5 ms·

So what's the answer to smoothing out supply and demand peaks here? More and better batteries? Wind, hydro, etc? All the above?

zemvpferreira 3y ago
Dynamic pricing! Get a little smartness in front of large consumption appliances and charge much less when there's too much power. The answer will create itself without any need for breakthrough technologies. (I hope)
- bequanna 3y ago
  The current low hanging fruit for demand response would be industrial customers who have some ability to scale up/down power usage.
- vineyardmike 3y ago
  It seemed like we were inching towards this with smarthome tech, but now we’re losing ground. Nest was pretty revolutionary at the time with their “learning” thermostat, but aiui most smart thermostats don’t bother with real smartness. Google/nest just spun off their energy team, Ecobee was bought out by a home energy company, so hopefully we’re seeing a new generation of smart energy companies coming.
- miguelazo 3y ago
  Exactly, or at least have more tiers of pricing based on the time of day. I visited another state and was pleasantly surprised to see four time windows that shift based on season. In Southern California, there are only 2, and I doubt most customers have even been transitioned to a TOU plan. So dumb.
skybrian 3y ago
Batteries, hydro, and natural gas (peaker plants) all help directly. Wind isn't really "dispatchable" in the sense that the grid operator can't ask for more wind. I don't believe nuclear power ramps up very easily, and in any case it has to run as much as possible to pay for high capital costs. Power that's going to be on standby much of the time needs to be cheap to build. Anything that usually generates power in the evening will help some, though. Also, the grid operator being able to schedule demand helps too. Things like water heaters and air conditioning can be run in advance and turned off at peak times.
- s1artibartfast 3y ago
  Modern Nuclear ramps up very quickly, in minutes. The challenge is almost 100 of the cost is up front, so the economics favor using the power all the time, because it is basically free once built.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    The point is that ramping up isn't really a thing because it will have already been producing at 100%. But that doesn't mean it isn't useful to address this, because it's still a generation method that generates power during the hours that solar doesn't. You would also then have even more generation during daylight hours, which isn't as valuable, but it still has economic value and can be sold for some smaller but still non-zero price per kWh.
    - skybrian 3y ago
      In California the price actually is hitting zero sometimes during the day [1], which means that at that time, it's not economically valuable at all - nobody wants it. Rather, cutting back is valuable. Other kinds of electricity generation are easier to shut down, though, so they go first. This is graphed as "curtailment" [2]. Surplus electricity could hypothetically be put to use, but something would need to built to take advantage. (Perhaps batteries or some other load.) [1] https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2023/04/20/driven-by-solar-californias-net-demand-hit-zero-on-sunday/ https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2023/04/20/driven-by-solar-calif... [2] https://www.gridstatus.io/datasets/caiso_curtailment https://www.gridstatus.io/datasets/caiso_curtailment
      - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        > In California the price actually is hitting zero sometimes during the day Sure, sure, but these are unusual times and not the common case. And if it was the common case that the price was zero during most daylight hours, it would be solar that goes bankrupt, since that's the only time it's generating. The other generation methods would still have the revenue from generating at night, which was the bulk of their revenue to begin with because of the expected price differential. > Surplus electricity could hypothetically be put to use, but something would need to built to take advantage. (Perhaps batteries or some other load.) Charging electric vehicles is an obvious one which will increase with their adoption. It's also likely that the grid will need some kind of storage because even if you have baseload plants to carry most of the nighttime load, the peak load of the day is just after sunset, and picking that up is going to require some kind of storage or peaker plants but the existing peaker plants are fossil fuels. What baseload plants give you is to only need enough storage to make up the difference between what the baseload plants generate and that peak, and only for that couple of hours instead of the entire night.
while_true_ 3y ago
Can't rely on hydro power in California. In 2021, for example, a serious drought caused water levels to drop so low behind reservoirs they could no longer be used for pumped storage. Batteries are the best solution, quick to charge, high efficiency and can be brought online instantly.
lamontcg 3y ago
> More and better batteries? Yes, batteries. From yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39144978 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39144978

zemvpferreira 3y ago

Dynamic pricing! Get a little smartness in front of large consumption appliances and charge much less when there's too much power. The answer will create itself without any need for breakthrough technologies. (I hope)

bequanna 3y ago
The current low hanging fruit for demand response would be industrial customers who have some ability to scale up/down power usage.
vineyardmike 3y ago
It seemed like we were inching towards this with smarthome tech, but now we’re losing ground. Nest was pretty revolutionary at the time with their “learning” thermostat, but aiui most smart thermostats don’t bother with real smartness. Google/nest just spun off their energy team, Ecobee was bought out by a home energy company, so hopefully we’re seeing a new generation of smart energy companies coming.
miguelazo 3y ago
Exactly, or at least have more tiers of pricing based on the time of day. I visited another state and was pleasantly surprised to see four time windows that shift based on season. In Southern California, there are only 2, and I doubt most customers have even been transitioned to a TOU plan. So dumb.

skybrian 3y ago

Batteries, hydro, and natural gas (peaker plants) all help directly. Wind isn't really "dispatchable" in the sense that the grid operator can't ask for more wind. I don't believe nuclear power ramps up very easily, and in any case it has to run as much as possible to pay for high capital costs. Power that's going to be on standby much of the time needs to be cheap to build. Anything that usually generates power in the evening will help some, though. Also, the grid operator being able to schedule demand helps too. Things like water heaters and air conditioning can be run in advance and turned off at peak times.

s1artibartfast 3y ago
Modern Nuclear ramps up very quickly, in minutes. The challenge is almost 100 of the cost is up front, so the economics favor using the power all the time, because it is basically free once built.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  The point is that ramping up isn't really a thing because it will have already been producing at 100%. But that doesn't mean it isn't useful to address this, because it's still a generation method that generates power during the hours that solar doesn't. You would also then have even more generation during daylight hours, which isn't as valuable, but it still has economic value and can be sold for some smaller but still non-zero price per kWh.
  - skybrian 3y ago
    In California the price actually is hitting zero sometimes during the day [1], which means that at that time, it's not economically valuable at all - nobody wants it. Rather, cutting back is valuable. Other kinds of electricity generation are easier to shut down, though, so they go first. This is graphed as "curtailment" [2]. Surplus electricity could hypothetically be put to use, but something would need to built to take advantage. (Perhaps batteries or some other load.) [1] https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2023/04/20/driven-by-solar-californias-net-demand-hit-zero-on-sunday/ https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2023/04/20/driven-by-solar-calif... [2] https://www.gridstatus.io/datasets/caiso_curtailment https://www.gridstatus.io/datasets/caiso_curtailment
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      > In California the price actually is hitting zero sometimes during the day Sure, sure, but these are unusual times and not the common case. And if it was the common case that the price was zero during most daylight hours, it would be solar that goes bankrupt, since that's the only time it's generating. The other generation methods would still have the revenue from generating at night, which was the bulk of their revenue to begin with because of the expected price differential. > Surplus electricity could hypothetically be put to use, but something would need to built to take advantage. (Perhaps batteries or some other load.) Charging electric vehicles is an obvious one which will increase with their adoption. It's also likely that the grid will need some kind of storage because even if you have baseload plants to carry most of the nighttime load, the peak load of the day is just after sunset, and picking that up is going to require some kind of storage or peaker plants but the existing peaker plants are fossil fuels. What baseload plants give you is to only need enough storage to make up the difference between what the baseload plants generate and that peak, and only for that couple of hours instead of the entire night.

while_true_ 3y ago

Can't rely on hydro power in California. In 2021, for example, a serious drought caused water levels to drop so low behind reservoirs they could no longer be used for pumped storage. Batteries are the best solution, quick to charge, high efficiency and can be brought online instantly.

lamontcg 3y ago

> More and better batteries? Yes, batteries. From yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39144978 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39144978