5 ms·

Future power systems with today's weather

71 points by deverton 3y ago

ZeroGravitas 3y ago
That's very cool. On the default mix over the full time period I see a price spike immediately after it starts in 2015 and then a few more then it settles down by 2020. Is that just an artefact of storage not being built up?
- raphaelj 3y ago
  Looks like the demands gets lower over the years, so my guess is that the stress on storage and hydrogen gets lower, and thus the price lower too
Tade0 3y ago
Hydrogen might prove too nasty for long-term storage. Methanol on the other hand can be produced from syngas, so hydrogen and CO: https://netl.doe.gov/research/carbon-management/energy-systems/gasification/gasifipedia/methanol https://netl.doe.gov/research/carbon-management/energy-syste...
- konschubert 3y ago
  It’s expensive to capture co2 though. And once you do that, it’s cheaper to sequester the co2 and burn nat gas.
  - Certhas 3y ago
    Sequestration at scale isn't free and isn't proven technology. Carbon Capture and Storage is clearly a part of the picture for a carbon neutral economy, we are too late to do without it. But I don't think we have a full picture yet of the relative importance of sequestration vs syngas.
- euroderf 3y ago
  In summers there can be virtually unlimited sunlight near the poles. Think: Scandinavia. So what's an easy-to-store way to stockpile it? Methanol? Ammonia? What else? I'm thinking household-scale here. DIY.
  - ZeroGravitas 3y ago
    Or import it as gas/liquids from other countries, which probably accounts for the majority of energy in the majority of countries today. EVs and renewables will decrease the amount of imports needed for most countries, but a reduced amount might still be needed for some nations. Only difference will be a less cartelized supply since there's a lot of countries that can set up solar and wind for export.
  - trashtester 3y ago
    The intensity is low, though, and the weather can be rough on panels in the winter. If it's possible to stockpile the energy in fluid/gas form, it's better to produce it in Sahara and then ship it to wherever it's needed.
  - Tade0 3y ago
    For household-scale I only have a proposition regarding storing/generating heat, namely compost. A compost pile produces a surprisingly large amount of heat. If you run a hose through it you can have sufficiently hot water all winter. You could maybe use it to produce biogas and burn it in a turbine, but that's anything but household-scale. As for electricity you won't find anything better than batteries at the moment.
probablypower 3y ago
Cool toy, but this is a basic simulation of energy markets. You can't talk about future power systems without addressing system inertia, unless you dont care about being realistic.
- timthelion 3y ago
  What inertia do you mean? Demand or supply? Sure, decomissioning anuclear plant takes decades but a coal plant can be shut down in about 48 hours I think and at that point produces no new emissions...
  - scrlk 3y ago
    "Inertia" in the context of power systems refers to the kinetic energy stored by rotating generators (coal, gas, nuclear, hydropower). If the system frequency (a real time measure of supply and demand) were to suddenly change (e.g. a power plant were to trip), these generators are still spinning, and dampen the rate of change of frequency. This allows time for the grid operator to take corrective actions. Inverter connected plant such as wind and solar does not inherently provide inertia.
    - guerby 3y ago
      Inverters with battery can provide "virtual" inertia and can be grid forming too. The real question is which tool or set of tools will be the cheapest to maintain grid stability.
- sunshinesnacks 3y ago
  Capacity expansion and production cost modeling are real and important modeling exercises. Immediately dismissing those efforts doesn't seem necessary - they can be done in parallel with work focused on things like inertia, e.g., see https://sites.google.com/view/unifi-consortium/home https://sites.google.com/view/unifi-consortium/home, https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy20osti/73856.pdf https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy20osti/73856.pdf.
Animats 3y ago
> "There are multi-day periods with low wind and solar output." That's the real problem. Days of storage are required if most power is coming from non-dispatchable sources. Batteries are not cost-effective for that, at least not at present. Electricity to hydrogen and back is maybe 30% efficient. Pumped storage is much more efficient but you need the right geography - two nearby lakes at very different elevations. This keeps leading back to natural gas peaking plants.
- otherme123 3y ago
  Note that the simulation is only for Germany. If you add other countries to the grid, there will be less no solar-no wind days. But also peaking gas plants are not that bad. We should dream about a zero emission scenary, but a 90% less emissions is not bad either, and we can always get better and better. This is, in fact, the current trend: each month is cleaner than the last.
  - sofixa 3y ago
    > Note that the simulation is only for Germany. If you add other countries to the grid, there will be less no solar-no wind days. But more transmission losses.
- pmontra 3y ago
  There is always some place on Earth where it's windy, where the sun shines, where it's summer. I have no idea if transporting such high loads on a global grid is feasible (let's say Australia's summer sun powering Europe in winter nights) but that probably works better in a peaceful world.
  - defrost 3y ago
    > let's say Australia's summer sun powering Europe in winter nights https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/germany-s-660m-pitch-for-australia-s-green-hydrogen-20240118-p5ey7m https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/germany-s-660m-pitch-fo... Not all energy is electricity, this is a deal for Australian sunlight --> Hydrogen | Ammonia --> Germany https://arena.gov.au/blog/hydrogen-deal-unites-australian-innovation-with-german-expertise/ https://arena.gov.au/blog/hydrogen-deal-unites-australian-in...
hoseja 3y ago
I'm begging you, stop thinking hydrogen is viable or ever will be.
- ZeroGravitas 3y ago
  Viable for what? Currently most fertilizer is made with hydrogen that's separated from methane and the CO2 vented. It's about 2% of global emissions. Ammonia and Methanol and other efuels for shipping and flight generally require hydrogen as a building block. The Hydrogen Ladder diagram lays out the areas where Hydrogen is necessary and where better current alternative tech exists. It gets updated every so often as tech progresses but generally shouldn't see any major changes. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/hydrogen-ladder-version-50-michael-liebreich https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/hydrogen-ladder-version-50-mi...
  - hoseja 3y ago
    Long-term storage and power generation. Of course it's essential as chemical feedstock but that's a necessity, not convenience. If it were (chemically) easy to use, say, the hydrogen in water molecules you bet it'd be used instead.
    - ZeroGravitas 3y ago
      Well, long duration grid balancing gets a B on the ladder. Short duration grid balancing gets an E as renewables/batteries compete. And power generation with no storage component gets a G, the lowest score possible.
    - sofixa 3y ago
      I mean, many many many people and companies are trying to get hydrogen to work. From airplanes to cars to long term energy storage. From random startups to Airbus and Toyota going through universities. There are good reasons for that, or there wouldn't be that many reputable organisations spending that much money on trying to make it work.
      - 3y ago
jwilliams 3y ago
One part not considered is the grid connections - esp across time zones or geographies. Some examples: The SunCable link between Australia and Singapore https://www.suncable.energy/our-projects https://www.suncable.energy/our-projects The Viking Link from Demark to the UK https://www.euronews.com/business/2024/01/16/uk-and-denmark-launch-viking-link-underwater-cable-project https://www.euronews.com/business/2024/01/16/uk-and-denmark-...

71 points by deverton 3y ago

That's very cool. On the default mix over the full time period I see a price spike immediately after it starts in 2015 and then a few more then it settles down by 2020. Is that just an artefact of storage not being built up?

raphaelj 3y ago
Looks like the demands gets lower over the years, so my guess is that the stress on storage and hydrogen gets lower, and thus the price lower too

Tade0 3y ago

Hydrogen might prove too nasty for long-term storage. Methanol on the other hand can be produced from syngas, so hydrogen and CO: https://netl.doe.gov/research/carbon-management/energy-systems/gasification/gasifipedia/methanol https://netl.doe.gov/research/carbon-management/energy-syste...

konschubert 3y ago
It’s expensive to capture co2 though. And once you do that, it’s cheaper to sequester the co2 and burn nat gas.
- Certhas 3y ago
  Sequestration at scale isn't free and isn't proven technology. Carbon Capture and Storage is clearly a part of the picture for a carbon neutral economy, we are too late to do without it. But I don't think we have a full picture yet of the relative importance of sequestration vs syngas.
euroderf 3y ago
In summers there can be virtually unlimited sunlight near the poles. Think: Scandinavia. So what's an easy-to-store way to stockpile it? Methanol? Ammonia? What else? I'm thinking household-scale here. DIY.
- ZeroGravitas 3y ago
  Or import it as gas/liquids from other countries, which probably accounts for the majority of energy in the majority of countries today. EVs and renewables will decrease the amount of imports needed for most countries, but a reduced amount might still be needed for some nations. Only difference will be a less cartelized supply since there's a lot of countries that can set up solar and wind for export.
- trashtester 3y ago
  The intensity is low, though, and the weather can be rough on panels in the winter. If it's possible to stockpile the energy in fluid/gas form, it's better to produce it in Sahara and then ship it to wherever it's needed.
- Tade0 3y ago
  For household-scale I only have a proposition regarding storing/generating heat, namely compost. A compost pile produces a surprisingly large amount of heat. If you run a hose through it you can have sufficiently hot water all winter. You could maybe use it to produce biogas and burn it in a turbine, but that's anything but household-scale. As for electricity you won't find anything better than batteries at the moment.

probablypower 3y ago

Cool toy, but this is a basic simulation of energy markets. You can't talk about future power systems without addressing system inertia, unless you dont care about being realistic.

timthelion 3y ago
What inertia do you mean? Demand or supply? Sure, decomissioning anuclear plant takes decades but a coal plant can be shut down in about 48 hours I think and at that point produces no new emissions...
- scrlk 3y ago
  "Inertia" in the context of power systems refers to the kinetic energy stored by rotating generators (coal, gas, nuclear, hydropower). If the system frequency (a real time measure of supply and demand) were to suddenly change (e.g. a power plant were to trip), these generators are still spinning, and dampen the rate of change of frequency. This allows time for the grid operator to take corrective actions. Inverter connected plant such as wind and solar does not inherently provide inertia.
  - guerby 3y ago
    Inverters with battery can provide "virtual" inertia and can be grid forming too. The real question is which tool or set of tools will be the cheapest to maintain grid stability.
sunshinesnacks 3y ago
Capacity expansion and production cost modeling are real and important modeling exercises. Immediately dismissing those efforts doesn't seem necessary - they can be done in parallel with work focused on things like inertia, e.g., see https://sites.google.com/view/unifi-consortium/home https://sites.google.com/view/unifi-consortium/home, https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy20osti/73856.pdf https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy20osti/73856.pdf.

Animats 3y ago

> "There are multi-day periods with low wind and solar output." That's the real problem. Days of storage are required if most power is coming from non-dispatchable sources. Batteries are not cost-effective for that, at least not at present. Electricity to hydrogen and back is maybe 30% efficient. Pumped storage is much more efficient but you need the right geography - two nearby lakes at very different elevations. This keeps leading back to natural gas peaking plants.

otherme123 3y ago
Note that the simulation is only for Germany. If you add other countries to the grid, there will be less no solar-no wind days. But also peaking gas plants are not that bad. We should dream about a zero emission scenary, but a 90% less emissions is not bad either, and we can always get better and better. This is, in fact, the current trend: each month is cleaner than the last.
- sofixa 3y ago
  > Note that the simulation is only for Germany. If you add other countries to the grid, there will be less no solar-no wind days. But more transmission losses.
pmontra 3y ago
There is always some place on Earth where it's windy, where the sun shines, where it's summer. I have no idea if transporting such high loads on a global grid is feasible (let's say Australia's summer sun powering Europe in winter nights) but that probably works better in a peaceful world.
- defrost 3y ago
  > let's say Australia's summer sun powering Europe in winter nights https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/germany-s-660m-pitch-for-australia-s-green-hydrogen-20240118-p5ey7m https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/germany-s-660m-pitch-fo... Not all energy is electricity, this is a deal for Australian sunlight --> Hydrogen | Ammonia --> Germany https://arena.gov.au/blog/hydrogen-deal-unites-australian-innovation-with-german-expertise/ https://arena.gov.au/blog/hydrogen-deal-unites-australian-in...

hoseja 3y ago

I'm begging you, stop thinking hydrogen is viable or ever will be.

ZeroGravitas 3y ago
Viable for what? Currently most fertilizer is made with hydrogen that's separated from methane and the CO2 vented. It's about 2% of global emissions. Ammonia and Methanol and other efuels for shipping and flight generally require hydrogen as a building block. The Hydrogen Ladder diagram lays out the areas where Hydrogen is necessary and where better current alternative tech exists. It gets updated every so often as tech progresses but generally shouldn't see any major changes. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/hydrogen-ladder-version-50-michael-liebreich https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/hydrogen-ladder-version-50-mi...
- hoseja 3y ago
  Long-term storage and power generation. Of course it's essential as chemical feedstock but that's a necessity, not convenience. If it were (chemically) easy to use, say, the hydrogen in water molecules you bet it'd be used instead.
  - ZeroGravitas 3y ago
    Well, long duration grid balancing gets a B on the ladder. Short duration grid balancing gets an E as renewables/batteries compete. And power generation with no storage component gets a G, the lowest score possible.
  - sofixa 3y ago
    I mean, many many many people and companies are trying to get hydrogen to work. From airplanes to cars to long term energy storage. From random startups to Airbus and Toyota going through universities. There are good reasons for that, or there wouldn't be that many reputable organisations spending that much money on trying to make it work.
    - 3y ago

jwilliams 3y ago

One part not considered is the grid connections - esp across time zones or geographies. Some examples: The SunCable link between Australia and Singapore https://www.suncable.energy/our-projects https://www.suncable.energy/our-projects The Viking Link from Demark to the UK https://www.euronews.com/business/2024/01/16/uk-and-denmark-launch-viking-link-underwater-cable-project https://www.euronews.com/business/2024/01/16/uk-and-denmark-...