Bishop Hill Longannet to close
Mar 23, 2015 Energy: coal Energy: grid Greens The BBC reports that the Longannet power station is to close in 2016.
Scottish Power has announced plans to close its huge coal-fired power station at Longannet in Fife early next year.
The move comes after the energy firm failed to win a crucial contract from National Grid.
Scottish Power said it was "extremely disappointed" at National Grid's decision.
The Greens are celebrating.
Gina Hanrahan, from WWF Scotland, said National Grid's announcement was "another important step in Scotland's energy transition".
The correspondent who pointed the story out to me (to whom many thanks are due) adds this:
National Grid have given a £15million contract to maintain grid voltage to [the gas-fired station in] Peterhead, but that is for only 385MW of the station's potential 1.2GW.
Longannet is 1.8GW (2.4 in theory but they don't like to crank it up nowadays). So a net loss of 1.4GW capacity and a significant loss of grid inertia. It's maybe not the best analogy, but National Grid are now sailing very close to the wind.
Reader Comments (108)
Bryan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current
Sam,
Thanks for the weblink to Scottish Government debate/discussion.
Is it just me or is Scottish Power trying their damned hardest to get public money to continue production at Longannet and, thereafter, the SNP wanting public money for, solely, private Scottish power plants ?
JL
Bryan,
What links were you looking at ?
AC transmission has to take account of resistive as well as dielectric losses.
DC transmission has resistive losses.
The Western Link, or 'bootstrap' is [HV]DC as stated in the weblink and circa 400km long.
Many facets to ascertain which technology was best for this project will have been taken into account. Not least would have been planning issues......a single or double , 400kV [AC] overhead circuit, say, of 400km in length....way leaves and permissions - good luck with that one !!!!
BIG project.......wonder if it's 'on track' ??
JL
Bryan,
Check out slide 4 of the following weblink
http://www.edinenergy.org/pdfs/usvi_submarine_power_transmission_061510.pdf
JL
Jimmy lightbulb thanks for the link.
Its a new one on me.
AC is cheaper only for smaller distance transmission lines it seems.
The I^2R resistive losses will be the same for both systems.
AC is easier to transform up and down but suffers from reactive losses which I previously assumed would not be significantly.
Well I ken noo.
Jimmy
I am sure Scottish Power would like public money for Longannet. What might be the source of supply? Westminster rather than Holyrood, I think.
Bryan,
AC cheaper for shorter distanced lines........more than likely but depends what the inherent criteria are in determining costs.
I^2R losses the same......why do you assume this ?........there will be a difference in R due to varying construction methods of AC and DC cabling.
AC transformers incur reactive losses, yes......but so does the AC cabling itself. Also, resultant voltage drop(s) and hence voltage profiling becomes a problem - dependent on the varying load levels ( in UK, winter peak and summer low loadings) that the system has to cope with.
Sam,
No doubt SNP would want more 'english' money.
JL
http://www.scottishenergynews.com/?post_type=platform&p=15729&preview=true