3 ms·

Your parent already said why. The ability of gas plants to quickly adjust to changing loads is one of the things enabling those solar, tidal, and wind plants t

Your parent already said why. The ability of gas plants to quickly adjust to changing loads is one of the things enabling those solar, tidal, and wind plants to be on the grid. Nuclear, hydro, and geothermal are great for baseline load, but adjust very slowly to changing load requirements. Gas is filling a legitimate technical gap right now within the power grid, bridging between slow baseline plants and unpredictable renewable sources.

WorldMaker 7y ago
Even ignoring that we have a well known, much more renewable option on the table (nuclear), it is a technical gap that is also rapidly shrinking from advancements in storage tech (batteries and hydrogen fuel cells).
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
incangold 7y ago
Does pumped-storage hydroelectricity meet a similar need? Or does it take longer to come online than natural gas?
- tialaramex 7y ago
  It depends, pumped storage can be designed to react very fast. In particular pumped storage plants which were conceived specifically to alleviate surge demand can spend a little bit of energy now to stand ready, no longer storing further energy but with their turbines now "spinning in air" the generator is rotating with no load and then when you actually need that power you drop water through to spin it instead, 16 seconds from zero to 6 x 300MW turbines = 1.8GW at Dinorwig station in Wales. Gas likewise needs to consider this at design time. The most efficient possible closed-cycle gas turbine setup may take hours to be prepared and spin back up from zero, but obviously you would not choose this configuration if your intent was to use this station to handle surges. Britain's fleet of closed-cycle gas turbine power stations (in the same network as Dinorwig) frequently ramp up and down a dozen GW in an hour across the country. BTW Dinorwig's fast start isn't really there to manage surges, that's a convenient happenstance, nobody was worried about a duck curve from solar power when it was built. It's there because it's a Black Start facility. Most power stations need outside power to start, it's just easier and they're connected anyway, Dinorwig was chosen to be able to start from nothing if the grid fails, so in that sense it's like the box of matches by the furnace, just in case.
xyzzyz 7y ago
> Nuclear, hydro, and geothermal are great for baseline load, but adjust very slowly to changing load requirements. Hydro adjusts very fast, it's literally just letting more water through. Nuclear is slower, but since its fuel costs are so low, you can typically just run it at full power all the time. Of course, with this approach you'll be overproducing, but with efficient spot market for electricity, you'll have businesses taking advantage of this cheap energy during overproduction to generate the necessary load.

WorldMaker 7y ago

Even ignoring that we have a well known, much more renewable option on the table (nuclear), it is a technical gap that is also rapidly shrinking from advancements in storage tech (batteries and hydrogen fuel cells).

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

incangold 7y ago

Does pumped-storage hydroelectricity meet a similar need? Or does it take longer to come online than natural gas?

tialaramex 7y ago
It depends, pumped storage can be designed to react very fast. In particular pumped storage plants which were conceived specifically to alleviate surge demand can spend a little bit of energy now to stand ready, no longer storing further energy but with their turbines now "spinning in air" the generator is rotating with no load and then when you actually need that power you drop water through to spin it instead, 16 seconds from zero to 6 x 300MW turbines = 1.8GW at Dinorwig station in Wales. Gas likewise needs to consider this at design time. The most efficient possible closed-cycle gas turbine setup may take hours to be prepared and spin back up from zero, but obviously you would not choose this configuration if your intent was to use this station to handle surges. Britain's fleet of closed-cycle gas turbine power stations (in the same network as Dinorwig) frequently ramp up and down a dozen GW in an hour across the country. BTW Dinorwig's fast start isn't really there to manage surges, that's a convenient happenstance, nobody was worried about a duck curve from solar power when it was built. It's there because it's a Black Start facility. Most power stations need outside power to start, it's just easier and they're connected anyway, Dinorwig was chosen to be able to start from nothing if the grid fails, so in that sense it's like the box of matches by the furnace, just in case.

xyzzyz 7y ago

> Nuclear, hydro, and geothermal are great for baseline load, but adjust very slowly to changing load requirements. Hydro adjusts very fast, it's literally just letting more water through. Nuclear is slower, but since its fuel costs are so low, you can typically just run it at full power all the time. Of course, with this approach you'll be overproducing, but with efficient spot market for electricity, you'll have businesses taking advantage of this cheap energy during overproduction to generate the necessary load.