Another news came from Scotland, where wind energy is booming. In the first half of 2019 wind farms Scotland generated enough energyto cover the needs of the country. Twice.

In particular, from January to June, the turbine produced 9.8 million megawatt-hours of electricity. This is enough to provide electricity to a 4.47 million homes. Only in Scotland about 2.6 million households, so that in fact, energy requirements are not that big.

That was a record for Scottish wind power. During the first half of 2019 the wind turbines generated enough electricity for the whole of Scotland and most of Northern England.

The maximum generation observed in March: 2 194 981 MW·h per month.

"This is the amazing figures, Scottish wind power revolution clearly continues, said Robin Parker (Robin Parker), Manager for climate and energy policy world wildlife Fund (WWF). — Across the country, we all benefit from more clean energy and climate. These figures show that the rich potential of wind energy in mainland Scotland can provide clean green electricity for millions of homes not only in Scotland but also in England."

The UK as a whole also gradually moving towards the transition to renewable energy sources. The country has recently ended a long period of dependence on coal-fired power plants. For the first time since the industrial revolution of the 19th century, the country the whole week did not use energy from coal-fired power plants. According to the National grid of great Britain (National Grid), coal-fired power plant is not supplying power to the grid for seven consecutive days, a total of 167 hours.

English miners drilled coal, 1924. Photo: PA

If you are familiar with British history, you can understand the epoch-making event. Coal was mined here before the invasion of the Romans, that is, in the Bronze age — this is indicated by the axes found in the deposits of coal. However, in ancient times, charcoal was needed for other purposes — for baking (production of bricks, iron), not to generate electricity.

But for a long time Britain was heavily dependent on power generation coal-fired power plants. So far from the charcoal got rid of only for a week, but this is only the beginning. The trend is that the UK reduces the share of coal in the national energy system. Detailed statistics on energy consumption in the UK can be viewed in the service BMRS.

The UK government plans to completely abandon coal energy by 2025. It seems that Scotland can play an important role in achieving this goal.

And other countries are using the growing potential of renewable energy sources. In Germany, too, the generation of energy from renewable sources exceeded the demand, thanks to large investments in wind and solar energy. Last but not least is to thank for that doctorate in natural Sciences, a former employee of the Central Institute of physical chemistry of the Academy of Sciences Angela Merkel, who now heads the government.

There is another example of Qinghai province in Northwest China, home to about five million people. This area is too low for the week was powered 100% from renewable energy sources, including solar, wind and hydro.

Such rapid progress in different regions of the world is associated with an increase in capacity of power plants based on renewable sources, and improving the efficiency of technology. Engineers continue to increase efficiency for wind turbines and solar panels, allowing you to get more electricity from the same amount of sunlight or wind.

Wind power Scotland — one of the pioneers and world leaders. There are many installed wind turbines and on shore and at sea and on land: as of December 2018 a total capacity 8423 MW. The country hopes to receive power only from the wind turbines over the next 12 months.

"These figures really highlight the reliability of wind power in Scotland and why she now plays an important role in the energy market in the UK, says Alex Wilcox, Brooke (Alex Wilcox Brooke), project Manager in the energy Weather Energy Agency Severn Wye.

In every country and region of the world — its climate. If Scotland is ideal for wind turbines, solar California is a great place for solar power.

The main thing — the battery

The largest plant, which is being built around Los Angeles is a great example of how the region is preparing for a full transition to renewable sources.

Large solar farm in southern California

The most important feature of the project — a record decline in the cost of electricity to 1,997 cents per kilowatt-hour directly from the panels and 1.3 cents from the batteries. It's cheaper than can provide TES on any kind of fossil fuel.

Due to the reduction in the cost of solar and wind energy traditional energy companies will struggle to compete. Last week, declared bankruptcy, one of the largest U.S. coal companies Revelation Energy LLC.

The new station in California for 400 MW will be generiruet 876 000 MWh of electricity per year, enough to power 65,000 homes in the daytime.

The key point is the installation of large — capacity batteries to smooth out spikes in the power consumption in the network. After sunset, the energy in the network will deliver a set of batteries for the 800 MW·h. This energy will cost consumers even less.

The sharp decline in prices leads to a transition to renewable sources of energy with batteries. In March, the analysis of more than 7000 global storage projects Bloomberg New Energy Finance showed that the cost of lithium-ion batteries are General purpose with 2012 fell by 76%, but only in the last 18 months by 35%, to $187 per MW·h.

Another firm tracking the market Navigant predicts a further reduction in the prices by half by 2030. In the end the price will be significantly below that which now lays in the cost of electricity the company 8minute Solar Energy contractor solar plant near Los Angeles.

Although the project in Los Angeles may seem inexpensive, but the total costs of a full transition to a renewable energy system are very high. Last month, research firm Wood Mackenzie estimated the cost of "decarbonization" only us network 4.5 trillion dollars. Approximately half of this amount will be used to install batteries for 900 gigawatts, and other technologies for energy storage. Now the total capacity of all battery storage systems in the world is only 5.5 GW. But when other cities will follow the example of Los Angeles, the cost of batteries must come down due to mass production of such systems, experts say.

Source: https://habr.com/ru/news/t/460809/

Tags: Russia , USA , science , UK