Intermittence and coal

Intermittence and coal

Evolution of installed electrical capacities in Europe

Where it appears that the backup of intermittence replaces one coal with another

Jean Pierre Riou and Bernard Durand

Avertissement : cette série d'articles en anglais reprend des articles du Mont Champot en français afin d'étayer une publication ultérieure.

Cet avertissement explicatif sera rapidement supprimé.

According to Enerdata statistics, European electricity consumption has been relatively stable for ten years, with a 1.7% difference between 3386 TWh in 2008 and 3396 TWh in 2017.

This consumption has increased little since 2000 when it was only 2,952 TWh.

The stability of the indispensable dispatchable means

Between 2000 and 2012, the dispatchable capacities increased by 13%, that is to say strictly in the same proportion as the change in consumption.

The table below summarizes the Eurostat data on the evolution of these capacities and shows that not only the tremendous development of intermittent energies did not allow the closure of any dispatchable capacity installed since 2000, but was accompanied by a 53.6 GW increase in it.

Nucléaire=Nuclear, Fossile=Fossil, Hydraulique=Hydro, Géothermie= Geothermal.Total pilotable= Total dispatchable, Eolien= Wind, Photovoltaïque = photovoltaic. Total intermittent = Total intermittent. Solaire thermique = solar thermal. Houle/marémoteur =Swell/tidal power

Autres= Others
Source https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=File:Maximum_electrical_capacity,_EU-28,_2000-2017_(MW).png
 

However, since 2012, there has been a slight erosion of these dispatchable means, with a reduction of 38.6 GW.

This erosion, however slight, was denounced on October 10, 2018 by the top 10 European electricians because of the threat it poses to the security of electricity supply. Their press release mentioned the risk of the end of European solidarity in the event of supply difficulties.

In fact, the manager of the European network ENTSO-E predicted, in his Winter Outlook 2019/2020, that balance would not be assured in the event of a severe cold period. And showed in the illustration of the situation that almost half of the member countries (19 out of 43) would then risk being dependent on imports at the same time, especially in week 2 and 3 of January, where France and Germany would both experience a deficit, imports included.

The hidden coal of the European Union

This erosion of European dispatchable resources and the increase in the intermittency share have led the EU to strengthen the power of its network and in particular develop increasingly distant interconnections to evacuate its surpluses, but also to secure its supply.

The discreet return of coal

The European Union’s emissions trading scheme (EU-ETS) aims to promote the competitiveness of non-carbon-based energy. It concerns the 28 EU countries plus Iceland, Lichtenstein and Norway.

Then the EU is also strengthening its interconnections outside its borders, to countries that do not pay carbon taxes and where it is the most competitive coal.

According to the Sandbag report “How coal infiltrates the EU”, more than 57 GW of coal-fired power plants have been recently built or are planned in countries connected to ENSTO-E or in the process of being connected, including 34 GW in Turkey. A 31% increase in these interconnection capacities is planned with countries outside the EU.

By 2025, 5 new countries should be connected to ENSTO-E: Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Israel and Moldova, none of them pay carbon tax.

A border tax would seem necessary to avoid encouraging these countries to produce more coal-fired electricity to supply the EU. These exchanges bring to light the EU's meager progress in reducing its dispatchable resources, since it is taking care thus to provide itself a backup reserve for the intermittence of its production, while encouraging its neighbors to build new coal plants.

Rushing ahead 

Rushing ahead

Within the framework of EU / Mediterranean cooperation, the European Union is studying an extension of the interconnections in order to allow exchanges with 15 neighbors of the EU, in the Middle East, North Africa and the Balkans.

The undesirable surpluses of intermittent energies will undoubtedly find all the more outlets than their value on the market will collapse to negative rates as soon as the wind blows, as France Strategy has denounced. And the EU will at the same time secure its ability to meet the needs of its consumption while pretending to ignore the coal boom it will generate.

Focusing on the amount of renewable energy produced in the European Union, or its share in the electricity mix will undoubtedly obscure the simple relocation of the problem.

The excellent Coal Tracker site allows you to view a number of these coal-fired power plants currently in operation, under construction or at the planning stage.

The embrittlement

This pooling of problems raises fears of a headlong rush  towards less and less stable systems. Indeed, the European system undergoes frequency deviations which it must constantly remedy, and which are caused by the Serbian and Kosovar networks, despite the permanent injunctions of the European Union and Entsoe, which already threatened sanctions in 2018 if it appeared that all efforts were not made to resolve this problem. After the fall in frequency of the European network on January 10, 2020, which triggered the automatic power cut-off procedure for "interruptible" industrialists, RTE noted among the causes thisdeviation from Serbia and Kosovo.