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Hydro is already used for peaking power, at most we would retrofit things it increase peak power output where it's reasonable to do so. Building 4 hours of sto
by onemoreact 15y ago
Hydro is already used for peaking power, at most we would retrofit things it increase peak power output where it's reasonable to do so.
Building 4 hours of storage is a rather extreme step that's also extremely unlikely. California already has a 40c/kwh cost differential between peak summer demand and the middle of winter, but nobody is building massive grid energy storage to smooth that out. Even over the course of a single day you could make 10c/kwh just from grid storage but nobody is building it. Rather we add peaking power plants because base load power + storage costs more than peaking power plants and that's likely to continue to be the case even in a world dominated by solar + wind power plants.
- PaulHoule 15y agoIf you use hydro for peaking, you increase the impact of hydro on the environment. A hydro plant running at baseload has a river downstream that is like... a river. Water levels vary with something close to the natural rhythm. A hydro plant used for peaking will have no water flow for hours, and then heavy water flow. That puts extreme stress on organisms living downstream.
- nobody3141592 15y agoYou mean just like the natural pattern of storms and snow melt that the areas you build hydro in already have? Hydro here have carefully regulated flows to reduce the natural variation in the river so that for example an optimal flow is created for the various salmon runs.
- onemoreact 15y agoRivers don't have constant flows so it's more natural to have variable output than constant output. And dam's never have zero output, it's more a question of 30-80% and back down. http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700006602/USGS-Gains-from-Grand-Canyon-flooding-short-lived.html http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700006602/USGS-Gains-from...