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Do renewables also require cooling times or is that restricted to natural gas/coal plants? If we continue on this pace of installing so much solar will the peak
by 0cf8612b2e1e 4y ago
Do renewables also require cooling times or is that restricted to natural gas/coal plants? If we continue on this pace of installing so much solar will the peak plants get used less frequently? Or was that just sloppy language on peak vs base loads? I have not seen anything near-term realistic on removing fossil fuel base load generation.
- CobaltFire 4y agoI think you may have extended what I'm talking about in ways I didn't intend; there was no sloppy language. The transmission infrastructure needs cooling off time, not the generation. Base load has to be completely changed if we consider charging EV's at a population level, which changes how we look at renewables that aren't around the clock (i.e. solar). To be clear I'm 100% behind getting rid of ICE, coal, gas, etc. as soon as we can. That doesn't mean there aren't assumptions that won't have to be challenged. As for my background and experience, I worked in Nuclear Power generation. I'm not a complete domain expert, but neither am I speaking from a place of no experience.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 4y agoTransmission vs generation was my confusion. I was thinking of minor plant maintenance activities being easier to schedule during off hours. Off hours which might be significantly reduced if EVs put additional load at night.
- CobaltFire 4y agoThat's actually a valid point, and that may actually be a factor in the base load plants, i.e. they are sized to be able to rotate generating sources and if we have to run them harder that overprovision may not be sufficient.