6 ms·

This is partly the problem with renewable power. You get large swings in generation where some days it's your entire demand and you may even have to pay to expo

by thebmax 11y ago

This is partly the problem with renewable power. You get large swings in generation where some days it's your entire demand and you may even have to pay to export the excess power and other days it's 0 and you need to fire up the gas plants in order to avoid brownouts. Building two power plants (wind and gas) results in double the cost and less reliable grid overall. It's surprising how much people seem to discount the reliability of wind and solar when discussing them as true alternatives to fossil fuels.

caf 11y ago
You do not ever have to pay to export excess power from wind turbines (or solar) because they're instantly dispatchable - you can just feather the blades if no-one is willing to pay for the power.
- snowwindwaves 11y ago
  In Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia, Canada and Washington, USA at least, I am certain that company that builds a wind farm gets a contract where some entity guarantees they will buy all of the power the wind farm will produce at a pre-determined rate(s). Otherwise nobody would put up the money to build the wind farm. You are correct that new renewable plants never have to pay to export excess power, but conventional generation such as old-hydro, gas, nuclear, coal, etc that don't have sweetheart contracts with the government do have to contend with negative prices, and the system does have to pay someone to take that power. Then the local rate payers through some non obvious lumped in "market operating charge" or other mechanism end up paying for that power they didn't use. You could feather the blades, but at least in the markets I've worked in they never would. edit: Actually, the ratepayers don't pay to get rid of the energy they didn't use, the generators that generated it at a negative price have to pay for not being able to shut down.
threeseed 11y ago
Sure that is a problem, now. But there is a lot of investment in energy storage solutions e.g. electric cars, molten sands, large scale batteries, smart grids. People are very aware of the problems with wind/solar but that doesn't mean that we should continue to use fossil fuels or blindly pursue unpopular, problematic technologies like nuclear. The status quo is simply not an option.
- rory096 11y ago
  > blindly pursue unpopular, problematic technologies like nuclear. Why is it blind problematic pursuit? Because it's unpopular?
  - crdoconnor 11y ago
    I'll consider it non-problematic when the nuclear liability cap is eliminated and the private sector insures it fully. Without subsidies. If it were so incredibly safe, there wouldn't be a need to give taxpayer support. The real reason, of course, is that it isn't actually that safe, and private insurers aren't willing to take the risk without a liability cap that is pathetically low (a few hundred million). And, if you got rid of this subsidy: no more nuclear plants.
    - 13thLetter 11y ago
      "The real reason, of course, is that it isn't actually that safe" Perhaps you'd like to go into detail on why you think it isn't actually that safe, especially when compared with the fossil fuel energy generation ecosystem it would be replacing.
      - crdoconnor 11y ago
        Renewables are more than capable of substituting the fossil fuel energy generation ecosystem and the nuclear energy generation ecosystem. I think this article makes that point pretty clearly. And, like I said, I'll be convinced of nuclear power's true safety as soon as the industry puts its money where its mouth is and the liability cap becomes history. After all, if it were as riskless as they tell us it is, they would be happy to see it go. Right?
        peteretep 11y ago
        As far as I'm aware the EU is the only jurisdiction without a liability cap for airlines. Presumably you think that's because planes are dangerously unsafe too?
crdoconnor 11y ago
It's surprising just how much people seem to discount the reliability of markets to smoothly deal with variations in supply and demand. German aluminum smelters for instance are already building their plants to be able to scale electricity with supply. They've seen these periods where electricity prices dropped almost to zero and they want in. As always, markets often take time to adjust to new realities, so this shift won't be instantaneous.
- Gibbon1 11y ago
  I'm totally with this, the idea that no market for 'excess' electric will appear doesn't pass the sniff test. A paper I read discussed a pilot plant in the 50's that produced iron from sulfide ores. Certainly sounds like a process that can consume excess power without much trouble provided that situation happens frequently enough. http://www.ulcos.org/en/docs/Ref03%20-%20Electrowinning%20-%20publ.pdf http://www.ulcos.org/en/docs/Ref03%20-%20Electrowinning%20-%... 'High purity iron was produced, with a current yield of 85% and a power consumption of 4.25 kWh/kg iron' Far as I can tell, 1 GW for an hour would produce ~250 tons of iron.
- Qantourisc 11y ago
  In some countries it gets even more interesting: they pay you to consume power, as they have nowhere to dump it.
xux 11y ago
If we had efficient batteries, would wind be feasible then?
- Intermernet 11y ago
  Wind is feasible now, but efficient batteries would be a complete game changer. They would make all sorts of power generation viable (wave power, tidal power etc). With efficient batteries, the entire concept of "the grid" changes. You have distributed energy buffers everywhere, so you don't need to worry so much about high / low loads, brownouts, high voltage line requirements, power losses over distance etc.
static_noise 11y ago
See renewables as fossil fuel saving addition to the grid. Yes, you need conventional power generation to cover the worst case scenario. Yes, it will make the power grid more expensive. No, it will not make it less stable if configured properly. Every Joule generated by a renewable source saves a Joule from fossil fuels for future use. Every Joule saved on fossil fuels means less import (for most countries). So, financially for most countries, renewables are like a savings account which pays back over the next twenty years.
- snowwindwaves 11y ago
  I disagree with the statement that highly variable sources of generation won't make the grid less stable. The more non-dispatchable variable generation there is the more quickly dispatchable firm generation you need to make up for the power which can suddenly disappear. Electricity systems use the frequency in the short time frame to determine if more or less power is required, big changes in generation cause changes in the frequency, which is one aspect of grid stability. good points otherwise!
- hueving 11y ago
  That last statement is unfounded. With the current price of fossil fuels, there is no evidence that renewables pay back after 20 years.
  - Intermernet 11y ago
    The current price of fossil fuels is not sustainable, and has wildly fluctuated over the last decade. It's not really a metric that can be used for long term planning, except to say that fossil fuels are finite (in the "human scale" of time. Everything is finite if you want to get pedantic.), and therefore the cost will eventually go up if we keep relying on them. The varying monetary cost of fossil fuels also causes huge destabilization of the world economy (See 1973 OPEC crisis etc). It would make the global economy much more stable if we could eliminate such an unpredictable variable. Also, mathematically, something that is "renewable" will, given time, obviously provide a better ROI than something that isn't. The figure of 20 years may not be accurate, but fossil fuels will never pay back. Once used, they're practically gone for good.
_delirium 11y ago
In Denmark this is mostly managed by the interconnects with neighboring hydro-heavy grids. On calm days, Sweden releases more water from reservoirs and sells electricity to Denmark; on windy days, it closes the hydro gates and buys cheap electricity from Denmark. Fairly fortunate situation to be near large amounts of hydropower (Sweden gets about 50% of its electricity from hydro).
- polack 11y ago
  I remember being in Denmark a couple of years ago when there was a massive spike in the electrical price. Think it was due to low wind and that Sweden had abruptly shut down one of its power plants. As an effect it costed the Danes more than 11-12 USD to run the clothes dryer (one time). So it can be expensive to depend on others :)
  - usrusr 11y ago
    Fossil fuels are not exactly immune to outside influence on price either, as long as you are importing.
  - sireat 11y ago
    I am actually shocked to hear that any Danes have a clothes dryer. In most of Europe clothes dryers are relatively uncommon (people use clothes lines or for inside use you have drying stands ). So with the Danish emphasis on energy conservation one would think clothes dryers in Denmark would be an expensive luxury.
    - _delirium 11y ago
      They're still not that common, at least in Copenhagen, partly because most apartments are pretty small, so space is at a premium. But in recent years I've seen combo washer/dryer units that reuse the same tumbler for both functions, so they take only the space of a normal washer. As for the cost, well, many Danes have money to spare.
lyschoening 11y ago
Much as with cloud computing, as long as the grid is large enough (covering multiple weather zones) and there is an electricity market that responds to supply and demand, the storage overhead required for renewable power becomes negligible. Within Europe, the European super grid will largely solve the problem -- at a cost equivalent to building a couple of nuclear plants.

by thebmax 11y ago

caf 11y ago

You do not ever have to pay to export excess power from wind turbines (or solar) because they're instantly dispatchable - you can just feather the blades if no-one is willing to pay for the power.

snowwindwaves 11y ago
In Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia, Canada and Washington, USA at least, I am certain that company that builds a wind farm gets a contract where some entity guarantees they will buy all of the power the wind farm will produce at a pre-determined rate(s). Otherwise nobody would put up the money to build the wind farm. You are correct that new renewable plants never have to pay to export excess power, but conventional generation such as old-hydro, gas, nuclear, coal, etc that don't have sweetheart contracts with the government do have to contend with negative prices, and the system does have to pay someone to take that power. Then the local rate payers through some non obvious lumped in "market operating charge" or other mechanism end up paying for that power they didn't use. You could feather the blades, but at least in the markets I've worked in they never would. edit: Actually, the ratepayers don't pay to get rid of the energy they didn't use, the generators that generated it at a negative price have to pay for not being able to shut down.

threeseed 11y ago

Sure that is a problem, now. But there is a lot of investment in energy storage solutions e.g. electric cars, molten sands, large scale batteries, smart grids. People are very aware of the problems with wind/solar but that doesn't mean that we should continue to use fossil fuels or blindly pursue unpopular, problematic technologies like nuclear. The status quo is simply not an option.

rory096 11y ago
> blindly pursue unpopular, problematic technologies like nuclear. Why is it blind problematic pursuit? Because it's unpopular?
- crdoconnor 11y ago
  I'll consider it non-problematic when the nuclear liability cap is eliminated and the private sector insures it fully. Without subsidies. If it were so incredibly safe, there wouldn't be a need to give taxpayer support. The real reason, of course, is that it isn't actually that safe, and private insurers aren't willing to take the risk without a liability cap that is pathetically low (a few hundred million). And, if you got rid of this subsidy: no more nuclear plants.
  - 13thLetter 11y ago
    "The real reason, of course, is that it isn't actually that safe" Perhaps you'd like to go into detail on why you think it isn't actually that safe, especially when compared with the fossil fuel energy generation ecosystem it would be replacing.
    - crdoconnor 11y ago
      Renewables are more than capable of substituting the fossil fuel energy generation ecosystem and the nuclear energy generation ecosystem. I think this article makes that point pretty clearly. And, like I said, I'll be convinced of nuclear power's true safety as soon as the industry puts its money where its mouth is and the liability cap becomes history. After all, if it were as riskless as they tell us it is, they would be happy to see it go. Right?
      - peteretep 11y ago
        As far as I'm aware the EU is the only jurisdiction without a liability cap for airlines. Presumably you think that's because planes are dangerously unsafe too?

crdoconnor 11y ago

It's surprising just how much people seem to discount the reliability of markets to smoothly deal with variations in supply and demand. German aluminum smelters for instance are already building their plants to be able to scale electricity with supply. They've seen these periods where electricity prices dropped almost to zero and they want in. As always, markets often take time to adjust to new realities, so this shift won't be instantaneous.

Gibbon1 11y ago
I'm totally with this, the idea that no market for 'excess' electric will appear doesn't pass the sniff test. A paper I read discussed a pilot plant in the 50's that produced iron from sulfide ores. Certainly sounds like a process that can consume excess power without much trouble provided that situation happens frequently enough. http://www.ulcos.org/en/docs/Ref03%20-%20Electrowinning%20-%20publ.pdf http://www.ulcos.org/en/docs/Ref03%20-%20Electrowinning%20-%... 'High purity iron was produced, with a current yield of 85% and a power consumption of 4.25 kWh/kg iron' Far as I can tell, 1 GW for an hour would produce ~250 tons of iron.
Qantourisc 11y ago
In some countries it gets even more interesting: they pay you to consume power, as they have nowhere to dump it.

xux 11y ago

If we had efficient batteries, would wind be feasible then?

Intermernet 11y ago
Wind is feasible now, but efficient batteries would be a complete game changer. They would make all sorts of power generation viable (wave power, tidal power etc). With efficient batteries, the entire concept of "the grid" changes. You have distributed energy buffers everywhere, so you don't need to worry so much about high / low loads, brownouts, high voltage line requirements, power losses over distance etc.

static_noise 11y ago

See renewables as fossil fuel saving addition to the grid. Yes, you need conventional power generation to cover the worst case scenario. Yes, it will make the power grid more expensive. No, it will not make it less stable if configured properly. Every Joule generated by a renewable source saves a Joule from fossil fuels for future use. Every Joule saved on fossil fuels means less import (for most countries). So, financially for most countries, renewables are like a savings account which pays back over the next twenty years.

snowwindwaves 11y ago
I disagree with the statement that highly variable sources of generation won't make the grid less stable. The more non-dispatchable variable generation there is the more quickly dispatchable firm generation you need to make up for the power which can suddenly disappear. Electricity systems use the frequency in the short time frame to determine if more or less power is required, big changes in generation cause changes in the frequency, which is one aspect of grid stability. good points otherwise!
hueving 11y ago
That last statement is unfounded. With the current price of fossil fuels, there is no evidence that renewables pay back after 20 years.
- Intermernet 11y ago
  The current price of fossil fuels is not sustainable, and has wildly fluctuated over the last decade. It's not really a metric that can be used for long term planning, except to say that fossil fuels are finite (in the "human scale" of time. Everything is finite if you want to get pedantic.), and therefore the cost will eventually go up if we keep relying on them. The varying monetary cost of fossil fuels also causes huge destabilization of the world economy (See 1973 OPEC crisis etc). It would make the global economy much more stable if we could eliminate such an unpredictable variable. Also, mathematically, something that is "renewable" will, given time, obviously provide a better ROI than something that isn't. The figure of 20 years may not be accurate, but fossil fuels will never pay back. Once used, they're practically gone for good.

_delirium 11y ago

In Denmark this is mostly managed by the interconnects with neighboring hydro-heavy grids. On calm days, Sweden releases more water from reservoirs and sells electricity to Denmark; on windy days, it closes the hydro gates and buys cheap electricity from Denmark. Fairly fortunate situation to be near large amounts of hydropower (Sweden gets about 50% of its electricity from hydro).

polack 11y ago
I remember being in Denmark a couple of years ago when there was a massive spike in the electrical price. Think it was due to low wind and that Sweden had abruptly shut down one of its power plants. As an effect it costed the Danes more than 11-12 USD to run the clothes dryer (one time). So it can be expensive to depend on others :)
- usrusr 11y ago
  Fossil fuels are not exactly immune to outside influence on price either, as long as you are importing.
- sireat 11y ago
  I am actually shocked to hear that any Danes have a clothes dryer. In most of Europe clothes dryers are relatively uncommon (people use clothes lines or for inside use you have drying stands ). So with the Danish emphasis on energy conservation one would think clothes dryers in Denmark would be an expensive luxury.
  - _delirium 11y ago
    They're still not that common, at least in Copenhagen, partly because most apartments are pretty small, so space is at a premium. But in recent years I've seen combo washer/dryer units that reuse the same tumbler for both functions, so they take only the space of a normal washer. As for the cost, well, many Danes have money to spare.

lyschoening 11y ago

Much as with cloud computing, as long as the grid is large enough (covering multiple weather zones) and there is an electricity market that responds to supply and demand, the storage overhead required for renewable power becomes negligible. Within Europe, the European super grid will largely solve the problem -- at a cost equivalent to building a couple of nuclear plants.