5 ms·

I wonder what the fall out is going to be when some weather system arrives that provides cloud and no wind for several days and there isn't enough natural gas,

I wonder what the fall out is going to be when some weather system arrives that provides cloud and no wind for several days and there isn't enough natural gas, coal, nuclear, grid-scale battery storage or hydro capacity left to meet all of the demand. I am sure it will be a rare event and probably preferable to continued c02 emissions. Probably will encourage more investment in energy storage. Exciting time to be a power engineer!

jdhn 8y ago
>there isn't enough natural gas, coal, nuclear, grid-scale battery storage or hydro capacity left to meet all of the demand. I honestly don't think this will happen. There'll at least be nuclear plants, and if the nukes aren't enough they'll spin up natgas peaker plants.
- 4thaccount 8y ago
  Nuclear plants are retiring at a pretty high rate and natural gas units haven't been peakers in many years. Coal and gas has flipped and now gas is serving base load and coal is at the plant's min or used as a peaker.
  - jdhn 8y ago
    I thought that a lot of the younger nuclear plants were still around, and that only the very old ones were being retired. Also, aren't gas plants peakers (as well as baseload) due to the fact that they can be spun up quicker than coal?
    - 4thaccount 8y ago
      You might be right on the first part, but in general a lot of us in the power transmission industry at the utility & the RTO & ISO level (those whose software turns on units and determines where to dispatch them) are pretty worried about nukes going away. Especially in the Northeast...there is one region where a lot of coal and nukes are set to retire in the next couple of years and they are import constrained with natural gas. There was a cold snap a few years ago where they had to run all the coal and nukes slated for retirement at Max...so that is where we're at. Gas plants can be peakers...maybe an expensive unit that can move fast and is reserved for emergencies, but in general the gas prices are so low that the units are very economical and we therefore run them as baseload.
    - ams6110 8y ago
      Natural gas steam plants (retrofits from coal-fired) cannot be spun up very quickly. Natural gas turbine plants (e.g. that burn the gas directly in a turbine engine) can and those are the type that are typically used as "peakers"
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
    - lozaning 8y ago
      The plant by my house growing up closed recently, like 15 years before it was originally slated to. There was a bunch of strange corrosion they couldn't account for. Im pro nuclear but the whole situation at SONGS is a slow moving disaster.
Nasrudith 8y ago
No wind for several days would take some serious geoengineering to accomplish given there is a day/night cycle and temperature differentials create wind. Let alone also somehow obtaining cloud cover at the same time which won't create a wind from the borders not cloud covered.
- opo 8y ago
  That isn't correct. According to a paper from the Fraunhofer Institute: >...Long phases of no or little wind power are a potential thread to future energy systems with a high share of renewable energies. A frequently cited example observed in Germany was a whole week with very little wind power due to temperature inversion in January 2009. >...We find the average duration of low wind power feed-in phase to grow linearly with the threshold: Phases with a wind power feed-in of less than two percent of installed power are typically four hours long and phases with less than five percent feed-in are on average seven hours long. However, a period of wind power feed-in below eight percent of installed power that lasts one week occurs every two years and a period of more than ten days occurs every ten years. https://tu-dresden.de/bu/wirtschaft/ee2/ressourcen/dateien/lehrstuhlseiten/ordner_enerday/ordner_archiv/ordner_enerday2014/ordner_pacp/ordner_fpap/folder-2014-04-22-7870620856/pltz_fullpaper_2014.pdf?lang=en https://tu-dresden.de/bu/wirtschaft/ee2/ressourcen/dateien/l...
  - Nasrudith 8y ago
    I was speaking of wind in absolutes - even then it produces 3% which while not adequate unless massively overbuilt is still something. Although it doesn't mention solar during that time period.
    - opo 8y ago
      >I was speaking of wind in absolutes - Well... the original poster was referring to the potential problem where you don't get any electricity from wind for several days, so it might have been better if you dealt with that issue rather than speaking of wind in absolutes since utility grade windmills need at least roughly 13 MPH winds to generate power. >...even then it produces 3% which while not adequate unless massively overbuilt is still something. No, not really.

jdhn 8y ago

>there isn't enough natural gas, coal, nuclear, grid-scale battery storage or hydro capacity left to meet all of the demand. I honestly don't think this will happen. There'll at least be nuclear plants, and if the nukes aren't enough they'll spin up natgas peaker plants.

4thaccount 8y ago
Nuclear plants are retiring at a pretty high rate and natural gas units haven't been peakers in many years. Coal and gas has flipped and now gas is serving base load and coal is at the plant's min or used as a peaker.
- jdhn 8y ago
  I thought that a lot of the younger nuclear plants were still around, and that only the very old ones were being retired. Also, aren't gas plants peakers (as well as baseload) due to the fact that they can be spun up quicker than coal?
  - 4thaccount 8y ago
    You might be right on the first part, but in general a lot of us in the power transmission industry at the utility & the RTO & ISO level (those whose software turns on units and determines where to dispatch them) are pretty worried about nukes going away. Especially in the Northeast...there is one region where a lot of coal and nukes are set to retire in the next couple of years and they are import constrained with natural gas. There was a cold snap a few years ago where they had to run all the coal and nukes slated for retirement at Max...so that is where we're at. Gas plants can be peakers...maybe an expensive unit that can move fast and is reserved for emergencies, but in general the gas prices are so low that the units are very economical and we therefore run them as baseload.
  - ams6110 8y ago
    Natural gas steam plants (retrofits from coal-fired) cannot be spun up very quickly. Natural gas turbine plants (e.g. that burn the gas directly in a turbine engine) can and those are the type that are typically used as "peakers"
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - lozaning 8y ago
    The plant by my house growing up closed recently, like 15 years before it was originally slated to. There was a bunch of strange corrosion they couldn't account for. Im pro nuclear but the whole situation at SONGS is a slow moving disaster.

Nasrudith 8y ago

No wind for several days would take some serious geoengineering to accomplish given there is a day/night cycle and temperature differentials create wind. Let alone also somehow obtaining cloud cover at the same time which won't create a wind from the borders not cloud covered.

opo 8y ago
That isn't correct. According to a paper from the Fraunhofer Institute: >...Long phases of no or little wind power are a potential thread to future energy systems with a high share of renewable energies. A frequently cited example observed in Germany was a whole week with very little wind power due to temperature inversion in January 2009. >...We find the average duration of low wind power feed-in phase to grow linearly with the threshold: Phases with a wind power feed-in of less than two percent of installed power are typically four hours long and phases with less than five percent feed-in are on average seven hours long. However, a period of wind power feed-in below eight percent of installed power that lasts one week occurs every two years and a period of more than ten days occurs every ten years. https://tu-dresden.de/bu/wirtschaft/ee2/ressourcen/dateien/lehrstuhlseiten/ordner_enerday/ordner_archiv/ordner_enerday2014/ordner_pacp/ordner_fpap/folder-2014-04-22-7870620856/pltz_fullpaper_2014.pdf?lang=en https://tu-dresden.de/bu/wirtschaft/ee2/ressourcen/dateien/l...
- Nasrudith 8y ago
  I was speaking of wind in absolutes - even then it produces 3% which while not adequate unless massively overbuilt is still something. Although it doesn't mention solar during that time period.
  - opo 8y ago
    >I was speaking of wind in absolutes - Well... the original poster was referring to the potential problem where you don't get any electricity from wind for several days, so it might have been better if you dealt with that issue rather than speaking of wind in absolutes since utility grade windmills need at least roughly 13 MPH winds to generate power. >...even then it produces 3% which while not adequate unless massively overbuilt is still something. No, not really.