Member Info for Alfacomp

Trump will want to buy Malawi ?

Good on them.

If it was me it would either be right by the entrance or next to the electrical substation to the north.

For 1MW (non-tracker) solar generation http://www.suncyclopedia.com/en/area-required-for-solar-pv-power-plants/ quotes c. 1 hectare (100m x 100m). There's this amount of area free to the immediate west of the main office complex and the substation so either seems possible.

https://www.thebushveldperspective.com/blog/public-articles-1/post/vametco-mine-visit-407

Yes and Yes

From the same report - for comparison a gas peaker plant might cost 940 USD/kW -i.e. half the cost of the Lithium-ion system, but then each time you use it you have to pay for the gas you are burning.

If you imagine the peaker is used for 1 hr each day, that is 365 hr per year. Since such a plant is only about 30% efficient at turning burnt gas primary heat into electrical energy this works out around 1000 kW hrs of gas fuel cost each year for each kW of generation capacity. At, lets call it a round, 3p per kWh of calorific energy this comes to GBP 30 per year for the fuel.

If we say that we think 10% per year is a reasonable rate to pay for paying off a capex investment then the Lithium ion battery might work out at 154 GBP per kW each year, the gas peaker plant (77+30) = 107 GBP per kW each year. If you use the peaker twice as much (say average of 2 hours per day) then the price for the gas peaker becomes 137 GBP per kW each year. Use the peaker for 4 hours a day, on average and the peaker works out at 197 GBP per kW per year.

The peaker of course takes a good 5 minutes to get going so would be useless in dealing with something like the event two weeks ago.

This is only a very crude analysis but it gives you a flavour of the numbers as they stand at the moment. Of course battery storage is getting cheaper all the time, and as more renewables comes onto the grid, also gets cleaner as time goes on. The same cannot be said for the old style gas guzzlers and lets not mention energy security shall we.

Zebediah, 1500 MW, if it is really costing 500 million pounds a year works out at 1/3 Million pounds /MW per year or 300 pounds per Kw per Year.

Total Capital cost for a complete Lithium-ion system as quoted in the US dept of Energy's "Energy Storage Technology and Cost Characterization Report July 2019" is quoted as 1,876 USD/kW or 1540 GBP per kW.

300 pounds a year works out at 19% of the total cost of the system per year. This seems too high by about a factor of more than 2.

For comparison a VRFB system is quoted as around 3,400 / kW - so some 80% higher than Lithium-ion, but then again it probably lasts at least twice as long as lithium ion for any reasonable level of usage (0.5+ cycles per day). In fact the US DoE quotes VRFB cycles of 10,000 versus Lithium-ion 3,500 and Lead-acid 900.

They came up with their costing by basing it on battery storage costs from 3 years ago ! FFS who reads that stuff !

Filthy - is the same Jim Slater who ended up writing Snuggly (the Dragon Books) ?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Snuggly-Dragon-Books-Jim-Slater/dp/0583303978/ref=sr_1_1?qid=1566301460&refinements=p_27%3AJim+Slater&s=books&sr=1-1

makes fascinating reading too:- https://web.archive.org/web/20071005175235/http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk./about/information/foi_disclosures/2005/foi_slater_walker_2005.cfm

... that's Jim Slater of Slater Walker that had to be bailed out by the Bank of England, right ? ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slater_Walker )

Ninvestor, yes I have every single day for the last year profiled. The 30K trades have been evident since at least mid january but their quantity clearly increased in mid April.

Ophidian, we should get together some time and have a look at this - I take it you have my email address.

Clint yeah much better than when we get attacked by proper trolls and artistes-de-BS - these ones are pretty simple really.

Tom - then he'll tell you how he was right all along.

but Charlie if the SP is going to go up to 24p in the next two weeks why on earth would you set a stop loss ?

I like that description Pdub - maybe our traders are just hopeless romantics.

Thanks faramog - just listening to it now, its very accessible.

one of my contacts inside the energy industry suggested that this is the best explanation of what happened two weeks ago:- http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/news/what-happened-electricity-system-fri-aug-9-2019.html

Apparently the NG report to Ofgem seems to be confidential, so this is the best we have at present.

as my contact said "it essential says everything worked as it should to stop wider blackouts, because 2 generators went off line in very quick succession. It questions whether Network Rail and train operator, processes made things worse for passengers (basically - yes). It also asks why these two events had such an impact on frequency. It suggests the lack of inertia may have contributed to this. increased wind basically leads to less inertia, unless extra is added to the system (This is generally called synthetic inertia). It suggests maybe more inertia may need to be added to the system, than three currently is. "

You realise that stop losses are a way of painting a 'rob me now' target on your back ?