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Power Worth Less Than Zero Spreads as Green Energy Floods the Grid

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Re: Power Worth Less Than Zero Spreads as Green Energy Floods the Grid

#301

Post by krzat »

ksolanki wrote: post #278
eloff wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Desalinization isn't a good example for the reasons you say, but theptip writes below that heating water in residential and commercial settings might be better. Since water once heated stays hot for a good while in the insulated storage tank. Also buildings can be heated with hot water instead of forced air, typically through pipes in the floor. Which is nicer because it keeps your feet toasty and doesn't dry out the…

This is insightful. The solution is probably to have a spot market for electricity that is accessible via an API so that smart AC or fridge or electric car charger can make use of it. This will encourage market for devices that can utilize the lower spot prices dynamically and keep the things more efficient overall (in steady state).

Instead of API, they could encode relative price directly into the power source.

Re: Power Worth Less Than Zero Spreads as Green Energy Floods the Grid

#302

Post by nukemandan »

dgacmu wrote: post #216
weberc2 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin mining. This may or may not be a sincere suggestion.

Same flaw as the other ideas - mining is very capital intensive. You can use mining in a demand response capacity, but it's best used when you can run it 98% of the time and shut down during the most expensive 2%. If you look at some of the data from Australia, peak cost per MW can go really high. It's also an environmental travesty, but that's already the case.

Remember that the alternative at the moments is literally pumping that energy into the ground as waste heat. I think that renewable resources otherwise wasted being used for mining instead of that seems like a win-win.

Re: Power Worth Less Than Zero Spreads as Green Energy Floods the Grid

#303

Post by hvidgaard »

undreren wrote: post #296
eloff wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Desalinization isn't a good example for the reasons you say, but theptip writes below that heating water in residential and commercial settings might be better. Since water once heated stays hot for a good while in the insulated storage tank. Also buildings can be heated with hot water instead of forced air, typically through pipes in the floor. Which is nicer because it keeps your feet toasty and doesn't dry out the…

> but theptip writes below that heating water in residential and commercial settings might be better. When I worked at Ørsted, we did this all the time . We had a huge electric kettle, which we used to produce district heating water. But there are many more things you can do with surplus energy. You can make methane gas from pure CO2 and hydrogen when you apply electric power as a catalyst. The methane can then be ea…

I was at a tour of Skærbækværket many years ago, and as I remember it, when you produce power, you need to be able to control the voltage somehow. If there is a surplus of power and you cannot turn down production, you need to dump it or the voltage will go up, destroying electrical systems. One of the simplest ways to do this is to heat water, and when you have well established district heating it's almost a no brainer what to do.

Re: Power Worth Less Than Zero Spreads as Green Energy Floods the Grid

#304

Post by MrQuincle »

bacon_waffle wrote: post #283
ksolanki wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is insightful. The solution is probably to have a spot market for electricity that is accessible via an API so that smart AC or fridge or electric car charger can make use of it. This will encourage market for devices that can utilize the lower spot prices dynamically and keep the things more efficient overall (in steady state).

We've got these in New Zealand - once you have a "smart meter" (which I believe most homes now have), then you can pick an electricity retailer like https://www.flickelectric.co.nz that bills you according to the current price. Flick provides an API to allow you to turn on/off loads when you see fit.

Do they have individual control per outlet? Those loads namely ask quite a bit of power. The last mile with respect to control in the sense of a smart switch or plug per device is the most expensive part till now. That, assuming you can for internet access use the smart meter connection or the consumer's WiFi.

Re: Power Worth Less Than Zero Spreads as Green Energy Floods the Grid

#305

Post by chr4004 »

Moru wrote: post #270
eloff wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Desalinization isn't a good example for the reasons you say, but theptip writes below that heating water in residential and commercial settings might be better. Since water once heated stays hot for a good while in the insulated storage tank. Also buildings can be heated with hot water instead of forced air, typically through pipes in the floor. Which is nicer because it keeps your feet toasty and doesn't dry out the…

Heating a big, isolated water tank was pretty common when I was working in the industry 25 years ago. Power was much cheaper during night so you used that to heat the water tank and daytime you used that water to heat the building. Lately this has been available to private customers also, price by the hour. (Sweden)

Check out https://mixergy.co.uk which recently came out with a nice solution.

Re: Power Worth Less Than Zero Spreads as Green Energy Floods the Grid

#306

Post by sveme »

DoctorOetker wrote: post #22

I don't truly understand this "problem". I understand storing the energy in batteries is currently very expensive economically and materially. However I believe there are plenty of "goods" (irrespective of if they are bulk materials, or partially processed products) which have a high processing energy per volume ratio (this does not need to be recoverable stored energy). Allow me to give an example: currently we have…

There's a northern German copper plant which can dynamically adjust its energy usage to the availability of renewable energy. If the availability is low, they reduce their production and thereby greatly help the grid. I could imagine plenty of large consumers to dynamically adjust their processes to the price of energy, obviously costs money to setup and maintain, but will be beneficial regardless with very fluctuating energy prices due to the intermittency of renewable energy.

Re: Power Worth Less Than Zero Spreads as Green Energy Floods the Grid

#307

Post by jnxx »

That the market price of renewable power can and sometimes does go to zero is simply a consequence of that the marginal cost of producing additional energy is zero. The market price does not include the upfront cost but depends only on that marginal cost.

About the same is valid for nuclear power. Only the upfront cost is higher, and there is a much larger cost for decommissioning a plant.

That's the reason why renewable power needs to be subsidized, at least to some degree, and why nuclear power was always subsidized.

Re: Power Worth Less Than Zero Spreads as Green Energy Floods the Grid

#308

Post by geezerjay »

jnxx wrote: post #307

That the market price of renewable power can and sometimes does go to zero is simply a consequence of that the marginal cost of producing additional energy is zero. The market price does not include the upfront cost but depends only on that marginal cost. About the same is valid for nuclear power. Only the upfront cost is higher, and there is a much larger cost for decommissioning a plant. That's the reason why renew…

I've assumed that the reason was that green energy production, which is tied to climate factors (windy/rainy/sunny days), can't be ramped up or down to match demand. As surplus energy can't be stored or sold then its value tends to zero.

Re: Power Worth Less Than Zero Spreads as Green Energy Floods the Grid

#309

Post by talltimtom »

I find it funny that there is an ongoing discussion of how much electricity bitcoin mining wastes and another ongoing discussion of how to store free electricity.

The answer is simple! Mine bitcoins when electricity is free and use the bitcoins to buy power when prices go up! I call the scheme cryprographic energy storage. I am current looking into creating an ICO at $10 billion valuation. /s

Re: Power Worth Less Than Zero Spreads as Green Energy Floods the Grid

#310

Post by fuzzbuzz »

undreren wrote: post #296
eloff wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Desalinization isn't a good example for the reasons you say, but theptip writes below that heating water in residential and commercial settings might be better. Since water once heated stays hot for a good while in the insulated storage tank. Also buildings can be heated with hot water instead of forced air, typically through pipes in the floor. Which is nicer because it keeps your feet toasty and doesn't dry out the…

> but theptip writes below that heating water in residential and commercial settings might be better. When I worked at Ørsted, we did this all the time . We had a huge electric kettle, which we used to produce district heating water. But there are many more things you can do with surplus energy. You can make methane gas from pure CO2 and hydrogen when you apply electric power as a catalyst. The methane can then be ea…

A banal long term way of storing energy is to pump water up to some high ground. Whenever you need it, use a turbine to get the energy back.
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