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David Roberts When you curtail the coal plant, though, you still have the fuel. You’re not wasting it. Paul Denholm But what fraction of the LCOE [levelized
by chis 9y ago
David Roberts
When you curtail the coal plant, though, you still have the fuel. You’re not wasting it.
Paul Denholm
But what fraction of the LCOE [levelized cost of energy] of a mine-mouth coal plant is the fuel? It’s a small fraction. The cost of the plant is the major component of the LCOE, so when I curtail generation from that coal plant, I’m losing the opportunity to recover the cost of investing in that really expensive asset.
I never considered that running a coal plant below capacity is the same as dumping solar panel energy, economically speaking.
- Retric 9y agoYea, this is vastly better than most discussions of the topic. Talking about seasonal storage is kind of silly costs are low enough that you can build say 20% more solar and wind than you need on average and they are still cheaper than gas/nuclear/coal. On top of that hydropower is very dispatchable which acts a lot like seasonal energy storage because you are storing months worth of river flow.
- jaggederest 9y agoI'm just thinking of fun ways to build businesses around dispatchable, quick-ramping energy sinks that could serve in lieu of curtailment. Obviously energy intensive businesses like aluminum smelting, chemical production, etc, but also things like refrigeration units running slightly more midday to produce chilled water and then idling until ~10pm, battery backups at datacenters being half way drained and then refilled off-peak, etc.
- nate_meurer 9y agoThis is a significant element of DR (demand response). Domestic waters are another attractive target, and there some pilot programs around the U.S. fleshing out the details.
- nate_meurer 9y agoSorry, that should read "domestic water heaters"
- Obi_Juan_Kenobi 9y agoHydropower isn't easy, either. The stored water is often used for agriculture, and you have to manage flow rates to keep levies and river systems healthy. My intuition is that the power and agricultural water demand roughly match up, both high in the summer. For levies and fish, you can't just dump or cut off water quickly. Ramping flow up creates turbidity that can harm fish. Cutting it off leaves saturated levies without support and leads to sloughing and failure. I don't know whether these limits would actually matter for an energy management scenario, just pointing out that there are certainly some limits.
- Retric 9y agoThe specifics very much depend on the specific area. The northwest US for example has an abundance of water. The southwest on the other hand has to manage water of multiple years and has far less slack in the system. As to flow rates, that's a issue for sudden changes in output over minutes not seasonal shifts in demand. An average flow rate of +/- 10% for a month is a non issue for river ecosystems as long as it's within normal variation, but can represent a lot of stored energy over that month.