[jayflux]

Transmission is a real problem and just like Nuclear, we haven’t improved it in the past 30 years.

So both eastern green link projects (offering more capacity) are due to be finished in 2029, “ok” I think “but surely we’re doing some work onshore to improve the existing network in the meantime..”

> Due to ongoing project work for increased power flow from North to South across two Transmission Owner (TO) regions and the interaction of the outage plans, increased capacity across the boundary will be limited and intermittent till 2029

So basically no transmission, onshore or offshore is going to be improved until 2029, but we’re still green lighting wind farms in Scotland. I’m amazed someone has the foresight to increase generation but not transmission until now, how were these green lit in the past knowing full well this bottleneck existed.

Maybe it’s controversial, but id argue for stopping more generation until transmission or storage is sorted, otherwise curtailment is going to be even higher in the next few years.

[pjc50]

I suspect part of the foresight was exactly to create this situation, where the problem is framed as lack of transmission capacity. Because the alternative - building transmission capacity before it was needed - is even less politically feasible. Public money can only be spent when the need is so blatant it can no longer be ignored, and then everyone sits around and says "well why didn't we do that sooner".

[scythe]

It's not just the cost of building. There's huge NIMBY opposition to the construction of transmission lines:

https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-government-electricity-py...

Of course, the same arguments killed the construction of onshore wind in England, which would have prevented needing the new powerlines (or at least not so much).

[penteract]

From the article, it looks like the problem is partially caused by significant parts of the transmission network being temporarily shut down due to ongoing upgrades. These could probably have been started slightly sooner, but they are already underway, so I don't think your point is weel supported.

[db48x]

Except that if those upgrades had been started 10 years earlier then there would have been lower demand (10 years less growth in demand). The reductions in capacity would have had a much lower effect on prices.

[jillesvangurp]

The real problem isn't curtailment but misaligned incentives that subsidize curtailment. In short, wind providers are being payed royally (many billions) to NOT produce wind energy. There's no incentive for them to be more efficient. Worse, because of the incentives, energy companies are just installing wind wherever they can without regard for the local infrastructure and demand. They get guaranteed pricing regardless of whether their energy is used. Not their problem if they have to throw double digit percentages of their energy away. They get paid anyway.

[pjc50]

It's not a question of "efficiency"; as the original article points out, they're at the mercy of the transmission market. It's not their problem because .. it really isn't their problem and they can't solve it.

> installing wind wherever they can without regard for the local infrastructure and demand

Alternatively, installing it where the energy and topography is, and the local planning environment allows it. We wouldn't be in quite such a bad position if the Tory government hadn't banned onshore wind in England.

[pyrale]

> they're at the mercy of the transmission market

There is no such thing as a transmission market. The grid is a regional monopoly, and it doesn't "market" its capacity.

The issue here is that when too much power runs through a line, if you don't turn it off, it does [1]. Building more lines isn't exactly fast, or cheap, and it wasn't really a major focus of the people setting up subsidies for new production.

> It's not their problem because .. it really isn't their problem and they can't solve it.

It's not their problem because their subsidies scheme means they will get paid anyway.

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd....

[pyrale]

> just like Nuclear, we haven’t improved it in the past 30 years.

That's plain wrong.

Transmission system have massively evolved compared to what they were 30 years ago. Typically, at the TSO I know, the way people work looks nothing like it was 30 years ago.

Nowadays, every 5 minutes, we simulate the whole network for each of the consumption forecasts we have (one per 15 minutes) in the next two hours, plus the effect of every network loss, plus we simulate whether the planned workarounds fix the situation.

There are also newer generations of automated protective mechanisms on the lines, new automata, a new SCADA, etc. The network has also been expanded significantly with several new interconnections, more interactions with our neighbours, etc.

On the "market" side, we have plenty of new tools that allow us to do what's explained in the article's introduction, since the system didn't work like that before Europe's electricity market reforms.

And that's just a very small part of what changed.

> Maybe it’s controversial, but id argue for stopping more generation until transmission or storage is sorted

It doesn't work like that. Transmission evolves over time according to needs. It makes no sense to "freeze" for a time to let TSOs adapt. What needs to be done, however, is maybe give the market a little bit less deciding power, and give the TSO a little better feedback loop to force market operator to provide workable solutions.

Also maybe the political forces pushing renewables with LCOE analysis need to understand that generation build cost is only a fraction of what's paid for an electric system.

[jcattle]

The german economic ministry has recently proposed exactly that. Slow the addition of more generation while the grid catches up. As expected this proposal did not go over super well.

[ViewTrick1002]

The trivial solution is to divide the grid into two zones along the bottleneck.

Then no redispatch is needed and building more capacity in the south is worth it.