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> Renewables are used differently, in that there's a lot less ability to rely on them to generate power. I am confused on your reasoning here. Solar energy co

> Renewables are used differently, in that there's a lot less ability to rely on them to generate power. I am confused on your reasoning here. Solar energy covers the daylight hours. Wind power covers the evening / night time hours. Storage technologies smooth out the bumps. Nuclear plants tend to experience long down times for maintenance - which hardly makes them 'reliable'. Xcel is based in a part of the country with easy access to wind energy. I suspect that that calculation is playing a much larger role than you are considering. Specifically, if Xcel can site wind farms close to the customer, there can be a significant savings in power loss due to transmission. Windfarms can be built in smaller units of generation power and built in the airspace over farms. (This is why conservative Kansas really like renewables - farmers see them as a backup source of revenue.)

mschaef 7y ago
> Solar energy covers the daylight hours. The number of daylight hours varies considerably over the course of the year, as well as over varying weather conditions. > Wind power covers the evening / night time hours. Wind power presents several logistical problems. One is that it tends to fall off in the heat of a summer day. This has the net effect of increasing the ramp rate required from other generation assets at the time of peak network load. There are also issues around the fact that wind power tends to be located away from areas of the highest demand. (Generation being in more rural areas, with demand largely being centered in urban areas.) This creates a need to move power in bulk over long distances, which creates issues around the need for reactive support to maintain voltage and therefore grid stability. > Storage technologies smooth out the bumps. Energy storage represents around 4% of US generation capacity, so I'm hoping they're small bumps, at least for the time being. (To put that 4% in perspective, the area I'm in is projecting a 50% increase in system load from this morning's low to this afternoon's high.) http://css.umich.edu/factsheets/us-grid-energy-storage-factsheet http://css.umich.edu/factsheets/us-grid-energy-storage-facts... > Nuclear plants tend to experience long down times for maintenance - which hardly makes them 'reliable'. Capacity factors for nuclear plants hover around 90%, with Solar around 25% and Wind around 30%. https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_6_07_b https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...

mschaef 7y ago

> Solar energy covers the daylight hours. The number of daylight hours varies considerably over the course of the year, as well as over varying weather conditions. > Wind power covers the evening / night time hours. Wind power presents several logistical problems. One is that it tends to fall off in the heat of a summer day. This has the net effect of increasing the ramp rate required from other generation assets at the time of peak network load. There are also issues around the fact that wind power tends to be located away from areas of the highest demand. (Generation being in more rural areas, with demand largely being centered in urban areas.) This creates a need to move power in bulk over long distances, which creates issues around the need for reactive support to maintain voltage and therefore grid stability. > Storage technologies smooth out the bumps. Energy storage represents around 4% of US generation capacity, so I'm hoping they're small bumps, at least for the time being. (To put that 4% in perspective, the area I'm in is projecting a 50% increase in system load from this morning's low to this afternoon's high.) http://css.umich.edu/factsheets/us-grid-energy-storage-factsheet http://css.umich.edu/factsheets/us-grid-energy-storage-facts... > Nuclear plants tend to experience long down times for maintenance - which hardly makes them 'reliable'. Capacity factors for nuclear plants hover around 90%, with Solar around 25% and Wind around 30%. https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_6_07_b https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...