3 ms·
Not strictly related to wind power in Texas, but reminded me how at the same time in Finland a few authorities recommended consumers to actually limit their use
by nawitus 11y ago
Not strictly related to wind power in Texas, but reminded me how at the same time in Finland a few authorities recommended consumers to actually limit their use of eletricity "for the common good".
The main cause was increase in wind power capacity in the last few years (as there was practically no wind that day), coupled with very low temperatures and problems with buying electricity from Russia.
It's kinda scary how a developed, modern country is suddenly close to rationing the use of electricity.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- toomuchtodo 11y agoYou don't have to limit your power "for the common good" (not that there's anything wrong with that), but then you have blackouts unless you're going to subsidize building out my generation capacity.
- mikeash 11y agoIt amazes me how well the stuff works most of the time, considering that it's a ridiculously just-in-time system where production must match consumption on a second-by-second basis. No other industry is like this. I think we badly need good storage solutions to decouple the two sides.
- barney54 11y agoThe lack of storage isn't a problem when you are using reliable sources of generation such as nukes, coal, nat gas, and hydro. He problem is integrating wind and solar into a system that is designed for reliable generation.
- mikeash 11y agoIt's still a problem, because it means you need to size generating capacity to match peak demand, not average demand. It's a problem that can be (and is) solved, but the solution is expensive, and when you misjudge the peak you get brownouts or blackouts.
- WalterBright 11y agoThe right way to do deal with this is to have variable, minute by minute pricing. Fixed prices don't make much sense when the supply varies dramatically.
- nawitus 11y agoYou can buy electricity with pricing like that in Finland, it's generally cheaper if you're using significant amounts of electricity. (Although I'm not completely sure if it's minute by minute or hourly rates).
- kaybe 11y agoI find it interesting how big of a no-go that idea still is. Countries seem to be prepared to pay a very high price instead.
- yongjik 11y agoDoesn't seem much worse than where I am now. California has been recommending people to limit use of water for more than a year, and water is arguably a more basic necessity than electricity.
- fulafel 11y agoAccording to WP Finland produces just 1.4% of electricity with wind power on average, pretty surprising if they managed to still get into trouble with that.