zlacker

>>RobinL+(OP)
Curtailment, like negative prices, seems like something that it is hard for people to have constructive conversations about.

Probably the cheapest and best option is to build more wind and not care too much if it increases curtailment.

Yes, all the things mentioned should be looked into and done when it makes financial sense but "wasting wind" is much less a thing to worry about than "burning gas", and I'd rather waste wind than waste money.

>>ZeroGr+k8
But that presupposes we can actually supply enough electricity to where it's needed. We already hitting the limits, thus the curtailment and burning gas. Adding more capacity unless it's in the right place doesn't solve the issue.

>>benj11+V9
The example given was christmas day, when most industry stops, when the wind was blowing strongly. (UK heat is mostly gas, not electric).

It's probably more typical for all available wind to be used and then gas burned on top of that.

Building more wind, even in curtailed areas will probably help those cases, even if it leads to more curtailment on other days.

It would be nice if their neat interactive graphs also clearly marked the "we burnt gas because we didn't have enough wind turbines" so we can balance the two costs correctly.

Right now it's like a medical test that only reports false negatives and ignores false positives (or vice versa). Trying to reduce one to zero without reference to the opposing problem is probably making the other one worse.