grid? What a stupid pointless comment otherwise.
Georgia (Score:3, Informative)
Umm, a fat chunk of that country is claimed by Russia. Only a matter of time before the tanks roll in like it was February 1921.
Re:Georgia (Score:4, Insightful)
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That won't help in Azerbaijan, where the Russian army is preventing a war from happening (with Armenia).
Re: Georgia (Score:1)
Except for Ukrainian propaganda, the Russians arenâ(TM)t seeing massive losses. Russia is claiming 5k, Ukraine is claiming 10k. Even if the Ukrainians are right, they have a standing army of 1M large and 2M reservists, that is a LOT of people they can send in the meat grinder, a lot more people willing to die to improve their lives from relative hell than latte sipping soy boys in Europe are willing to protect their lifestyle.
Moreover, Putin has a card he has shown he is willing to pay the ultimate pri
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Exactly right, Russia can easily expend 1 million people and people would hardly notice because protest is stifled. They don't have free media to report it. Anyone who reports casualty numbers will be discredited and disappeared.
Re: Georgia (Score:2)
Re: Georgia (Score:2)
Comical (Score:2)
Once part of the USSR, the nation of Georgia seceded in 1991. Still located on Russia's southern border —
Because countries are known to pick up and move geographically?
Physics? (Score:2)
How does a power line bring wind energy? Is this a tube? Or maybe it is an energy line bringing wind power. This is very confusing.
Oh yes (Score:2)
The famous Azerbaijani wind farms, that happen to be gas powered.
"Still located"? (Score:2)
What, are you telling me that the country of Georgia didn't move across the Black Sea, that's it's still where it's been for thousands of years, because it's land, not people?