4 ms·
Don’t know specific situation in Germany, but gas turbine plants in my country are “mostly idle” because they are there to keep the grid stable (they spin up fa
by avian 7y ago
Don’t know specific situation in Germany, but gas turbine plants in my country are “mostly idle” because they are there to keep the grid stable (they spin up fast to cover peak demand). They can’t be run at capacity.
- philipkglass 7y agoIrsching Power Station in Germany has a mixture of 770 MW peaking capacity (not suitable for routine use) and 1429 MW of idled high efficiency combined cycle gas turbine capacity. The latter type of unit is suitable for directly replacing coal fired plants. CCGT units have enabled the United States to rapidly replace coal fired power with gas fired power over the past decade. Replacing coal with gas isn't enough to reach climate goals, of course, but it certainly is better than continued coal use. Also, even CCGT installations not intended for peaking can respond faster to changing net demand than coal plants can, which makes them a better complementary source for renewables. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irsching_Power_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irsching_Power_Station There are another 1200+ megawatts of mostly-idle CCGT capacity at the Knapsack and Herdecke sites: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-20/merkel-s-natural-gas-bridge-looks-like-a-dead-end-to-executives https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-20/merkel-s-...