4 ms·

That's if you can assume that peak usage can be supplied, if it can't, there will be a loss of frequency (<50hz). When that happens, entire regions have to be f

That's if you can assume that peak usage can be supplied, if it can't, there will be a loss of frequency (<50hz). When that happens, entire regions have to be forcefully shutdown, meaning there's no electricity to use even if you wanted to. Sweden have been dangerously close to this already, I expect it to happen now when the real winter starts.

samwillis 5y ago
My point is that prices will be dynamically raised as 100% usage is approached. That way larger energy users in industry are pushed to scale down operations temporarily. Already governments/suppliers have agreements with large users to scale down during peek usage to ensure no loss of frequency, my suggestion is this is expanded to the whole of industry and made dynamic based on pricing. I suspect that some consumer protection would need to be introduced so domestic customers don’t see quite the same level of price fluctuation.
- tmikaeld 5y ago
  My point was that, if you stop and start frequently, the balance of the network will be extremely hard to maintain so you'll get blackouts that can span wide areas or even the whole net. Even if that wasn't the case, I'm not sure that Swedish industries CAN scale down even if they wanted to, because the cost to start up again would be greater than shutting down.
  - lstodd 5y ago
    It's like, surely you can "scale down" an electric smelter. Only that would mean almost rebuilding the furnaces afterwards. And it's sort of "simple" for the iron smelters. Try to shut down an aluminium smelter at an hour's notice. I'm not sure if it wouldn't be cheaper to build a completely new facility afterwards.
    - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
      Many such smelters already act as grid connected batteries. Since they store heat, they can vary their electrical loads and get paid for doing so. Pretty much anything that heats, cools or pumps water can do this, but the big users are the easy place to start. There's even startups trying to melt aluminum purely to use it as a storage medium: https://www.alcircle.com/news/azelio-recycled-aluminium-to-store-solar-energy-batteries-unwanted-57070 https://www.alcircle.com/news/azelio-recycled-aluminium-to-s...
      - lstodd 5y ago
        Eh. I'm talking about primary smelters, the ones that take bauxite as input. You just can't. It'll ruin the chemical composition, the electolysers, you'll have to throw out (somehow, very expensive in itself) a lot of fluoride in various nasty forms, electrolyzer lining, electrodes, etc. This would cause weeks of delays and $ tens of millions lost. It just can't be done. And it's never done unless a hydroelectric dam fails or something of that magnitude. alcircle.com is just barely less insane. but just barely. Even NaK eutectic makes more sense.
      - tmikaeld 5y ago
        I've seen similar by Salt-X, they use molten salt. Glad science is being done on this, but it seems hard, the salt causes korrosion issues, so it doesn't last long.
erk__ 5y ago
Do you have any sources on the claim that it have been close to causing loss of frequency? In Denmark that relies quite a bit more on wind they are saying that it should happen for no more than 5 minutes this year (and that may higher than what actual happens, as they have averaged less than 1 minute per year the last 10 years). Furthermore the ENTSOE Mid-term Adequacy Forecast 2020 [0] forecasts Scandinavia to have between 0 and 0.1 hour loss of load expectation. [0]: https://www.entsoe.eu/outlooks/midterm/ https://www.entsoe.eu/outlooks/midterm/
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

samwillis 5y ago

My point is that prices will be dynamically raised as 100% usage is approached. That way larger energy users in industry are pushed to scale down operations temporarily. Already governments/suppliers have agreements with large users to scale down during peek usage to ensure no loss of frequency, my suggestion is this is expanded to the whole of industry and made dynamic based on pricing. I suspect that some consumer protection would need to be introduced so domestic customers don’t see quite the same level of price fluctuation.

tmikaeld 5y ago
My point was that, if you stop and start frequently, the balance of the network will be extremely hard to maintain so you'll get blackouts that can span wide areas or even the whole net. Even if that wasn't the case, I'm not sure that Swedish industries CAN scale down even if they wanted to, because the cost to start up again would be greater than shutting down.
- lstodd 5y ago
  It's like, surely you can "scale down" an electric smelter. Only that would mean almost rebuilding the furnaces afterwards. And it's sort of "simple" for the iron smelters. Try to shut down an aluminium smelter at an hour's notice. I'm not sure if it wouldn't be cheaper to build a completely new facility afterwards.
  - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
    Many such smelters already act as grid connected batteries. Since they store heat, they can vary their electrical loads and get paid for doing so. Pretty much anything that heats, cools or pumps water can do this, but the big users are the easy place to start. There's even startups trying to melt aluminum purely to use it as a storage medium: https://www.alcircle.com/news/azelio-recycled-aluminium-to-store-solar-energy-batteries-unwanted-57070 https://www.alcircle.com/news/azelio-recycled-aluminium-to-s...
    - lstodd 5y ago
      Eh. I'm talking about primary smelters, the ones that take bauxite as input. You just can't. It'll ruin the chemical composition, the electolysers, you'll have to throw out (somehow, very expensive in itself) a lot of fluoride in various nasty forms, electrolyzer lining, electrodes, etc. This would cause weeks of delays and $ tens of millions lost. It just can't be done. And it's never done unless a hydroelectric dam fails or something of that magnitude. alcircle.com is just barely less insane. but just barely. Even NaK eutectic makes more sense.
    - tmikaeld 5y ago
      I've seen similar by Salt-X, they use molten salt. Glad science is being done on this, but it seems hard, the salt causes korrosion issues, so it doesn't last long.

erk__ 5y ago

Do you have any sources on the claim that it have been close to causing loss of frequency? In Denmark that relies quite a bit more on wind they are saying that it should happen for no more than 5 minutes this year (and that may higher than what actual happens, as they have averaged less than 1 minute per year the last 10 years). Furthermore the ENTSOE Mid-term Adequacy Forecast 2020 [0] forecasts Scandinavia to have between 0 and 0.1 hour loss of load expectation. [0]: https://www.entsoe.eu/outlooks/midterm/ https://www.entsoe.eu/outlooks/midterm/

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]