Carbon Savings
ISH Hearing session 2 - Carbon Savings
The applicant requires no generation cap specified in DCO. The use of a licence to limit the generation (feed in to the grid) to 500mw is not reassuring. Not having a capped DCO could signify that the site is expecting to generate greater amounts or increase by other means. In order to bring clarity could the DCO explicitly exclude additional generation means such as wind turbine(s) or have the generating capacity capped at 531MW in order to produce 500MW feed-in? The amount of land which is sought for DCO would appear to exceed the minimum which would be required, if other local developments are used as comparison.
The applicant also states that there is, at present, enough capacity of generation and that excess capacity will be used by BESS for storage until needed. There is a mismatch of demand/need, which will be addressed by the use of BESS. There is evidence of wind turbines and solar sites being paid to not produce electricity when there is an excess in the grid network already.
The basic assumption of 8760 hours for all calculations covers an entire year.
A more transparent calculation would be average solar hours over a month and year. There is information available to assess the likely average solar production of any specific site. See Photovoltaic Geographical Information System (PVGIS) https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu (search European, solar, data, free) - SARAH Solar Radiation.
Storage by batteries and using power generated by non-solar means to charge batteries seems to be a key component to the financial success of Gate Burton.
The applicant sought to explain that excess wind power, in the months when there is less solar production, can be used to fill the batteries to capacity. There will be times when gas generation will have produced power. Calculations for carbon reduction appear to use the equivalence of using gas to provide the same amount of electricity per year. Clearly this is incorrect since there is already significant ‘renewable’ generation. This calculation is skewed.
There is more willingness by the public and business to invest in their own solar arrays. Whilst at this time it is not a significant amount, willingness to invest is growing. An individual’s use of their own generated power does reduce the burden of generation by providers – even if this is, at the moment, a small gain. This gain will become greater over time. It can and should be used on all new buildings.
Would there be better efficiency by just using battery storage at Cottam? Use of battery storage at this site would negate the need for large tracts land being used for cable corridors and valuable food producing farmland for solar PV sites.
Has the applicant had any discussion with EDF about Cottam for either BESS or solar PV panel placement?
The financial gain for the applicant is at the cost to local communities.