4 ms·
> The requirements are rarely for more than a few hours or a day or two of storage, which significantly reduces the required reservoir volume. That’s one of th
by Zanfa 3y ago
> The requirements are rarely for more than a few hours or a day or two of storage, which significantly reduces the required reservoir volume.
That’s one of the main issues right there. You can’t just plan for the typical case. You need to account for the slightly less frequent cases as well, like 11 days straight of <20% solar/wind generation [1]. And that’s not even an extreme outlier event.
[1] https://reports.electricinsights.co.uk/q1-2021/when-the-wind-goes-gas-fills-in-the-gap/ https://reports.electricinsights.co.uk/q1-2021/when-the-wind...
- pfdietz 3y agoRare events like that can be covered by combustion turbines. First with natural gas (not used often, so little CO2 emission), ultimately with hydrogen. Because a simple cycle combustion turbine power plant is maybe 5% of the cost per watt of capacity of a nuclear power plant, we could cover the entire grid with CT backup and not come anywhere close to the cost of powering the grid with nuclear. And because these would be used so infrequently the fuel cost would be negligible.