4 ms·

The effect of a lot of renewables can be the opposite, though. When the wind is blowing, all consumers may want to charge their Tesla's at the same time, meanin

The effect of a lot of renewables can be the opposite, though. When the wind is blowing, all consumers may want to charge their Tesla's at the same time, meaning that the grid wil experience even more spikey load patterns. Batteries as part of the central grid can help, of course.

fomine3 4y ago
It seems that it can be easily adjustable by include grid capacity for pricing calculation.
- trashtester 4y ago
  It can, but that would lead to wasted energy when demand is pushed below supply (when there is no way to store the supply). That sort of defeats the benefit of elasticity in the demand that was the premise. The idea was that when there is a lot of power being generated on a sunny and windy day, everyone should charge all batteries, heat their water a few extra degrees, run heating or air conditioning a bit harder, etc, as an hour later, the sun could go down, the wind stop blowing and power generation could be scarce. On the other hand elastic supply sources with a fuel cost (hydro, fossil fuels and to some extent nuclear) are much more suited for cases where consumption elasticity is linked to limitations of the distribution systems.
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    One interesting approach to this is special tariffs that give you discounts when your local wind turbine is producing. https://octopus.energy/octopus-fan-club/ https://octopus.energy/octopus-fan-club/
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
More spikes are good, it's the height of the tallest spike that determines the cost, so reducing that specific spike is the key. And one way to do that, is to spike at other times instead. Think about it like roads and rush hour. The width of the road is set for rush hour, and most of the rest of the time it's empty. Any way of shifting demand away from that peak is good. You'd have to shift an infeasible amount to create a traffic jam in the middle of the night, but every extra car removed from rush hour helps.
- trashtester 4y ago
  When I said "more spikey", I meant generally bigger spikes overall. The frequency of spikes is less relevant and not even very related. It is perfectly possible to have BOTH much higher maximum spikes AND greater numbers of relatively tall spikes. (For instance if you compare energy produced by a set of windmill farm to that produced by a group of nuclear plants.)
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    If you mean higher annual peaks, then it's probably easier to say that, because that's exactly what has been motivating the early solar deployments and the early battery deployments. The very high summer peaks correlate well with solar (in many places) and so shaving that peak saves you more than you were spending on solar, even before the price plummeted. Same with batteries replacing expensive gas peaker plants. Overall demand is predicted to rise a little with electrification, but demand was falling in many places anyway, so between that and the tech above for shaving peaks, it's not really a problem. Note it's a common thing for "pro-fossil fuel" advocates to show "peaks" without enough context. Usually what looks like a peak on a daily basis is in fact a drop in the bucket compared with the yearly peak. The famous 'duck curve' is a good example of this, where solar and wind reduced the daily and yearly peak, and then the new lower peak in spring/autumn was pointed at as a "problem". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve > One misconception related to the duck curve is that solar photovoltaic power does not help supply peak demand and therefore cannot replace other power plants. In California, solar output is low at 7 pm when daily demand usually peaks.[20] This fact leads some to believe that solar power cannot reduce the need for other power plants, as they will still be needed at 7 pm when solar power output is low. However, California's annual demand peaks usually occur around 3 pm to 5 pm,[21] when solar power output is still substantial.[20] The reason that California's annual peak tends to be earlier than the daily peak is that California's annual peak usually occurs on hot days with large air conditioning loads, which tend to run more during midday.[22] As a result, solar power does in fact help supply peak demand and therefore can substitute for other sources of power.
    - 4y ago

fomine3 4y ago

It seems that it can be easily adjustable by include grid capacity for pricing calculation.

trashtester 4y ago
It can, but that would lead to wasted energy when demand is pushed below supply (when there is no way to store the supply). That sort of defeats the benefit of elasticity in the demand that was the premise. The idea was that when there is a lot of power being generated on a sunny and windy day, everyone should charge all batteries, heat their water a few extra degrees, run heating or air conditioning a bit harder, etc, as an hour later, the sun could go down, the wind stop blowing and power generation could be scarce. On the other hand elastic supply sources with a fuel cost (hydro, fossil fuels and to some extent nuclear) are much more suited for cases where consumption elasticity is linked to limitations of the distribution systems.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  One interesting approach to this is special tariffs that give you discounts when your local wind turbine is producing. https://octopus.energy/octopus-fan-club/ https://octopus.energy/octopus-fan-club/

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

More spikes are good, it's the height of the tallest spike that determines the cost, so reducing that specific spike is the key. And one way to do that, is to spike at other times instead. Think about it like roads and rush hour. The width of the road is set for rush hour, and most of the rest of the time it's empty. Any way of shifting demand away from that peak is good. You'd have to shift an infeasible amount to create a traffic jam in the middle of the night, but every extra car removed from rush hour helps.

trashtester 4y ago
When I said "more spikey", I meant generally bigger spikes overall. The frequency of spikes is less relevant and not even very related. It is perfectly possible to have BOTH much higher maximum spikes AND greater numbers of relatively tall spikes. (For instance if you compare energy produced by a set of windmill farm to that produced by a group of nuclear plants.)
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  If you mean higher annual peaks, then it's probably easier to say that, because that's exactly what has been motivating the early solar deployments and the early battery deployments. The very high summer peaks correlate well with solar (in many places) and so shaving that peak saves you more than you were spending on solar, even before the price plummeted. Same with batteries replacing expensive gas peaker plants. Overall demand is predicted to rise a little with electrification, but demand was falling in many places anyway, so between that and the tech above for shaving peaks, it's not really a problem. Note it's a common thing for "pro-fossil fuel" advocates to show "peaks" without enough context. Usually what looks like a peak on a daily basis is in fact a drop in the bucket compared with the yearly peak. The famous 'duck curve' is a good example of this, where solar and wind reduced the daily and yearly peak, and then the new lower peak in spring/autumn was pointed at as a "problem". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve > One misconception related to the duck curve is that solar photovoltaic power does not help supply peak demand and therefore cannot replace other power plants. In California, solar output is low at 7 pm when daily demand usually peaks.[20] This fact leads some to believe that solar power cannot reduce the need for other power plants, as they will still be needed at 7 pm when solar power output is low. However, California's annual demand peaks usually occur around 3 pm to 5 pm,[21] when solar power output is still substantial.[20] The reason that California's annual peak tends to be earlier than the daily peak is that California's annual peak usually occurs on hot days with large air conditioning loads, which tend to run more during midday.[22] As a result, solar power does in fact help supply peak demand and therefore can substitute for other sources of power.
  - 4y ago