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The myth of base load
- Thread starter nwdiver
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- Energy Environment Policy
TheTalkingMule
Distributed Energy Enthusiast
If you were building an efficient(cheap) energy infrastructure from scratch today it would look considerably different than what we have in the US. So that's what's happening.
beeeerock
Active Member
Also interesting is the discussion pertaining to Australia, a country that politically seems to be very closely tied to coal. But if China is making moves in this way, we had better sit up and take notice. I would not consider that country as being the champion of doing what's right at any cost... so it must make sense!
It's funny how discussions around coal-fired power always gives me a mental image of the old turn of the century black and white photos of Welsh coal miners with faces black from their work... and comments about wind/solar pop up an image of civilization on earth from a Star Trek movie, with citizens walking about in white or silver Teflon suits, looking very clean and fit in their Utopian society. Strange how just the choice of power source equates to 'primitive' or 'futuristic'.
It's funny how discussions around coal-fired power always gives me a mental image of the old turn of the century black and white photos of Welsh coal miners with faces black from their work... and comments about wind/solar pop up an image of civilization on earth from a Star Trek movie, with citizens walking about in white or silver Teflon suits, looking very clean and fit in their Utopian society. Strange how just the choice of power source equates to 'primitive' or 'futuristic'.
Yeah... for starters using IGBTs to convert DC=>AC is now cheaper than using transformers to step voltage AC=>AC. The entire transmission grid... if not the entire grid would likely be DC instead of AC. Even just 40 years ago stepping DC up and down was nearly impossible.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
I've been thinking that "base load" is a myth for some time now. When you consider that utilities have to essentially give away electricity at night, they really don't have a base load. Some places in Texas literally have free electricity at night. How much generation capacity does it take to keep a few street lights on?
Nuclear and coal plants have a fatal flaw in that they can't be easily throttled. It takes them days or weeks to adjust output, certainly they can't respond to daily fluctuations in demand.
Utilities have a problem in load management but it's not base load, it's tailoring load to demand and storage is the solution.
(BTW, somewhat off topic, I read a piece today where an economist argues that Saudi pumping maximum oil at $30 a barrel is rational because they want to sell as much oil now as possible since they think the price will only go down and they don't want stranded assets.)
In the short time, I've watched China electricity, their coal power station MW has zoomed up, and their capacity factors have dropped from 70% to 50%. So it was obvious to me that Chinese treat coal as a higher value peaking energy than as a base energy. Very un western.
How can the Chinese treat coal power plants as a peaking energy source? The ability and finance to replace what Westerners consider permanent components as consumables, its also a feature of soviet engineering. Again not even within the western engineering mindset.
Every 100MW of Chinese intermittent renewable power requires an additional new 90MW of coal power peaking.
Every 100MWh of Chinese renewable energy displaces 100MWh of coal energy.
Very unwestern
Very Chinese
The Chinese have an agenda to have the cheapest electricity in the world, to achieve that requires 2 inputs
free energy (ie wind)
cheap power (ie coal)
so its both wind and coal.
it won't be long and the Chinese will get coal down to 30% capacity factors.
long term I could see the Chinese have more MW in coal than Rest of World combined, but at 10% capacity factor
How can the Chinese treat coal power plants as a peaking energy source? The ability and finance to replace what Westerners consider permanent components as consumables, its also a feature of soviet engineering. Again not even within the western engineering mindset.
Every 100MW of Chinese intermittent renewable power requires an additional new 90MW of coal power peaking.
Every 100MWh of Chinese renewable energy displaces 100MWh of coal energy.
Very unwestern
Very Chinese
The Chinese have an agenda to have the cheapest electricity in the world, to achieve that requires 2 inputs
free energy (ie wind)
cheap power (ie coal)
so its both wind and coal.
it won't be long and the Chinese will get coal down to 30% capacity factors.
long term I could see the Chinese have more MW in coal than Rest of World combined, but at 10% capacity factor
Tesla was a pragmatist... pretty sure he's be all for DC transmission today... AC motors still rule though :wink:
omgwtfbyobbq
Active Member
Using baseload in that context these days is a red herring. With the forecasting and DSM we have now, losing one large FF powerplant is more difficult to handle than variability in renewable generation. And if we really need to, we can count on some fraction of generation from interconnected renewables as "baseload".
Blowing away myths: Study says wind energy could be even more reliable than baseload power | Midwest Energy News
http://www.ceoe.udel.edu/File%20Library/Our%20People/Profiles/carcher/My_Papers/Archer_Jacobson_JAMC_2007.pdf
Blowing away myths: Study says wind energy could be even more reliable than baseload power | Midwest Energy News
http://www.ceoe.udel.edu/File%20Library/Our%20People/Profiles/carcher/My_Papers/Archer_Jacobson_JAMC_2007.pdf
mspohr
Well-Known Member
Thought I'd revive this old thread with a new study
100% renewable electricity is viable – Physics World
So the back-up that is required “only has to operate for several hours at a time”. They note that “base-load power stations are not suited to the task”, whereas demand management could help reduce/shift peaks and cheap OCGTs could fill in any gaps. The latter could also maintain supply over longer periods, when other back-up, such as from hydro reservoirs and batteries, was exhausted, for example “if the Dunkelflaute lasts for (say) one week in winter/summer”. Diesendorf and Elliston add that the OCGTs initially “may have to operate on fossil fuels, but in the longer term they can run on renewable fuels (e.g. biofuels, hydrogen, ammonia)”. So their prescription is very similar to that of the Brown et al. study described above.
For good measure, Diesendorf and Elliston also have a sideswipe at the view that “base-load power stations are essential”, noting that “several of the simulation studies achieve reliability with zero or negligible base-load capacity” with “flexible, dispatchable power stations and storage technologies, together with demand response” being needed, rather than inflexible base-load.
100% renewable electricity is viable – Physics World
So the back-up that is required “only has to operate for several hours at a time”. They note that “base-load power stations are not suited to the task”, whereas demand management could help reduce/shift peaks and cheap OCGTs could fill in any gaps. The latter could also maintain supply over longer periods, when other back-up, such as from hydro reservoirs and batteries, was exhausted, for example “if the Dunkelflaute lasts for (say) one week in winter/summer”. Diesendorf and Elliston add that the OCGTs initially “may have to operate on fossil fuels, but in the longer term they can run on renewable fuels (e.g. biofuels, hydrogen, ammonia)”. So their prescription is very similar to that of the Brown et al. study described above.
For good measure, Diesendorf and Elliston also have a sideswipe at the view that “base-load power stations are essential”, noting that “several of the simulation studies achieve reliability with zero or negligible base-load capacity” with “flexible, dispatchable power stations and storage technologies, together with demand response” being needed, rather than inflexible base-load.
Well, everything you can do with baseload, you can do with peakers. It's just less efficient, so more expensive at high capacity factors. But you could fill in for less with peakers, as long as the primary sources are cheap enough and cover enough of demand.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
Transmission transition: why some poles and wires can go into storage!
A study in Northern Ireland has shown that appropriately configured energy storage can offset far more than its rated capacity of mechanical inertia, says Jaad Cabbabe, Senior Manager of Business Development at Fluence, and one of the authors of a white paper Redrawing the Network Map: Energy Storage as Virtual Transmission, published this month.
The Northern Ireland case study, in which Fluence played a part, showed that 360 MW of energy storage could provide the same inertia to the grid as 3 GW of coal-fired generation, says Cabbabe.
Battery storage operating in tandem with the line allows the line itself to be run consistently closer to capacity, because the storage “can be the flexible buffer to account for any fast changes,” he says.
A study in Northern Ireland has shown that appropriately configured energy storage can offset far more than its rated capacity of mechanical inertia, says Jaad Cabbabe, Senior Manager of Business Development at Fluence, and one of the authors of a white paper Redrawing the Network Map: Energy Storage as Virtual Transmission, published this month.
The Northern Ireland case study, in which Fluence played a part, showed that 360 MW of energy storage could provide the same inertia to the grid as 3 GW of coal-fired generation, says Cabbabe.
Battery storage operating in tandem with the line allows the line itself to be run consistently closer to capacity, because the storage “can be the flexible buffer to account for any fast changes,” he says.
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