4 ms·

Do you have any examples of this? I've never come across any major capital project that wasn't designed for 85%+ uptime (and the downtime was simply for mainten

• Retric 3y ago
  A lot of infrastructure isn’t 100% 24/7 even if it gets regular use. Subway systems both shut down for much of the day but they also operate well below maximum rush hour capacity. Many factories, office buildings, and even stores spend the majority of the day/week empty or very close to it. Below that you have schools which often close for several months a year. Entertainment venues even multi billion dollar sports stadiums may spend a lot of time empty. Where possible they aim for year round operations, but often it’s not viable. Below that you have peaking gas electric power plants, as many grids pay for reserve capacity that’s very rarely used. Some extreme cases might not even be used beyond validating it still works in a given year.
  • Incipient 3y ago
    Sure but all of these use cases are entirely different to a production plant, say an oil refinery. A synthetic fuel refinery can operate 24/7, so would be budgeted to do so. I could potentially see a hydrogen "battery"/electrolysis setup absorbing excess power in an affordable way, but I'm just saying to date I haven't seen a single one.
    • Retric 3y ago
      Ahh, I was going for Major Capital project. The closest thing to a low utilization fuel refinery is probably some desalination plants. Very high energy costs + wild demand swings means some shutdown quite a bit. There is a few some hydrogen manufacturing plants which only operate on very cheap renewable electricity. However, as I understand it those are currently operated as relatively inexpensive test facilities.
• adrianN 3y ago
  Gas peaker plants don't run all that often.