UK's 'electricity superhighway' gets green light just in time for AI to gobble it all up Britain's Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem) on Tuesday signed off on a £3.4 billion project to construct an "electricity superhighway" between Scotland and Yorkshire. Dubbed the Eastern Green Link 2 (EGL2), the majority of the 500 kilometer long cable will travel along the North Sea floor with the remaining 70 …
"Does this come under the heading of two out of three ain't bad? And that's assuming it satisfies "cheap"."
State energy is so amazingly cheap and reliable that MS built a gas generator to protect itself against the expensive and unreliable state energy. You would hope that was a wake up to the population
Energy in the UK has become more expensive and less reliable since privatisation as prices are jacked up to fill shareholders' wallets at the expense of maintaining infrastructure.
And Microsoft don't want to build the Dublin plant to "protect themselves" from EirGrid, it's the other way round. They want to build the plant because they're wanting to draw more power than the constrained regional grid can support. That grid isn't unreliable, it's just not designed for massive bloody datacentres in addition to its usual load. You wouldn't say your computer's PSU was unreliable if you slapped a massive GPU in the system, would you?
@Jedit
"Energy in the UK has become more expensive and less reliable since privatisation as prices are jacked up to fill shareholders' wallets at the expense of maintaining infrastructure."
Eh? Loadsamoney has been thrown at infrastructure. Look at the mass deployment of unreliable energy generation and problems involved.
"They want to build the plant because they're wanting to draw more power than the constrained regional grid can support."
Interesting they didnt put the datacentre where enough power was being produced. But then if the state isnt generating enough then build your own might be the only option.
"You wouldn't say your computer's PSU was unreliable if you slapped a massive GPU in the system, would you?"
No, I would replace the PSU to deliver what is needed. The opposite of our green leaders who want to reduce the power generated but expect to have cheap, reliable energy
"Interesting they didnt put the datacentre where enough power was being produced. But then if the state isnt generating enough then build your own might be the only option."
That should be such a head-slapping Duh that heads should come clean off. It's not as if these datacenters need to be put where there's a large workforce to hand and large country estates for the managers to live in.
Some industries such as Aluminum product do locate their facilities very near to power generating facilities as leccy is their biggest input.
I can see what they are trying to do with the transmission lines. There's no point in having the turbines generating power where there aren't the customers to use it and no way to route it to willing buyers. Where I live there has been a big explosion in turbines going up now that all of the bribes and payoffs have gone through to put in the pylons to take the power a couple of hundred miles to the big city. I wonder why the plan wasn't to make it known that electricity could be had cheap locally if companies wanted to plop down some facilities nearby which would have made the transmission lines holdups moot.
It used to be the case that they had to build next to the power source or even build their own power source as there wasn't all the govt handouts we see now sloshing about.
Its a bit like the CHIPS act. Lets build a fab where there is almost no spare water but it will be good for scoring political points.
1) I presume that your "loadsamoney" comment is about things like that failed Welsh tidal energy project and the long delayed nuke plants at Hinkley Point. You're correct that the money is there, but the existence of funding doesn't mean that it's being applied for the greatest benefit of the project. The EDF nukes are a particular case in point where the public sector has asked private enterprise to do the work and the private firm has not delivered while costs spiral. (Source: I work in energy management, we deal with this crap all the time.)
2) The Dublin datacentre wasn't positioned on the grounds that the power was available. It was put there because it was cheaper to put it there and build the infrastructure than it would have been to put it where the infrastructure already existed. That's what large companies do. Again, I'll agree with you that building their own was the only option if they wanted to locate in Dublin, but that does rule out the possibility that Dublin was not the only option for where to locate.
3) "Replace the PSU" was what I was pushing at, but the point is that the old PSU didn't stop working - you had to replace it because you were asking too much of it. We are not actually in disagreement about how Microsoft should go about handling their energy needs. The point of contention is that you're blaming EirGrid for not doing enough to accommodate MS while I'm blaming MS for building their datacentre in the wrong place so they could save a few bucks.
@Jedit
"I presume that your "loadsamoney" comment is about"
It is about the vast amount of money thrown at wind and solar even though it doesnt work for grid level. We are literally waiting for technology to be created that could make these things work, but the technology doesnt exist and no promises that it would. It isnt private companies wanting to shut down coal nor making gas uneconomical to store, and nuclear was held up by the same eco-nuts pushing the unreliables. Building new nukes were being blocked back when Blair was in power.
"The Dublin datacentre wasn't positioned on the grounds that the power was available. It was put there because it was cheaper to put it there and build the infrastructure than it would have been to put it where the infrastructure already existed"
I am not sure if I am reading that right, I may be misunderstanding (also I dont know the reasons for where it was built). Are you saying it was more expensive to build the data centre near to where energy was being produced?
"The point of contention is that you're blaming EirGrid for not doing enough to accommodate MS while I'm blaming MS for building their datacentre in the wrong place so they could save a few bucks."
I am blaming any government pushing towards unreliables over energy generation. In the UK our bills keep going up in sacrifice to this cult and yet we are getting less energy and less reliable. I have no problem with nukes so for those hating fossil fuels there is the easier answer.
The cost of energy feeds into the cost of everything. From government to food to our lives completely relies on energy prices. So I take issue with the political plan of increasing the cost of energy just to make some cult members feel less guilty to their beliefs.
Clean is relative.... next to wood, coal and oil, natural gas is extremely clean.
Given that it will take a while to move to a completely decarbonised grid (many many new nuclear plants, + vast technology improvements and implementation of batteries/other electric storage to make solar/wind supply predictable), it makes sense to at least use the least polluting of available hydrocarbons.
(meanwhile of course, increased use of gas in Europe drives the price up so India and China continue to build coal power stations at an even faster rate than they are deploying nuclear and green power plants)
Microsoft are doing something unrelated to the main point of the story - that the decade and more of stalling by the tories on this power connection to get cheap wind energy from Scotland to London, is finally going ahead! A month into a Labour government.
That'll literally save £millions in payments to idle wind farms, and should hopefully reduce some prices!
The tradeoffs are complex. In summary, if you absolutely do need a long cable - an AC system will suffer all manner of losses and performance problems with the loss of synchronisation of your three phases. This is because the cable is in effect, a giant capacitor. You can install equipment to correct for this, but it's more cost.
Jumping to DC for very long cables bypasses most of that particular set of risks; at cost of the conversion to/from AC/DC.
As a cable engineer of many years service then the top advice is don't build cables unless you absolutely have to. Overhead lines are the best solution if your criteria is minimum cost and maximum asset performance. NIMBYism is putting your bills up, because of the much more complex hardware required instead.
A/C, because as you may have guessed, am employed in the sector. I didn't have a hand in this particular decision but know enough to offer comment on it.
Indeed. Even an overhead line is still a capacitor of a sort; with the air being the insulating medium instead of paper or plastics found on a buried or subsea cable. Wholly different magnitude of effect.
Another interesting option to consider would be higher voltages. In the UK we're limited by law to 400kV AC for onshore. This could be changed. There are diminishing returns because of humidity; though 550kV or thereabouts would offer a considerable performance uplift. While bigger, maybe not so many routes required?
Planning permission is what it is though. Most politicians are not keen to facilitate NIMBY triggers. Companies in the employ of actually having to get stuff done can't sit back and do nothing for the next 20 years waiting for political willpower to shift.
A serving of 1970's rolling blackouts would probably sharpen minds and willpower. I would rather it didn't come to that, but it might actually benefit us overall rather than kowtowing to the NIMBY brigade.
500kVAC and 765kVAC have been common transmission voltages in the US for decades, so it is a bit surprising to hear that 400kV is the legal limit in the UK. The +/-400kVDC Pacific Intertie was put into operation in the late 1960's, though was out of commission for a year or so after the 1971 Sylmar earthquake damaged the southern conversion station.
In the UK a lot of things are what they are because they have always been that way. The distances are somewhat shorter than Europe and the USA so maybe there just hasn't been a justification to upgrade. I know the UK has been re-wiring some of its 400kV network to reduce resistance and sag but the bits I've seen retained the same insulators.
They will say it's because the UK (well, GB in this case) did it first. When the decision was made, it was decided that going for 500kV would delay the project.
At the moment, there's around 18GW of potential wind generation in Scotland. May consumption in Scotland is around 6GW. There are two 400kV lines across the B6 boundary (2.2GW each) plus an existing HVDC line down to North Wales (2GW). This line goes down to near Drax - so there is some grid capacity there but more will be needed.
Oh, and those people will probably get annoyed if you say "pylons" instead of "transmission towers"
"Scotland already produces more renewables, mostly wind, than total electricity used"
Marketing blather. Do they ALWAYS produce more than demand? If they don't, there will be times when demand exceeds supply. Scotland might do better to make companies come and get it rather than exporting.
Not always obviously. If you have a Dunkelflaute situation, then demand in Scotland for heating will increase more than elsewhere, and supply will drop more than elsewhere, and they will have to import from England. But, on average, it is an export situation, and therefore you need the export capacity.
The origins of our 400kV limit are similar to the origins of limitations that spring out of legislation around National Parks, etc. Basically, it was a concession made to get things moving. We'd have been stuck at 132kV if the NIMBY brigade had their way - despite that likely needing 20 to 30 times as many towers.
It probably could be raised if the case was made today, given the alternative is more 400kV routes or extremely expensive offshoring. Oh, wait...
For reference there is a megavolt+ route in India in development, however the humidity in it's intended location is extremely low. The very, very large towers needed for megavolt don't look all that big against backdrop of the Himalayas either.
Chuck in a compliant/oppressed populace and you don't have quite so many worries about whether you'll be allowed to build something.
"Chuck in a compliant/oppressed populace and you don't have quite so many worries about whether you'll be allowed to build something."
Not so much compliant/oppressed as having different priorities. If someone has to heat their home / cook on an indoor wood stove without electricity, then a few pylons coming their way will be seen as a blessing. Different perspective to the armchair warrior who as like as not wouldn't even notice a new pylon in their neighborhood because they walk around with their nose glued to their phone, or don't walk the neighborhood at all.
I'm fairly sure subsistence farmers are not going to be seeing much direct benefit. The hardware to step down from megavolt to a little domestic feed is too big and expensive. It only makes sense if you have a big aggregate supply or demand to connect it to. Industrials, cities and generators therefore, will benefit, but not so much the small fry.
See also the large gas pipeline installed from Milford Haven into central England in 2007. Ate up and disrupted a lot of Welsh and English farmers land, but do those farmers have a gas connection now? Hell no!
Keyboard warriors are one sort, but the ones you really need to watch for are those in parish councils and local government. The threat of council members losing their jobs are such that NIMBY at that level is usually an argument that wins over any economics or national interest.
There are rare exceptions, for example the Universal Studios Bedford project is seeing a LOT of council support; unusually so, despite a big amusement park being very much the sort of thing that would trigger NIMBYism.
The trouble is, our energy system as a whole is still AC, and relies on maintaining a steady 50Hz across the network. If the frequency drops below 47Hz or goes above 53, then many parts of it will suddenly trip offline in a cascade effect. Building DC internal links is troublesome, because it increases the grid capacity without strengthening the synchronous AC system.
If one of the DC links trips offline (as they are wont to do) then the AC transmission network suddenly has to pick up the slack and cascade failures resulting in loss of synchronisation ("grid islanding") or loss of frequency control, which can lead to a nationwide blackout of the sort that nobody is quite sure how long it would take to recover from.
The other big issue I have with HVDC subsea links is the vulnerability to enemy sabotage. Spot the russian sub in this picture!
Yes, most DC/AC synchronous inverters have such a lockout because if the frequency is out of band then there is a risk they could end up in antiphase and blow themselves up.
In the 2019 blackout, one of the causes was that the brief dip in frequency caused a large windfarm to disconnect, (since modern windfarms tend to operate with DC/AC inverters rather than using synchronous generators, as it allows the turbines to spin at their most efficient speed. Solar farms also use inverters.) This led to the frequency dropping even faster, but luckily the ESO were able to load-shed in time to avoid any further cascade.
If there is a major frequency event that does cascade, we could lose all interconnectors, solar, and most of our wind capacity at a stroke. Then we'd be hurriedly reading the manuals of project black-start to see if we can actually get the grid running again.
I've noticed a few times recently when the loss of a single 2GW interconnector from France has caused a fairly major frequency dip. e.g. this one in January
If one big enough to cause cascade events happens, then we're in for something out of James Burke's "The Trigger Effect"
The big problem was that after the trains locked out they were stuck in that state until you plugged a laptop in and cleared the faults. It is entirely legit for the system to shut itself down into a safe state in an out of range fault like that. But there should have been a way for the driver to reset it. Many trains could be reset but the lines were blocked by the ones that couldn't be. The impact of that blackout would have been somewhat smaller had the trains got moving again sooner.
Domestic solar generation will also trip out for the same reasons. Inverter tolerances have improved over the years though the older ones are pretty intolerant. Domestic generation is of course not metered centrally, but in that 2019 blackout there was estimated to be something like an additional 200-300MW dropped until the system frequency could be restored by load shedding - at which point the inverters kick back in again and risk chucking the frequency up too high if over-compensating.
Large batteries, preferably distributed around the system, with uber quick response times would be a useful addition to the toolbox to manage such risks. Dinorwig pumped storage can be fast, but still a few seconds from the point someone actually pushes GO.
Synchronous compensation (e.g. a flywheel) is also viable, though someone then has to pay for that flywheel to spin. Historically, the flywheel WAS the generator attached to the coal plant or nuke. Most of those long gone - and I'll leave it to the reader whether they think that was a better solution or not because it is a guaranteed argument trigger.
In the meantime ESO have raised reserve generation holdings to provide a better hedge against failures like the 2019 events.
One question I can never find an answer to from experts on the subject is: Why is the UK grid frequency so unstable compared to other countries? In Europe it rarely deviates +/- 0.02Hz for example.
A cynic might say that it could have something to do with the market structure whereby generator operators are paid exorbitant amounts to take emergency actions to stabilise the grid frequency, so those same operators have a vested interest in letting it slip in the first place.. This was reported on in the Private Eye a while back.
It's enormous, it extends from Portugal to the Baltics. Even Ukraine was connected up to it after the war kicked off - though I am not sure of current status. The situation there is obviously very fluid.
Big networks with lots of spinning plant do not offer immunity from problems, despite the perception of "big spinny flywheel inertia be good". Realities are not so simple. There was a fault a few years ago where an overstacked barge shorted a line out on a canal in Germany. Assets were tripping as far away as Portugal as a result.
Like with information networks, interconnection is both a boon and a curse.
"Although I will never understand Japan... 50? 60? Sod it, both!"
Smaller countries that don't institute some sort of standards body can end up with whatever some outside country comes in and does to "help" them with their infrastructure while helping themselves to their raw materials. Many big countries do this. For Japan it could be they had "friends" that were very keen on 50hz that brought in infrastructure based on that and then years down the road they had new "friends" that thought well of 60hz. They also could have been buying stuff that was on offer at the time.
ESO has to play the cards it's dealt, they're at the mercy of buying services off generators at whatever rate the latter choose - or cutting power. If a UK generator gets wind of a problem that can ONLY be solved by their specific generator; low and behold, the price of that generator will immediately go to 99,998. (not 99,999, because convention dictates that 99,999 means "Generator Not Available").
There are a lot of modest sized grid connected diesels that trade in the space of these dubious practises, somewhat offsetting the worst of the worst market abusers. It is a poor way to police the literal highwayman operation that many generator companies are. I won't name names, but some are clearly worse for it than others.
The numbers in Elexon won't go higher as the trading IT system that Elexon administers doesn't allow you to type in a bigger number. Change requests to allow bigger numbers have - so far - been told to go to hell.
Gridwatch templar shows up French grid data as well as UK, and tbh, I don't think there's that much in it with regards frequency volatility. The UK does have a significant number of VERY large generators connected at single nodes; which, when they are switched do produce considerable effects. Provided it's within the operating limits, who cares. The only real concern is that you need to plan enough reserve to deal with faults as and when they happen.
One thing affecting the UK is all these new interconnectors. The "classic" network was meant to get power from North to London. The new paradigm is one of needing to get power past London to shuffle in and out over the interconnectors instead; depending on what wind is or is not running at any given moment. Analogous to this problem, using the M25 to bypass london still takes bloody ages...
If the overall objective was minimum cost power to customer, you would NOT have the system we have in the UK. It has been designed, built, and gamed by market players since it's creation by Thatcher.
> Synchronous compensation (e.g. a flywheel) is also viable, though someone then has to pay for that
> flywheel to spin. Historically, the flywheel WAS the generator attached to the coal plant or nuke.
> Most of those long gone - and I'll leave it to the reader whether they think that was a better solution
> or not because it is a guaranteed argument trigger.
Was reading recently about the world's largest flywheel installed a couple of years ago: https://www.siemens-energy.com/global/en/home/stories/irelands-great-grid-stabilizer.html
Yep, that's one of my projects actually. Early, first generation gas insulated switchgear being replaced with modern, compact and a whole lot less polluting gear. Plus going from two cable circuits to three, which will reduce the cost of downtime (and reduce consumer bills).
The cost of downtime at Dinorwig can easily exceed £0.5M/day; which means you don't need many days maintenance in the entire projects lifetime for it to be more cost effective to have a third circuit.
For what is such an obviously no-brained consumer benefit it still, to this day, surprises me how difficult arguing such investment cases can be... But hey, someone has to do it.
Yes the grid is AC and will remain that way for the forseeable future.
HVDC only became practical & cost-effect several decades ago and has some significant advantages in terms of cable losses and peak insulation requirement, but one very important aspect for the UK-France interconnect was it avoided the need for both sides to be synchronous. The down-side of this if, of course, that such AC/DC/AC inverters lack any "inertia" and can lead to a grid cascade failure when something trips off and overloaded turbines spin down, this is very apparent with renewables as mostly they are inverter-connected as either DC in the first place (PV panels) or are running asynchronously to the grid (variable speed wind turbines). There are requirements being added for large projects to have "synthetic inertia" where the inverter attempts to maintain a constant AC frequency and will run with reactive currents in order to do so (to a certain limit). This would reduce the risk of a small outage triggering such a cascade fault.
Why will AC remain? Well it is cheaper to have a transformer in general (cost and longevity), it is far easier to break an AC fault (as the current goes through zero-crossing the arc tends to extinguish more easily), and most of the world is based on it so the investment to change is absolutely massive (i.e. you are rarely starting new, unlike say a DC bus data centre arrangement, etc).
"Overhead lines are the best solution if your criteria is minimum cost and maximum asset performance. NIMBYism is putting your bills up,"
And unfortunately public opinion is conditioned by those hideous monstrosities National Grid have used for pylons since the days before time.
Our AC will know anyway, but wider public opinion is less informed that more recent designs are far less intrusive, such as the T pylons being used to connect Hinkley Point C. If anyone's used the M5 recently between Weston and Bridgewater these are visible from the motorway. Whether all new pylons are to good designs I don't know - sceptics might think a dinosaur like NG will probably only be using T pylons for a bit of publicity, and everywhere else it's the same old rubbish design.
And as a personal view, the T pylon wasn't as good as Arup's A pylon that was also offered into the National Grid competition.
The problem with the T pylons, is that because the national grid didn’t commit beyond the initial trial, the UK company went bust and the pylons for the current “M5” deployment were sourced from China, prior to the current US driven sanctions policy…
There were several aesthetically pleasing designs: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2011/sep/14/shortlist-designs-electricity-pylons-in-pictures
I don’t remember if any actually used less materials than the 1950’s designed NG pylon.
My concern over some of the composite material designs is the longevity, these really are structures that need a design life of 100+ years…
In Norfolk there are 10m wide swathes being dug up to put in hvdc cables from off-shore windfarms as it wasn't possible to route them anywhere else ... like putting in an undersea interconnect to Sizewell for instance ... and the closest place with national grid capacity for one of them was south of Norwich. Much fighting but "they" got their way. Now "they" are building pylon interconnects to London as the place they are connecting to (with the required capacity as specified in the planning application) doesn't have the required capacity ... The Dutch interconnect windfarms offshore then bring the whole lot onshore from a central point - much cheaper and efficient but apparently we can't do that because there are too many greasy palms involved.
> There were several aesthetically pleasing designs: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2011/sep/14/shortlist-designs-electricity-pylons-in-pictures
Hell's teeth, there's some real fugly nonsense there! I actually quite like the British Standard Pylon, a majestic steel giant holding wires aloft. A small price to pay for the benefits of mains electricity, that we all depend on for every aspect of our lives.
> I actually quite like the British Standard Pylon, a majestic steel giant holding wires aloft. A small price to pay for the benefits of mains electricity, that we all depend on for every aspect of our lives.
Indeed! And a whole website dedicated to their practical magnificence: https://www.pylonofthemonth.org/
Nothing wrong with good old 400kV air-insulated AC transmission lines - but thanks to NIMBYs we are going to spend a whole lot more money to get something much less resilient.
> Hell's teeth, there's some real fugly nonsense there!
I wouldn't have said fugly so much as irritatingly twee and style-over-substance-ish. So many of them look like they were designed by someone behind a desk coming up with flights of fancy in a 3D rendering package under the impression they were designing an art installation.
How are those human figures or giant ants going to look repeated countless times? I suspect that the novelty would wear off quite soon. And how are they in terms of practicality and maintenance?
As our informative AC friend pointed out elsewhere, the ancient lattice design- which IMHO still doesn't come close to normalising its obvious industrial ugliness even after decades of familiarity and nostalgia- at least has the advantage that it can be maintained and replaced piecemeal from fairly simple parts and doesn't require massive castings and spares to be retained.
Something which many of those self-consciously "clean", "elegant" and "modern" curved designs- and even the winning T-shape- fail at.
And I can't see the newly-elected Labour government that's just launched another round of swingeing cutbacks and austerity (to save us from the consequences of almost fifteen years of Tory austerity, lack of investment and other ideologically-driven fuckups) having the inclination to make an exception and spend anything more than they need on cutesy pylon designs.
A note of distinction in the who-pays argument. Projects like transmission infrastructure are paid mostly out of consumer bills. Only a very limited extent is it charges on generators.
The UK gov can greenlight practically anything in the energy sector in the knowledge it will be chucked onto bills rather than onto treasury liabilities. In this case of this project, opening up additional wind generation and transfer capacity is probably cheaper-overall for the consumer than the ludicrous situation of having to pay windmills to switch off.
CEGB had it's flaws for sure, but the detriment of consumers wasn't one of them, unlike the post-NETTA trading arrangements that disproportionately favour generating companies.
> a majestic steel giant holding wires aloft. A small price to pay for the benefits of mains electricity,
Also useful for containing Trolls
If the Scotland-Yorkshire line is built with them - then Lancastrian Trolls will be safely contained
All this stuff replacing metal with composites is a total fallacy. At least with metal it is easy to recycle in it's entirety. Just like using it in cars because it is lighter. Most modern cars now are designed to be recycled fairly easily. Whether the plastics actually are is a completely different issue.
Using composites in place of steel (or aluminium) at scale is going to create a monumental waste issue.
Turning old wind turbine blades into play parks or chipping them up and using it in concrete (even worse) is not recycling, it is moving the problem elsewhere.
Any form of recycling that actually makes it even more difficult to retrieve the original material is a complete disaster for the future but the mantra is "who cares, if we can save a few pounds and have good publicity turning fibreglass or tyres into concrete everything is fine".
I don’t remember if any actually used less materials than the 1950’s designed NG pylon.
I don't know about the non-T competitors, but it's all a trade-off. T-Pylons use more steel, but only 2/3 the concrete. The smaller footprint also leaves more land for farming.
As with all things it depends where you're standing - both figuratively and literally.
The T-Pylons are shorter, meaning they're less visually intrusive - all things being equal, they're going to disappear from view sooner rather than later. But of course if they crest a hill/horizon, then they'll cast a shorter but harder (solid) shadow against the skyline than lattice pylons, so could be considered more noticeable in that specific scenario.
As for longevity, this is presumably one reason they went for the T-design. It's steel and a relatively conventional/boring design (low technical risk). No usage of speculative or untested materials, with a 70-80 year lifespan - comparable to lattice pylons (but with much lower maintenance load - fewer joints and bolts to inspect, and designed to be done internally or from access platforms, which Working-at-Height best practice generally considers preferable to outdoor ropework).
Of course, some of the other competitors were clearly recent-grads throwing something artistic together for the sake of entering the contest, rather than serious proposals. But I wouldn't be against some of the more arty (but functional) versions being used in built-up areas. There's no reason why infrastructure need be austere - some of our finest architecture is embodied in public buildings, historic stations (St Pancras), etc from the days when we took pride in such things and didn't throw up the cheapest PFI-led box possible.
I quite like the shortlisted "Totem" design by New Town Studio, and could see that coming into the edges of London or Birmingham, complementing Wembley stadium and other modern developments. Likewise the designs from Gifford and Architectural & Ruthan Gmbh are not dissimlar to installations like the Orbit at the Olympic Park. Which people will take a view on... but they could complement urban design in interesting ways.
Of course you have economy-of-scale considerations and want to be building a sensible number of them.
In the countryside of course, you generally want them to get "out the way" and do their job unobtrusively.
> The smaller footprint also leaves more land for farming.
Hmm. Is that true? The base of the traditional lattice towers are usually left open, you can walk under them, right up to the four tiny concrete foundations.
I guess it depends on what you are farming. They should have minimal impact on livestock grazing, but you wouldn't drive a tractor too close.
T-Pylons require a much, much larger concrete footer to install than a lattice tower. And all the associated carbon footprint with installing all that concrete. Wildlife can walk under a lattice tower, and stuff also grows under that tower. A T-pylon is just a concrete lump with a pole sticking out.
Same A/C again.
T-pylons are hideous from an asset ownership point of view. Do you keep the castings around in perpetuity for when you (eventually) need a spare to replace the original? Do you stamp out a few spares and store them for 40 years?
Classic lattice towers you can buy a bit of appropriate grade steel from "anywhere" with no such issues. Catch the T-pylons from the wrong angle and they look like a wall.
In a public consultation for another route; a lot of the feedback was "build whatever you need, but DONT use T-pylon!"
Public opinion is what it is, fickle. Not what you need when you are talking about one of the major pillars of the economy running!
Is a current skill focus what with all those wind farms out at sea...
Those all use DC supply as do all the Interconnectors to places like France, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Ireland and Norway.
There are modern ships capable of laying the cables pretty efficiently.
Whereas...
Pylon engineering has largely stagnated for 50 years.
Planning and the Nimbies would delay this for decades.
Yes, it might be cheaper but the people who go up pylons have enough on their plate as it is keeping the existing grid operating and doing limited renewals.
If you are faced with a choice... Cables or Pylons and a demand that is not going to wait for possibly decades... You be pragmatic and go with the more expensive option knowing that it will be delivered in a more realistic timescale. There will still be Nimbies objecting to the places where said cable goes into and comes out of the sea. We are seeing that with offshore wind farm supply points but they can be overcome.
Underwater cables running AC are limited by the capacitance between the different phase conductors (and to an extent seawater). In ordinary situations that's not too big a deal, for long distance cables this means an AC cable loses power to reactive losses, and the longer the cable the greater the losses. If the cable is long enough then all the power that goes in is lost to reactive power losses, and you get no usable power out at the end - on an unmanaged 220kV cable that can be as little as 120km. There are technologies to manage reactive power losses, they cost money so it's a calculation to work out what is the optimal approach, DC or AC, and at about 70-100 miles it usually favours DC.
If you're linking different grids that aren't in phase (eg UK to Europe), it's also somewhat easier to manage a DC connection, although that doesn't apply in this case.
"Access to cheap, reliable, and clean power remains one of the datacenter operators top concerns"
Really? Cheap and reliable yes but clean seems to have been bolted on there. Worse is the question of who's idea of green? Drax burning imported wood? Inefficient running of gas generators to support unreliables? Clean as in less plant food?
It seems our obsession with the weather cult is driving us away from cheap, reliable and clean energy
People have developed an aversion to pylons dotting the landscape. One planned route from the highlands has been scuppered due to the locals saying no to the pylons.
Somewhat ironic. Is the problem that the pylons might obstruct views of the windmills?
But at least if this cable goes ahead, England will be able to export organic, wood fired electricity to Scotland when the wind doesn't blow. Unless England needs it, because the wind probably won't be blowing here either.
People who hate pylons hate windmills too. Their position is that the electricity they use should be generated (a) cleanly, (b) renewably and, most important (c) somewhere else.
Of course this latter demand should lead to some thinking about how electricity generated somewhere else will get to them, but thinking is a toxic byproduct of industrial exploitation. Intuition rules.
> Of course this latter demand should lead to some thinking about how electricity generated somewhere else will get to them
Dear Mr N. Imby: We have carefully considered your objection to pylons in your area we and cede to your demands. Your house will now be in the path of a new 2GW microwave transmission link.
Created in underground using cow fart and smuggled to their front door in paper bags.......
I believe there are one or two locations in the UK where it is possible to drill to get geothermal but in reality the holes are just too deep.
Places like Iceland & New Zealand are perfect for this, there is little reason to do anything other than geothermal. The source is reliable, the footprint in terms of power generated tiny. Just the pylons to get the power out.
Haldane, one of the progenitors of the UK CEGB and it's National Grid (NOT the corporation, but the network!) spent most of his later life arguing for geothermal.
Other elements of his plans were eminently sensible. I keep his books around to show new starters what long term thinking actually looks like. Not the nonsense we've had since Thatcher's re-election in the early 1980s where it all started to go horribly wrong. Fully accept her first victory was warranted, but after that... YUCK!
Sizewell B was the prototype nuke for what was supposed to be a fleet of a dozen generators to that design. Not co-incidentally, Dinorwig's pumped storage was sized to be able to cope with the tripping of one of those Sizewell B sized nukes. We only ever got the prototype, because Thatcher tore it up with privatisation.
The whole thing was to be topped up by windmills, and if wind not available, gas then coal respectively.
With privatisation instead; we burned almost the entire contents of the North Sea to make a fast buck. Britain became a net energy importer in 2008 instead of an exporter. And now, trying to persuade the private sector to half-assedly implement Haldane's plans instead, at vastly inflated cost, BECAUSE it's in the private sector and because of an un-willingness to do what's necessary on the Nuke front in a timely or cost effective manner.
There's an element of I told you so, but most of it comes down to NIMBYism resulting in ineffective national planning in government circles for the last 40 years.
Left and right hands?….
“ a £3.4 billion project to construct an "electricity superhighway" between Scotland and Yorkshire.”
Or can we expect an announcement that one of Manchester / Sheffield / Leeds is the new location of the UKs exascale computer…
"Or can we expect an announcement that one of Manchester / Sheffield / Leeds is the new location of the UKs exascale computer…"
More likely Imperial, UCL, King's College, or out in the wilds of Oxbridge.
Don't want it too far from London
(message sent from the University of Aberdeen, beyond the "here be dragons" bit on the map)
Nah... It will be split between them and carrier pigeons used to transfer data between processing units.
Remember that once upon a time, a Gubbermint Minister said that the UK would only ever need 5 computers. Governments ALWAYS get it wrong and we have to pay the price. That applies to whichever bunch of clowns thinks that they are in charge.
2029 would be in line with the ban on new ICE's that had been put back to 2035, but labour might bring forwards again to 2030.
Add in the push for air source heat pumps, which seem to be more like electric central heating (as some who have them have reported), plus replacing gas appliances with electric as we'll be an all-electric nation! AND the increase in demand from the expanding data centres and AI sites...
what could possibly go wrong?
(over spend, delays, and the result not being to requirements at a guess).
This new cable will only provide 1kW to each of those "2 million homes", so let us hope that they don't want to use their heat pumps, or charge their EVs, or even have an electric shower (even individually, never mind at the same time!).
Oh, and that is assuming that the wind is blowing in the first place!
I'd rather they implemented a realistic solution that will actually fix the problem and won't cost many BILLION pounds (and only being one twenty-sixth part of the currently planned solution) of our money.
That solution could take many forms - not necessarily wiring windmills to a wood-burning subsidy-sucking factory!
We get a lot of power in Southern California from British Colombia (Canada) using a million volt DC link. Its an overhead line, three cables on overhead towers like a normal three phase AC link, with the return path being through the 'ground' (sea).
This is established technology so I wonder what's the big deal in making a link over what is a much shorter distance?
(Also, if its just going to be used to power data centers then why not move them to where the power is and transfer the data? Much cheaper and far less intrusive infrastructure.)
> I wonder what's the big deal in making a link over what is a much shorter distance?
More crowded land route, with few suitable north-south corridors. The ones that exist are already used by roads, railways and other utilities. So the idea of routing via the sea does make sense.
> if its just going to be used to power data centers then why not move them to where the power is and transfer the data?
I suspect this is more about power for the 1.5m new homes Labour wants to build by 2029…
>More crowded land route, with few suitable north-south corridors.
Our high voltage backbone doesn't go through land corridors.
The point I should have made is that instead of just building a backbone using existing, established, technology and materials you'll need a multiyear design effort with endless opportunities because its all 'new, improved and better' with the result that what you'll end up with is likely to be late, half-assed and mindnumbingly expensive. Think "HS2 for electricity". There has to be a better way.
As for powering new homes I don't know about everyone else but my overall power consumption has dropped significantly over the last decade or two. (Obviously my bills haven't, but that's to be expected.) We've got a lot more electric stuff, true, but overall today's equipment uses a fraction of the power its equivalent used to.
The UK is, in places, less than 80 miles from coast to coast. More than half of that land in the cross border region England/Scotland is land protected by e.g National Park status or similar restrictions. There are also some very, very wealthy landowners occupying that land; for instance a lot of the moorland around Alston is practically reserved as a private pheasant shooting ground for the gentry. The nobs in the range rovers can be seen going up there occassionally en masse... And the rest of the time a lot of that land is only occupied by sheep & a few farmers.
A 400kV tower for overhead lines is visible for approximately 5 miles in any direction, not withstanding terrain screening.
This means there are very few places where anyone will ever grant permission to build a route - be it AC or DC. The better routes from a screening point of view are already being used.
I used to live in that part of the world, and as pretty as it is, even making modifications and improvements to property is scrutinised. It is all quite ludicrous.
As explained by the A/C above, offshore, and cabling should ONLY be used where there is absolutely no alternative. Technical options exist, but realities of what the energy networks will be allowed to actually do are forcing them to go offshore.
Perhaps the most deeply frustrating part of this is that it's generally NOT the generators that are causing the need for more transmission capacity that are going to have to pay for it - at least - not a fair share of it.
Errr... why not put the GPU data centres in Scotland? Data centres in Nordic countries such as Iceland and Norway are very successful.
Lumi, the 5th most powerful supercomputer, is in a paper mill in Finland.
There were aluminium smelters in Scotland which used abundant hydro power.
"There were aluminium smelters in Scotland which used abundant hydro power."
Still are, I see the train carrying the ore going up the WHL every day.
I wouldn't exactly say that hydro is abundant in Scotland. The current schemes are fairly small dating back to the mid 20th Century and their capacity is quite modest compared to modern demands. There are proposals to expand Cruachan and to build a largish station at Coire Glas, neither appear to have gotten off the ground yet. Maybe its chicken and egg, if you can't get the power out to market then no incentive to build, but building will take many years.
In comparison Norway has absolutely enormous hydro capacity which is why the 1.4GW link from them to us generally runs at full tilt inwards -- except when our wholesale price goes negative and then we pay them to top up their reservoirs to sell back to us later..
> There are proposals to expand Cruachan and to build a largish station at Coire Glas
According to this source work is expected to start this year at Cruachan
https://www.power-technology.com/projects/cruachan-power-station-expansion-scotland/?cf-view
And exploratory tunnelling at Coire Glas has completed
https://www.power-technology.com/news/sse-completes-exploratory-tunnelling/
What I find notable is that both schemes are pump storage, yet by describing their capacity as a number of homes that can be supplied (3m for 24 hours in the case of Coire Glas (*)), some members of the public may thing these are continuous supply hydro electric power stations.
(*) this figure of 3m for 24 hours, would seem to put the scale of the 2m home Scotland-Yorkshire line in perspective.
"3m for 24 hours"
OFGEM says a medium sized household uses 2700kWh per year or a tad over 7kWh per day. But that's current usage not factoring in widespread adoption of EV's and HP's.
* average distance traveled per day for UK cars is 23 miles, say 4 miles per kWh (good), then you need to put back 6kWh per vehicle per day
* OFGEM also says that household uses 11500kWh of gas per year or roughly 30kWh per day of heat energy, a HP with a COP of 4.0 (generous) would require 7.5kWh to displace that (lets ignore meaningful improvements in the fabric of the building as those are incredibly difficult to deliver)
To get to net-zero you're looking at a pretty significant uplift in consumption per household from that 7kWh to probably north of 20kWh.
Wikipedia says the storage capacity at Coire Glas will be 30GWh so that allows 10kWh per household over that 24h period. Assuming they run the tank dry, which I don't imagine they would do very often.
EGL2 is a 2GW link so potentially delivers 48GWh per day so the 2m homes claim comes in at a far more generous, possibly even realistic, 24kWh per household.
Homes as a unit of power doesn't seem to be a very well defined standard...
"The upgrades come amid growing concerns over datacenters' ballooning energy demands driven in no small part by widespread deployment of AI accelerators."
Unless you can power the datacentre by clean energy, the "noise" of "Its amazing. Its new, its the future" is drowning out "We're burning a massive amount of coal to power it" (China will be).
"Won't the AI bubble have burst by 2029?"
I remember when the internet took off and every application had to have some sort of "web" thing to it.
I'm seeing the same thing with AI, but people I talk to don't get that it's a tool, not a deity. Just you can whack your thumb with a hammer and you can do a bunch of damage with AI wielded improperly. It also can't think for itself, be creative or offer human judgement. At best, it can simulate some of those things.
Here's a link to a YT video on AI in music by Rick Beato that I've referenced before: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbo6SdyWGns
Rick is a well known person in the music industry, very knowledgeable and a great presenter.
Excess renewable power drives down the price.
Making and storing hydrogen is really inefficient, but that's not important if it is running on a cheap byproduct (excess energy).
So perhaps the answer is to have far more renewble sources, generate green hydrogen and use that to power datacentres, heat homes and be fuel for trucks.
Excess renewable power drives down the price.
Making and storing hydrogen is really inefficient, but that's not important if it is running on a cheap byproduct (excess energy).
So perhaps the answer is to have far more renewable sources, generate green hydrogen with the excess and use that to power datacentres, heat homes and be fuel for trucks as well as powering standby generation for times of grid shortfall
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
