4 ms·
It is important to note, that here in Germany, wind and solar does not quite reach 100% of our energy consumption yet - I think it has done so only once on a pu
by _ph_ 9y ago
It is important to note, that here in Germany, wind and solar does not quite reach 100% of our energy consumption yet - I think it has done so only once on a public holiday. The more frequent overproduction comes from high wind/solar output combined with the output of power plants which can't be shout down quickly enough, that is coal/nuclear. If those would be replaced by gas plants with faster reaction times, a much higher amount of reneweable energy could be used without requiring storage.
But indeed, as the amount of renewal energy production increases, more storage is needed. Perhaps less so for wind which has a more smooth output over days, but for solar, which has a strong peak over noon and of course shuts down alltogether in the evening. Distributing the solar curve over more time of the day would be very useful.
- Reason077 9y agoCoal power plants can ramp up and down pretty quickly in response to demand. Not quite as quickly as gas, but generally quick enough to respond to changes in renewables supply when operated as "spinning reserve". Nuclear plants, of course, can not.
- jhayward 9y agoThere are plenty of coal plants that absolutely can not ramp up and down in less than many hours, and will lose money as they do so. There are also many nuclear plants perfectly capable of "load following", responding in the time frame of minutes to 10's of minutes to load changes.
- Reason077 9y agoMy understanding is that while load following is possible in nuclear plants, there are significant design, efficiency, and cost compromises involved. For these reasons, load-following nuclear is fairly rare. In the UK, all of our nuclear power plants operate at their design capacity all the time. Their output only changes during scheduled periods when they are shut down for maintenance, refuelling, etc. In contrast, all of the remaining coal-fired power plants in the UK effectively operate as load-following reserve. They ramp up only on cold winter days when demand is high and when wind generation is low. There are now many "coal free" days in the warmer months where there is no coal-fired power generation in the UK at all (it looks like today will be one of them!)