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Who benefits? Pretty much everybody except fossil fuel power plant owners. They create much more reliable power grids and eliminate the need for many natural g

Who benefits? Pretty much everybody except fossil fuel power plant owners. They create much more reliable power grids and eliminate the need for many natural gas power plants that are expensive to maintain and only run during peak power demand.

hinkley 6y ago
In growing communities I don't know that this is necessarily a problem for the incumbents. What stops them from installing batteries in front of a base power plant instead of building more peaking plants? Wouldn't that be a cheaper way for them to keep up with growing demand? You can also use energy storage for peak shaving on long distance lines (which might be to our detriment, as they may avoid building needed infrastructure, resulting in brownouts)
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  You don’t need batteries in front of base generation (which there isn’t much left of as coal and nuclear phase out), and batteries allow renewables to generate more revenue per MWh as that power is now considered dispatchable (Callable on demand) by the grid operator. Batteries are direct competitors against large amounts of legacy investments (coal, natural gas, and nuclear). They can charge from any (localish) grid power source when power is cheap, discharge when power is more expensive (arbitrage), and are stupid fast (hundreds of milliseconds) at providing frequency response services thermal generators have previously provided (single digit minutes, competitively, to get spinning metal up to a higher speed). Peak shaving is definitely a use case (Tesla uses it to shave demand charges at some Superchargers for example), but that’s a consumer (not utility or investor owned generator) benefit. TLDR Old grid->new grid is happening rapidly and incumbents are going to get left behind.
  - hinkley 6y ago
    At the risk of repeating myself: High Tension power lines are not free. Some run at capacity, so batteries would help. Battery power in front of base power means fewer peaking plants, which lowers the relative value of renewables to the entrenched (while only slightly improving emissions). Many will be more comfortable with batteries than windmills. I'm not saying this because I think they should win, I'm trying to prepare you for the sort of pushback you should anticipate from policy makers.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    Enough storage capacity (like the Ludington Pumped Storage Plant) can store power from nuclear plants overnight, leveling the load on the nuclear plants.
    - toomuchtodo 6y ago
      True, but the geographies to support such pumped storage capacities are rare. When available, fully support their use to buffer base load with the demand curve (and its easier on nuclear generators than having them perform load following, which causes accelerated wear on the valves and related components; let nukes run flat out).
- NortySpock 6y ago
  Right, I like the "battery in front of a coal plant" option too. However, renewables (especially solar and wind) have the nice quirk that they require no fuel and thus no fuel cost. So solar for example is charging a battery in the middle of the day when the sun is high and solar dominates the grid anyway (solar being over capacity at noon, rates are cheap at that hour because solar is just pouring power onto the grid at zero marginal cost). Coal at that time would be just burning fuel to charge a battery, only slightly better than keeping the plant running below-cost for the sake of keeping it on through the rate dip to keep the lights on for the 5pm load shift to the suburbs (you know, back in pre-COVID days when we had a commute) Curtailing a coal plant (turning it off due to overcapacity) isn't fast, as the boiling water only slowly cools down (vs a natural gas turbine is typically faster to turn off as it's working on expanding combusted gas through a turbine, rather than hot steam through a turbine).
  - PhantomGremlin 6y ago
    it's working on expanding combusted gas through a turbine, rather than hot steam through a turbine Recent gas plants are called CCGT, and use both combusted gas and hot steam. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_cycle_power_plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_cycle_power_plant As Wiki explains it: combined cycle has a large gas turbine (operating by the Brayton cycle). The turbine's hot exhaust powers a steam power plant (operating by the Rankine cycle). This is a combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) plant. These achieve a best-of-class real (see below) thermal efficiency of around 64% in base-load operation. Modern natural gas plants are very efficient. (But probably not as efficient as PV solar storing energy in grid scale batteries).
    - Retric 6y ago
      Those are competing with a combined cycle steam to steam turbines. Which take much longer to heat up than a turbine to steam system. With combined cycle gas turbines you get some ramp up time, but about 1/2 of power outpost is available instantly. Also, as a general rule all energy required to heat up an engine to working temperatures is wasted when you turn them off.
    - 6y ago

hinkley 6y ago

In growing communities I don't know that this is necessarily a problem for the incumbents. What stops them from installing batteries in front of a base power plant instead of building more peaking plants? Wouldn't that be a cheaper way for them to keep up with growing demand? You can also use energy storage for peak shaving on long distance lines (which might be to our detriment, as they may avoid building needed infrastructure, resulting in brownouts)

toomuchtodo 6y ago
You don’t need batteries in front of base generation (which there isn’t much left of as coal and nuclear phase out), and batteries allow renewables to generate more revenue per MWh as that power is now considered dispatchable (Callable on demand) by the grid operator. Batteries are direct competitors against large amounts of legacy investments (coal, natural gas, and nuclear). They can charge from any (localish) grid power source when power is cheap, discharge when power is more expensive (arbitrage), and are stupid fast (hundreds of milliseconds) at providing frequency response services thermal generators have previously provided (single digit minutes, competitively, to get spinning metal up to a higher speed). Peak shaving is definitely a use case (Tesla uses it to shave demand charges at some Superchargers for example), but that’s a consumer (not utility or investor owned generator) benefit. TLDR Old grid->new grid is happening rapidly and incumbents are going to get left behind.
- hinkley 6y ago
  At the risk of repeating myself: High Tension power lines are not free. Some run at capacity, so batteries would help. Battery power in front of base power means fewer peaking plants, which lowers the relative value of renewables to the entrenched (while only slightly improving emissions). Many will be more comfortable with batteries than windmills. I'm not saying this because I think they should win, I'm trying to prepare you for the sort of pushback you should anticipate from policy makers.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- maxerickson 6y ago
  Enough storage capacity (like the Ludington Pumped Storage Plant) can store power from nuclear plants overnight, leveling the load on the nuclear plants.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    True, but the geographies to support such pumped storage capacities are rare. When available, fully support their use to buffer base load with the demand curve (and its easier on nuclear generators than having them perform load following, which causes accelerated wear on the valves and related components; let nukes run flat out).
NortySpock 6y ago
Right, I like the "battery in front of a coal plant" option too. However, renewables (especially solar and wind) have the nice quirk that they require no fuel and thus no fuel cost. So solar for example is charging a battery in the middle of the day when the sun is high and solar dominates the grid anyway (solar being over capacity at noon, rates are cheap at that hour because solar is just pouring power onto the grid at zero marginal cost). Coal at that time would be just burning fuel to charge a battery, only slightly better than keeping the plant running below-cost for the sake of keeping it on through the rate dip to keep the lights on for the 5pm load shift to the suburbs (you know, back in pre-COVID days when we had a commute) Curtailing a coal plant (turning it off due to overcapacity) isn't fast, as the boiling water only slowly cools down (vs a natural gas turbine is typically faster to turn off as it's working on expanding combusted gas through a turbine, rather than hot steam through a turbine).
- PhantomGremlin 6y ago
  it's working on expanding combusted gas through a turbine, rather than hot steam through a turbine Recent gas plants are called CCGT, and use both combusted gas and hot steam. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_cycle_power_plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_cycle_power_plant As Wiki explains it: combined cycle has a large gas turbine (operating by the Brayton cycle). The turbine's hot exhaust powers a steam power plant (operating by the Rankine cycle). This is a combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) plant. These achieve a best-of-class real (see below) thermal efficiency of around 64% in base-load operation. Modern natural gas plants are very efficient. (But probably not as efficient as PV solar storing energy in grid scale batteries).
  - Retric 6y ago
    Those are competing with a combined cycle steam to steam turbines. Which take much longer to heat up than a turbine to steam system. With combined cycle gas turbines you get some ramp up time, but about 1/2 of power outpost is available instantly. Also, as a general rule all energy required to heat up an engine to working temperatures is wasted when you turn them off.
  - 6y ago