Month: January 2015

Another booming year for Chinese renewables

Posted by Andrew – 2015/01/17

From China’s 2014 energy statistics:

  • New renewable capacity outstripped new coal capacity;
  • additional output from renewables (the increase in output in 2014 over 2013) was greater than the total output from nuclear;
  • total generation from hydro, wind and solar all went up;
  • total generation from fossil thermal plant went down;
  • coal & gas consumption for electricity went down.

And so to the detail.

Half of the 104 GW of new capacity is renewables; 47 GW is thermal plant (predominantly coal and fossil gas) and 5 GW is nuclear. 22GW of the renewable capacity is hydro, 20 GW wind, and 11 GW solar.

I’ve updated this post on 2015-03-12 with the more specific statistics now available from China.

Generation from wind increased to 17.88GW (average electricity production) this year, from an estimated 16GW last year. Hydro generation increased by about 17% to 122 GW. China now has 27 GW of grid-connected solar capacity, and 20 GW of nuclear capacity.

Output from thermal (coal & gas) plants dropped in 2014, because although thermal plant capacity increased by 5.9%, this was outweighed by the relative decrease of 6.3% in its capacity factor (from 57.3% to 53.7%, an absolute change of -3.6%, which is a relative change of -6.3%). In addition, the efficiency of coal & gas plants went up, meaning that the consumption of coal & gas for electricity generation decreased in 2014.

Total electricity generation was about 632 GW, of which 476 GW was thermal, 122 GW was hydro, 17.8 GW was wind, 14.4 GW was nuclear, and 2.6 GW was solar.

So coal & gas generation decreased slightly; hydro generation increased by about 17 GW; solar generation increased by about 1 GW; and wind generation increased by about 2 GW; giving a net increase in renewables generation of about 20 GW.

Wind records in Britain

Posted by Andrew – 2015/01/01

It’s been a remarkable few months for wind generation in Britain, Feb 2014 – Jan 2015, and the last of those two months in particular. Several records were broken, and re-broken.

You can see the live British grid data, including wind generation, here; and here’s a version for mobiles (cellphones) and other small-screen devices.

February 2014 saw the highest monthly average metered wind power generation that Britain’s ever achieved: in that month, average generation from metered windfarms was 4.09 GW.

The half-hour starting at 06.00 on the morning of 18 October 2014 saw the highest percentage contribution of wind (penetration) to total demand: 23.5% from metered windfarms; 32.9% from all windfarms.

The half-hour starting at 19.30 on 9 December 2014 saw the highest half-hourly wind generation: 6.80 GW from metered windfarms; 9.42 GW from all windfarms.

And until January 2015, December 2014 also had the highest amount of wind-generated electricity of any month: 3.90 TWh (of which a record 2.85 TWh was from metered windfarms); and the highest monthly contribution from wind to total demand – 13.9% from all windfarms (the highest contribution from metered windfarms was 10.5%, in February 2014). But January 2015 outdid the preceeding month, with 14.4% of demand being met by metered and embedded wind; 4.13 TWh of wind in total, which was equivalent to an average power of 5.56 GW; and 2.95 TWh from the metered windfarms.

Records for electricity generation from wind in Britain

analysis by EnergyNumbers.infoAll windfarmsMetered windfarms only
MonthlyMax wind penetration14.4 %Jan 201510.5 %Feb 2014
Maximum energy4.13 TWhJan 20152.95 TWhJan 2015
Max average power5.56 GWJan 20154.09 GWFeb 2014
Half-hourlyMax wind penetration32.9 %2014-10-18 06.00-06.3023.5 %2014-10-18 06.00-06.30
Max average power9.42 GW2014-12-09 19.30-20.006.80 GW2014-12-09 19.30-20.00

(thanks to BMReports and Elexon for the raw data I used for this analysis)