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Yeah, you have to exactly match electric output to demand or things get very bad. Until we have a few more breakthroughs in battery technology, we're going to b
by aezart 3y ago
Yeah, you have to exactly match electric output to demand or things get very bad. Until we have a few more breakthroughs in battery technology, we're going to be stuck with fossil fuels to make up the gap for variable demand. Nuclear can't be ramped up and down quickly, and solar and wind just do whatever they want.
As I understand it, a typical strategy for a power company is:
- nuclear or similar for the base load that's always required
- solar and wind as available
- weather forecasting to determine how much solar and wind will be available
- demand forecasting to determine how much power will be required at any given time
- natural gas to meet predicted solar and wind shortfalls
- RICE engines and battery storage to handle unexpected fluctuations
- contracts to buy and sell power with other nearby power companies
- cogman10 3y ago> Until we have a few more breakthroughs in battery technology, we're going to be stuck with fossil fuels to make up the gap for variable demand. I think we are there. We don't need new breakthroughs we need more manufacturing capacity. LFPs are both cheap and work great for a grid storage and now CATL is announcing new sodium batteries which are pretty ideal for grid storage (cheap and long life).
- ilyt 3y agoIt does sound like that, honestly, just needs more investment and maybe engineering into mode distributed storage for the whole renewable stuff. I'm guessing sweet spot would be something like "big, economically efficient battery per street of houses + solar on every house", but as it would be shared it needs investment and power company have very little incentive for it