4 ms·

On the contrary, coal and nuclear thermal power plants take a long time to throttle up and down. To increase the output of a thermal plant you need to increase

On the contrary, coal and nuclear thermal power plants take a long time to throttle up and down. To increase the output of a thermal plant you need to increase the heat production, wait for the steam pressure to increase, then open the steam tap to increase the turbine power. With the exception of New Zealand, which is ~80% hydro, most countries use coal for base-load, and hydro for peak generation. Other peaking options are natural gas turbines and diesel generators, both of which are quick to start, and quick to throttle. Additionally, Hydro power is easy to store - just leave the water behind the dam. Hydro will probably provide the national grid sized battery we will need to balance out transient generation like solar and wind.

dredmorbius 13y ago
On the contrary, coal and nuclear thermal power plants take a long time to throttle up and down. It's the fact that they can be throttled. You cannot control the throttle on wind and solar. You can control the brake (how much of the generated electricity is released onto the grid). But if the motor ain't running you can't make it go. And if much of your power is dynamic and non-dispatchable, you've now got variance on both the demand and supply sides of your grid. Hence: the need for storage. If you can take the surplus available at times when you don't need it and store it somehow, then you can match grid demand. The problem with hydro is that there's simply not enough capacity. A small number of nations (New Zealand, Switzerland, Sweden, Brazil) have large hydro capacities (and relatively small populations for the most part). For the US, and much of the rest of the world, most available hydro sites have been built out. Other options include geothermal. There's a vast potential under Yellowstone National Park, though it's politically untenable to even contemplate tapping it (a USGS survey of US geothermal resources didn't even mention it): http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2008/3082/ http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2008/3082/ Iceland, Hawaii, Japan, and Kenya also have very significant geothermal potential.

dredmorbius 13y ago

On the contrary, coal and nuclear thermal power plants take a long time to throttle up and down. It's the fact that they can be throttled. You cannot control the throttle on wind and solar. You can control the brake (how much of the generated electricity is released onto the grid). But if the motor ain't running you can't make it go. And if much of your power is dynamic and non-dispatchable, you've now got variance on both the demand and supply sides of your grid. Hence: the need for storage. If you can take the surplus available at times when you don't need it and store it somehow, then you can match grid demand. The problem with hydro is that there's simply not enough capacity. A small number of nations (New Zealand, Switzerland, Sweden, Brazil) have large hydro capacities (and relatively small populations for the most part). For the US, and much of the rest of the world, most available hydro sites have been built out. Other options include geothermal. There's a vast potential under Yellowstone National Park, though it's politically untenable to even contemplate tapping it (a USGS survey of US geothermal resources didn't even mention it): http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2008/3082/ http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2008/3082/ Iceland, Hawaii, Japan, and Kenya also have very significant geothermal potential.