3 ms·
> Besides the fact they’re costly to operate compared to normal power plants (about 3X of generating cost), it takes a lot to warm up these power plants at a mo
by Scoundreller 3y ago
> Besides the fact they’re costly to operate compared to normal power plants (about 3X of generating cost), it takes a lot to warm up these power plants at a moment notice.
Our solution in Toronto was to just run them half of the time all the time.
Haaaaaaard paywall:
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/ontario-gas-plants-were-supposed-to-run-only-during-peak-periods-instead-they-re-running/article_8ba52f13-bd5a-541a-b80e-9f497ff498be.amp.html https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/ontario-gas-plants-were-...
- syntaxing 3y agoWouldn’t it be more cost effective to make a new power plant at that operating expense?
- Scoundreller 3y agoI think the warm-up cost isn’t really there when the plant is operating continuously. Oddly for a peaker plant, they built these as combined cycle, which wouldn’t make financial sense if it was to only run for short periods. A “true” peaker plant is inefficient but with lots of capacity but we basically build a “proper” power plant that has good efficiency, so it’s not too bad. But makes you wonder what went so wrong in the planning (even though the mistake turned out advantageous).