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62% of the power in Oregon comes from renewables, mostly renewables that are available 24/7.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago
Yeah, but that renewable hydro is unlikely to grow much in the USA, while wind and solar will be growing exponentially. Hydro is cool, and works well with solar/wind/nuclear to help match supply and demand, but ... If you look at global renewable output, the big chunk of hydro production that's been flat for decades, somewhat obscures the recent sudden rise of solar and wind.
- Retric 4y ago
  Swapping hydro from 24/7 power to a backup for wind and solar goes a long way to eliminate the need for storage. We don’t need more total kWh per year of hydro we need to be able to more flexibility get those kWh.
  - throwaway894345 4y ago
    I’m not sure that’s true. Electricity generation is pretty regional, so it’s not like we can use a region’s hydro capacity to store energy for other regions. It can store energy for the region that already has hydro, but that region already has hydro so it probably needs less storage in the first place?
    - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
      New York just approved $5 billion to import Canadian Hydro. This is already done on various smaller scales in the US and across the globe. People in Norway are being riled up by their right wing parties because they are selling hydro electricity (and gas) at a high profit to the rest of Europe via connections because of the Russian situation, and there's nothing the right-wing hates more than market-based price signals that suggest you should maybe use less fossil fuels and be more efficient.
      - the_third_wave 4y ago
        There is no need for that "right-wing" snub there, the same is happening here in Sweden where power prices in the middle and south have been going through the roof even though power generation costs have mostly [1] been unchanged due to the majority of power generation coming from hydroelectric plants (the north) and nuclear plants (the south). Prices have shot up in the south of Sweden because that part of the country is connected to the European grid and exports power generated in the north. Sweden is divided into 4 price regions, the price difference between the top 2 regions and the bottom 2 tends to be enormous. The explanation for the price difference is supposed to be the lack of power generation capacity in the south [see 1, again] while the north and middle have an excess of generating capacity but supposedly lack the network capacity to export this power to the south. That this is not correct is shown by the fact that the power actually is exported through the network [2] and from there finds its way to consumers both in Sweden as well as in neighbouring countries. The majority of the price difference is found between region SE2 and SE3 with power in SE3 often being several times more expensive than in SE2 (currently at €27/MHh in SE2, €525/MWh in SE3 for a factor of 20) with the proceedings of that differential going to the state. Everyone in Sweden paid for the creation of the power infrastructure but those living in the south get to pay dearly due to this artificial price difference. [1] thanks to the "green party" shutting down half of the nuclear capacity the top load oil-fired power plant in Karlshamn which used to run only during the coldest periods of winter is now running in the heart of summer, consuming between 70 m³ and 140m³ of oil per hour - it has been running for more hours this year than it ran for the last 10 years combined. Oil did get more expensive but Karlshamn still only produces a tiny fraction of power delivered here [2] https://www.svk.se/om-kraftsystemet/kontrollrummet/ https://www.svk.se/om-kraftsystemet/kontrollrummet/
        ZeroGravitas 4y ago
        You forgot to explain why price signals were bad and 'artificial'? I know nothing about Sweden, but: > https://www.thelocal.se/20220824/explained-whos-telling-the-truth-about-electricity-in-swedens-election/ https://www.thelocal.se/20220824/explained-whos-telling-the-... > “I think it’s simply political,” Nilsson says. “The conservative parties are hoping to gain votes by bringing up the nuclear issue. I don’t think they seriously think that we will build new nuclear in Sweden. Everyone knows that it’s terribly expensive and takes a very long time.” > Söder agrees: “The right-wing parties (Sweden Democrats, Moderates, Christian Democrats and Liberals) have nuclear power as a common interest where they can show unity. There are also several communities where wind power resistance has become significant, and by stating ‘we think it was stupid to shut down Ringhals’, they can attract voters – even if this will not in any way solve the long-term challenges in Sweden, which is to build a lot of new power production as cheaply as possible.” > It’s also worth noting that the Energiforsk report estimated that power prices would have been 35–50 percent lower if Sweden had opened an additional large, offshore windfarm off the coast of southern Sweden. So it appears there was need for my "right-wing" comment after all. I must be psychic.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - idiotsecant 4y ago
    I am an engineer that works on hydro control systems - It's worth noting that a hydro turbine, depending on it's construction, has a certain turndown ratio - That ratio of it's full scale output to it's minimum output. At the turn of the century designers of these turbines did not particularly care about operating at a lot of different power output levels, they cared about maximizing power output at a particular point, and importantly, maximizing efficiency at that point. These units typically have a turndown ratio very close to one. Consequently many hydro turbines are capable of a relatively narrow operating range, and are not suitable for fast grid support of the type that would be required as the primary source of solar backup. They're on-off type resources in many cases. These turbines can be retrofitted to variable geometry style turbines with much wider operating bands but these upgrades are slow and expensive. Long story short - hydro is good as a 'base load' but we desperately need storage. Pumped storage, battery storage, compression storage. And we need massive transmission system upgrades (in the US at least). Nothing else will lead to a reliable grid based on renewables in the US.
    - adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
      Can't you get around this by turning on x% of your hydro capacity to 100% rather than turning 100% of your hydro capacity to x%? Also, batteries are really good as a short term storage, so hydro only needs to work on the hours to months time-scale.
    - liketochill 4y ago
      I also work in hydro controls. Apart from equipment limitations, most hydro plants I’ve been to have a river downstream and there are restrictions on how fast output can be changed and requirements for minimum flows. You can’t just stop the whole river to fill up the reservoir and release it later in the day

Yeah, but that renewable hydro is unlikely to grow much in the USA, while wind and solar will be growing exponentially. Hydro is cool, and works well with solar/wind/nuclear to help match supply and demand, but ... If you look at global renewable output, the big chunk of hydro production that's been flat for decades, somewhat obscures the recent sudden rise of solar and wind.

Retric 4y ago
Swapping hydro from 24/7 power to a backup for wind and solar goes a long way to eliminate the need for storage. We don’t need more total kWh per year of hydro we need to be able to more flexibility get those kWh.
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  I’m not sure that’s true. Electricity generation is pretty regional, so it’s not like we can use a region’s hydro capacity to store energy for other regions. It can store energy for the region that already has hydro, but that region already has hydro so it probably needs less storage in the first place?
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    New York just approved $5 billion to import Canadian Hydro. This is already done on various smaller scales in the US and across the globe. People in Norway are being riled up by their right wing parties because they are selling hydro electricity (and gas) at a high profit to the rest of Europe via connections because of the Russian situation, and there's nothing the right-wing hates more than market-based price signals that suggest you should maybe use less fossil fuels and be more efficient.
    - the_third_wave 4y ago
      There is no need for that "right-wing" snub there, the same is happening here in Sweden where power prices in the middle and south have been going through the roof even though power generation costs have mostly [1] been unchanged due to the majority of power generation coming from hydroelectric plants (the north) and nuclear plants (the south). Prices have shot up in the south of Sweden because that part of the country is connected to the European grid and exports power generated in the north. Sweden is divided into 4 price regions, the price difference between the top 2 regions and the bottom 2 tends to be enormous. The explanation for the price difference is supposed to be the lack of power generation capacity in the south [see 1, again] while the north and middle have an excess of generating capacity but supposedly lack the network capacity to export this power to the south. That this is not correct is shown by the fact that the power actually is exported through the network [2] and from there finds its way to consumers both in Sweden as well as in neighbouring countries. The majority of the price difference is found between region SE2 and SE3 with power in SE3 often being several times more expensive than in SE2 (currently at €27/MHh in SE2, €525/MWh in SE3 for a factor of 20) with the proceedings of that differential going to the state. Everyone in Sweden paid for the creation of the power infrastructure but those living in the south get to pay dearly due to this artificial price difference. [1] thanks to the "green party" shutting down half of the nuclear capacity the top load oil-fired power plant in Karlshamn which used to run only during the coldest periods of winter is now running in the heart of summer, consuming between 70 m³ and 140m³ of oil per hour - it has been running for more hours this year than it ran for the last 10 years combined. Oil did get more expensive but Karlshamn still only produces a tiny fraction of power delivered here [2] https://www.svk.se/om-kraftsystemet/kontrollrummet/ https://www.svk.se/om-kraftsystemet/kontrollrummet/
      - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
        You forgot to explain why price signals were bad and 'artificial'? I know nothing about Sweden, but: > https://www.thelocal.se/20220824/explained-whos-telling-the-truth-about-electricity-in-swedens-election/ https://www.thelocal.se/20220824/explained-whos-telling-the-... > “I think it’s simply political,” Nilsson says. “The conservative parties are hoping to gain votes by bringing up the nuclear issue. I don’t think they seriously think that we will build new nuclear in Sweden. Everyone knows that it’s terribly expensive and takes a very long time.” > Söder agrees: “The right-wing parties (Sweden Democrats, Moderates, Christian Democrats and Liberals) have nuclear power as a common interest where they can show unity. There are also several communities where wind power resistance has become significant, and by stating ‘we think it was stupid to shut down Ringhals’, they can attract voters – even if this will not in any way solve the long-term challenges in Sweden, which is to build a lot of new power production as cheaply as possible.” > It’s also worth noting that the Energiforsk report estimated that power prices would have been 35–50 percent lower if Sweden had opened an additional large, offshore windfarm off the coast of southern Sweden. So it appears there was need for my "right-wing" comment after all. I must be psychic.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- idiotsecant 4y ago
  I am an engineer that works on hydro control systems - It's worth noting that a hydro turbine, depending on it's construction, has a certain turndown ratio - That ratio of it's full scale output to it's minimum output. At the turn of the century designers of these turbines did not particularly care about operating at a lot of different power output levels, they cared about maximizing power output at a particular point, and importantly, maximizing efficiency at that point. These units typically have a turndown ratio very close to one. Consequently many hydro turbines are capable of a relatively narrow operating range, and are not suitable for fast grid support of the type that would be required as the primary source of solar backup. They're on-off type resources in many cases. These turbines can be retrofitted to variable geometry style turbines with much wider operating bands but these upgrades are slow and expensive. Long story short - hydro is good as a 'base load' but we desperately need storage. Pumped storage, battery storage, compression storage. And we need massive transmission system upgrades (in the US at least). Nothing else will lead to a reliable grid based on renewables in the US.
  - adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
    Can't you get around this by turning on x% of your hydro capacity to 100% rather than turning 100% of your hydro capacity to x%? Also, batteries are really good as a short term storage, so hydro only needs to work on the hours to months time-scale.
  - liketochill 4y ago
    I also work in hydro controls. Apart from equipment limitations, most hydro plants I’ve been to have a river downstream and there are restrictions on how fast output can be changed and requirements for minimum flows. You can’t just stop the whole river to fill up the reservoir and release it later in the day