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Why would you need 100% storage supply. Also note if France would go 100% nuclear they would need either significant overprovisioning or storage as well. Nuclea

Why would you need 100% storage supply. Also note if France would go 100% nuclear they would need either significant overprovisioning or storage as well. Nuclear is not an load following source. Even less so if you want to operate economically.

philwelch 4y ago
> Why would you need 100% storage supply. So you don't have power outages on windless nights.
- cinntaile 4y ago
  You generally use peaker plants or backup fossil fuel or hydro for that use case, at this point in time batteries are used to supply power for a couple of hours at best. You need that backup power anyway for when the nuclear plant is out of commission for some reason.
  - philwelch 4y ago
    Regardless of how you're generating your power, you're going to need to overprovision your generation capacity slightly to account for downtime. You only need storage if all of your generation capacity is offline at the same time, which is inevitable with solar power (nighttime), possible with gas (pipeline failure?), but less inherently likely with nuclear. > backup fossil fuel In practice this means fossil fuels become the baseload power source.
    - cinntaile 4y ago
      > In practice this means fossil fuels become the baseload power source. As the name baseload power implies, it would have to be providing power all the time and that's not what is needed.
      - belorn 4y ago
        That is correct. The term I see by my government is "reserve energy". In practice this mean a country subsidize a fossil fuel plant to keep engines running when demand is low, and then the plant get paid a second time if and when the plant is running. It is one of the main reason why investing in fossil fuel energy when countries turn to wind power is fairly good choice. The plant has lower costs in terms of fuels, when it burn fuel it does so when the market price is at the highest possible, and it get paid regardless from the government. The government are also locked into continuing this scheme as the alternative is to not have the reserve energy when needed which makes voters very angry. Burning fossil fuels when the price is lowest and without any government subsidies is just something people with too much fossil fuel can afford to do.
    - jacquesm 4y ago
      I sincerely believe that HVDC is a game changer here, it allows you to move energy around at a fraction of the losses that were considered normal before allowing for overcapacity in one place to be used elsewhere eliminating a major requirement for storage, on that scale there is no lack of combined sun/wind availability.
      - ncmncm 4y ago
        Anyway transmission losses are immaterial when top-line generating capacity is so cheap. China is building solar in Chile, at their antipodes, and a transmission line back to China with only 50% loss, for solar energy through the night.
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      > In practice this means fossil fuels become the baseload power source. False. In the immediate future, synthetic anhydrous ammonia will displace it. Extracting NG will be too expensive to compete, because the only cost of ammonia will be capex. The more you make, the less it costs.
    - cycomanic 4y ago
      Your argument does not follow at all. I have the impression that you don't know what baseload is. Baseload is the minimum amount of demand over a given time (it is not a measure of supply at all). The previous poster talked about using fossil (or any other means) to supply the mismatch between the supply and demand at the times where such a mismatch might exist. This is completely unrelated to baseload, it could in fact be larger than baseload. Note that such a mismatch would also exist for nuclear (dependent on overprovisioning). However it would in general be only needed of short periods of time.
      - philwelch 4y ago
        It could be larger than baseload, but it's unlikely to be any less than baseload.
        cycomanic 4y ago
        They are completely unrelated and yes in general they would be much smaller than baseload. Why wouldn't it? What the GP described is essentially what gas peakers do.
        philwelch 4y ago
        > yes in general they would be much smaller than baseload. Why wouldn't it? Because if your baseload is your minimum power consumption (which generally occurs at night) and you have a windless night (therefore your renewables are generating 0 power), your "gas peakers" will have to provide the entire baseload amount of power.
BenoitP 4y ago
> Nuclear is not an load following source In France it is, and has been successfully for more than 33 years [1] [1] https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01977209/ https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01977209/
- yohannparis 4y ago
  Thank you for providing a trustable source.
- cycomanic 4y ago
  Ok I didn't know that they implemented load following in France. However, note thatbbecause nuclear power cost is almost completely capex dominated so doing this essentially increases your power cost by the factor that you use for load balancing. So out of economic reasons you hardly ever want to not run a nuclear plant at 100%.
  - stormbrew 4y ago
    Seems like grid scale storage could "solve" this, in precisely the way it does for renewables (ie. Treat nuclear as a sun that shines 24/7 and build storage to allow you to generate a bit above the average and follow the actual usage curve with storage). That is, assuming that grid scale storage is in fact viable.
    - sandos 4y ago
      Yup, but didn't we already say that renewables are cheaper per kWh? So then with any storage renewables should still be the cheap bulk generation.
      - MagnumOpus 4y ago
        You said that, that doesn't mean it is true. And it probably isn't true north of 50 degrees of latitute where lots of the people who need energy live. France's nuclear fleet has an all-in cost of 7c/kWh, which is roughly the same as the cost of solar or wind power in France, but without the need for storage or smart grids that doubles the cost of solar/wind. (For all this remember that France has about a third of the insolation of California or Arizona per year, or maybe half at best in some places.)

philwelch 4y ago

> Why would you need 100% storage supply. So you don't have power outages on windless nights.

cinntaile 4y ago
You generally use peaker plants or backup fossil fuel or hydro for that use case, at this point in time batteries are used to supply power for a couple of hours at best. You need that backup power anyway for when the nuclear plant is out of commission for some reason.
- philwelch 4y ago
  Regardless of how you're generating your power, you're going to need to overprovision your generation capacity slightly to account for downtime. You only need storage if all of your generation capacity is offline at the same time, which is inevitable with solar power (nighttime), possible with gas (pipeline failure?), but less inherently likely with nuclear. > backup fossil fuel In practice this means fossil fuels become the baseload power source.
  - cinntaile 4y ago
    > In practice this means fossil fuels become the baseload power source. As the name baseload power implies, it would have to be providing power all the time and that's not what is needed.
    - belorn 4y ago
      That is correct. The term I see by my government is "reserve energy". In practice this mean a country subsidize a fossil fuel plant to keep engines running when demand is low, and then the plant get paid a second time if and when the plant is running. It is one of the main reason why investing in fossil fuel energy when countries turn to wind power is fairly good choice. The plant has lower costs in terms of fuels, when it burn fuel it does so when the market price is at the highest possible, and it get paid regardless from the government. The government are also locked into continuing this scheme as the alternative is to not have the reserve energy when needed which makes voters very angry. Burning fossil fuels when the price is lowest and without any government subsidies is just something people with too much fossil fuel can afford to do.
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    I sincerely believe that HVDC is a game changer here, it allows you to move energy around at a fraction of the losses that were considered normal before allowing for overcapacity in one place to be used elsewhere eliminating a major requirement for storage, on that scale there is no lack of combined sun/wind availability.
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      Anyway transmission losses are immaterial when top-line generating capacity is so cheap. China is building solar in Chile, at their antipodes, and a transmission line back to China with only 50% loss, for solar energy through the night.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    > In practice this means fossil fuels become the baseload power source. False. In the immediate future, synthetic anhydrous ammonia will displace it. Extracting NG will be too expensive to compete, because the only cost of ammonia will be capex. The more you make, the less it costs.
  - cycomanic 4y ago
    Your argument does not follow at all. I have the impression that you don't know what baseload is. Baseload is the minimum amount of demand over a given time (it is not a measure of supply at all). The previous poster talked about using fossil (or any other means) to supply the mismatch between the supply and demand at the times where such a mismatch might exist. This is completely unrelated to baseload, it could in fact be larger than baseload. Note that such a mismatch would also exist for nuclear (dependent on overprovisioning). However it would in general be only needed of short periods of time.
    - philwelch 4y ago
      It could be larger than baseload, but it's unlikely to be any less than baseload.
      - cycomanic 4y ago
        They are completely unrelated and yes in general they would be much smaller than baseload. Why wouldn't it? What the GP described is essentially what gas peakers do.
        philwelch 4y ago
        > yes in general they would be much smaller than baseload. Why wouldn't it? Because if your baseload is your minimum power consumption (which generally occurs at night) and you have a windless night (therefore your renewables are generating 0 power), your "gas peakers" will have to provide the entire baseload amount of power.

BenoitP 4y ago

> Nuclear is not an load following source In France it is, and has been successfully for more than 33 years [1] [1] https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01977209/ https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01977209/

yohannparis 4y ago
Thank you for providing a trustable source.
cycomanic 4y ago
Ok I didn't know that they implemented load following in France. However, note thatbbecause nuclear power cost is almost completely capex dominated so doing this essentially increases your power cost by the factor that you use for load balancing. So out of economic reasons you hardly ever want to not run a nuclear plant at 100%.
- stormbrew 4y ago
  Seems like grid scale storage could "solve" this, in precisely the way it does for renewables (ie. Treat nuclear as a sun that shines 24/7 and build storage to allow you to generate a bit above the average and follow the actual usage curve with storage). That is, assuming that grid scale storage is in fact viable.
  - sandos 4y ago
    Yup, but didn't we already say that renewables are cheaper per kWh? So then with any storage renewables should still be the cheap bulk generation.
    - MagnumOpus 4y ago
      You said that, that doesn't mean it is true. And it probably isn't true north of 50 degrees of latitute where lots of the people who need energy live. France's nuclear fleet has an all-in cost of 7c/kWh, which is roughly the same as the cost of solar or wind power in France, but without the need for storage or smart grids that doubles the cost of solar/wind. (For all this remember that France has about a third of the insolation of California or Arizona per year, or maybe half at best in some places.)