3 ms·
"Pumpspeicherkraftwerke" (pump storage power plant) are a thing in germany and largely they are used on minute basis, not seasonal, going from 0 Watts to a Giga
by tscs37 9y ago
"Pumpspeicherkraftwerke" (pump storage power plant) are a thing in germany and largely they are used on minute basis, not seasonal, going from 0 Watts to a Gigawatt in about 20 minutes and probably faster if really necessary. [0]
Power can be stored and emited within a few minutes to the extend that they are used to compensate power spikes or drops in the grid already, for exactly the scenario described in the OP.
0: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Pumpspeicherkraftwerk.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Pumpspei...
- reacharavindh 9y agoI stand corrected. It is really cool that we can use water storage that quickly and efficiently.
- dragontamer 9y agoUSA has these too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_County_Pumped_Storage_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_County_Pumped_Storage_Sta... As far as I know, its used for "daily" fluctuations. Coal and Nuclear power plants in the region don't want to turn off at night: its more efficient for them to stay hot and keep the turbines going through the night (even when no power is being used). So the Bath County Pumped Storage dam stores energy at night, and provides it in the day, covering a region that contains 13 States. I don't know the response time of the system, but I'd expect it to be similar to the German system of "within minutes" or so.