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Windmills Overload East Europe’s Grid, Risking Blackout

businessweek.com

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Re: Windmills Overload East Europe’s Grid, Risking Blackout

#51

Post by Gravityloss »

pcl wrote: post #32
redwood wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany has a unified grid, I'm sure. We need to remember how small Germany is: smaller than California, for example and California relies on everything hydro from the Pacific Northwest all the way down to mountain western state coal. In anticipation of hot days the Pacific Northwest actually stops water flow on river dams to allow them to peak at high price points. There is probably a middle point here tho: Europe m…

> Germany has a unified grid, I'm sure. The article seemed to indicate that this is not the case, and that until the south and north parts of the grid are well-connected domestically, excess power from the north gets routed south via Poland and the Czech Republic.

one more problem is that mainland Denmark is well connected to Germany and not to Jylland, which is connected to Scandinavia. Scandinavia has mountains and operates th Nordpool market.

A HVDC network going from north african deserts to norwegian n mountains could solve some problems.

Re: Windmills Overload East Europe’s Grid, Risking Blackout

#52

Post by Gravityloss »

celticjames wrote: post #11
TamDenholm wrote: post #3

Theres gunna be big money to the company that can figure out how to store huge masses of energy for months, but no doubt thats decades away. However, is there a more simple solution to this problem, like approaching an industry that already uses masses of energy and seeing if they can encourage them to use the energy when there is overloading? I'm unsure what that industry would be. Surely using an overabundance of e…

There's a great sci-fi novel, The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi, set in a post-oil world where tightly wound springs are used to store energy, as we do now with clocks. One of the subplots deals with a character trying to develop a material that can be wound tighter and more compactly without breaking. Or explosively unwinding. I'm not an engineer or physicist, so I've wondered, what is the theoretical limit for st…

spring suck in energy density, compared to batteries

Re: Windmills Overload East Europe’s Grid, Risking Blackout

#53

Post by Gravityloss »

jerven wrote: post #46

This is not uncommon with other forms of generation with high capital cost and low production opportunity costs. The Netherlands almost managed to melt the Belgian high power grid importing very cheap French power a few years back. The French nuclear power plants would produce anyway even if they only made a single cent as one cent is better than no cent ;) Windmills owners have the same issue, once build cost of ene…

It is actually very interesting to look at different power plants' startup price thresholds. Nukes and wind are always on, as they cost littleöto keep "on". Hydro depends on time of year, reservoir size etc. Coal is kind of in the middle. If you use the waste heat for district heating in the winter, the logic changes. Natural gas is the last thing turned on. The plants are really cheap to build but gas costs a lot. Depends if you have a deal with Russia. It is an interesting and multifaceted field.

Re: Windmills Overload East Europe’s Grid, Risking Blackout

#58

Post by Gravityloss »

rwmj wrote: post #55

It'd be cool to combine wind turbines and pumped storage. Have the windmills simply lift water into a tank at the top. Drain the water out of the tank to produce the power. This would act as a nice buffer, producing constant power whatever the wind.

a guy i know built a wind powered pump to water their family's potato field. A storm came an the field was flooded. :)

Re: Windmills Overload East Europe’s Grid, Risking Blackout

#59

Post by yxhuvud »

silvestrov wrote: post #4

It's like the writer doesn't know that windmills can be stopped. In fact, they have builtin brakes which autoengage and stops the mill when the wind becomes too powerful.

Did you even read the article? It is about failures in grid construction and of failures to construct proper trading areas (resulting in chokepoints in the grid).

Re: Windmills Overload East Europe’s Grid, Risking Blackout

#60

Post by yxhuvud »

TamDenholm wrote: post #3

Theres gunna be big money to the company that can figure out how to store huge masses of energy for months, but no doubt thats decades away. However, is there a more simple solution to this problem, like approaching an industry that already uses masses of energy and seeing if they can encourage them to use the energy when there is overloading? I'm unsure what that industry would be. Surely using an overabundance of e…

Aluminium smelters would really love free energy.

Yes, the problem is solvable - improve the grid so that too much energy in one place can be distributed around to where it is needed.

The simplest way to achieve that is probably reasonably sized energy trading areas - that will make the cost for transporting the energy baked into the price in a much better way that how it works in big unified trading area.

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