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The data behind New York's increasingly dirty electricity peaks

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Re: The data behind New York's increasingly dirty electricity peaks

#11

Post by 99_00 »

sleepysysadmin wrote: post #8
99_00 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>carbon emitted per kWh generated Is it? If an energy source requires natural gas or coal to deal with peaks of increasingly hot days, this doesn't tell the whole story. If we increase solar or wind to be a primary source, then we need to take into account the carbon cost of storage. Since this doesn't exist, it is an unknown. Finally, the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow. Carbon emitted per…

We will eventually get to a state where solar and wind is all we have/need. The requirement will be gridscale energy storage that contains enough storage for days of operation.

The question is: should we be closing nuclear plants and filling the gap with natural gas and coal before we get there?

Re: The data behind New York's increasingly dirty electricity peaks

#12

Post by mariebks »

99_00 wrote: post #5
zdragnar wrote: post #3

I appreciate the analysis, though I am not sure that any of the results should surprise anyone. - NY is moving away from nuclear (counted under "clean") - none of the "clean" sources can easily scale on demand. Sun, wind, hydro and nuclear have either fixed or random output - all peaker plants and less-desirable and so less-fully-maximized sources fall under the dirty category. Sun not providing enough juice? Ramp up…

Is there a battery technology on the market that can be used at scale or do we need to wait for this to be invented?

Tesla Megapacks.

Re: The data behind New York's increasingly dirty electricity peaks

#13

Post by sleepysysadmin »

99_00 wrote: post #11
sleepysysadmin wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We will eventually get to a state where solar and wind is all we have/need. The requirement will be gridscale energy storage that contains enough storage for days of operation.

The question is: should we be closing nuclear plants and filling the gap with natural gas and coal before we get there?

>The question is: should we be closing nuclear plants and filling the gap with natural gas and coal before we get there?

We're there now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricit...

Put solar panels on literally every building. Put wind mills where you will. We know we need to do this. No nat gas or coal, we do pump storage. When we can, we do the next gen batteries at massive grid scale.

We dont need to shutdown anything early. Those are all amortized for their time. When we can, we eliminate those things as they come of age.

Re: The data behind New York's increasingly dirty electricity peaks

#14

Post by volkl48 »

99_00 wrote: post #5
zdragnar wrote: post #3

I appreciate the analysis, though I am not sure that any of the results should surprise anyone. - NY is moving away from nuclear (counted under "clean") - none of the "clean" sources can easily scale on demand. Sun, wind, hydro and nuclear have either fixed or random output - all peaker plants and less-desirable and so less-fully-maximized sources fall under the dirty category. Sun not providing enough juice? Ramp up…

Is there a battery technology on the market that can be used at scale or do we need to wait for this to be invented?

ESS recently went public and has some good sized deals for their iron-flow batteries. If they're what's claimed, they ought to be a pretty scalable technology without too many materials bottlenecks.

This is pretty much a press release, but a bit of a summary: https://www.utilitydive.com/news/ess-sb-energy-softbank-reac...

That said, it's entirely out of my realm of expertise for vetting how good their tech or plans are.

Re: The data behind New York's increasingly dirty electricity peaks

#15

Post by philipkglass »

99_00 wrote: post #5
zdragnar wrote: post #3

I appreciate the analysis, though I am not sure that any of the results should surprise anyone. - NY is moving away from nuclear (counted under "clean") - none of the "clean" sources can easily scale on demand. Sun, wind, hydro and nuclear have either fixed or random output - all peaker plants and less-desirable and so less-fully-maximized sources fall under the dirty category. Sun not providing enough juice? Ramp up…

Is there a battery technology on the market that can be used at scale or do we need to wait for this to be invented?

Current battery technology is adequate for 4-hour peak shaving and it's being deployed. Here's a project approved this year:

"Approval for 100MW / 400MWh battery storage project at site of New York fossil fuel plant"

https://www.energy-storage.news/approval-for-100mw-400mwh-ba...

The project is expected to reach commercial operation by the beginning of 2023. Enabling the storage of electricity to be used when it is most needed will help increase the amount of variable renewable energy that can be put onto New York’s grid. It will also, as with some recent high profile projects in California, help reduce the state’s reliance on peaker plants; which are only called into action several times a year when electricity demand is at its highest.

Re: The data behind New York's increasingly dirty electricity peaks

#16

Post by pydry »

99_00 wrote: post #7
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #4

The post is at least up front that it's got an agenda that it's setting out to prove. A more standard measure of progress would be carbon intensity (carbon emitted per kWh generated) I have a hunch that it doesn't support this argument as the decision to bucket everything into "clean" or "dirty" is otherwise bizarre. It's also misses things like greater electrification which might be graded poorly on this, e.g. every…

>carbon emitted per kWh generated Is it? If an energy source requires natural gas or coal to deal with peaks of increasingly hot days, this doesn't tell the whole story. If we increase solar or wind to be a primary source, then we need to take into account the carbon cost of storage. Since this doesn't exist, it is an unknown. Finally, the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow. Carbon emitted per…

>we need to take into account the carbon cost of storage. Since this doesn't exist, it is an unknown.

NY appears to have plenty of hydro from that graph. It's not all that hard to close the sluice gates and open them later.

Grid scale batteries are also cost competitive (as of the last 12 months or so), though they wouldn't be as cheap as hydro for dispatchable energy.

Re: The data behind New York's increasingly dirty electricity peaks

#17

Post by ZeroGravitas »

99_00 wrote: post #11
sleepysysadmin wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We will eventually get to a state where solar and wind is all we have/need. The requirement will be gridscale energy storage that contains enough storage for days of operation.

The question is: should we be closing nuclear plants and filling the gap with natural gas and coal before we get there?

New York phased out their last coal plant already, so they've moved onto the nuclear+renewables+gas stage and are only tweaking the mix on their way to 100 zero carbon.

(Also "dual fuel" basically means gas, but with the ability to burn other stuff if they get into shortages, but its basically a last resort, its 99% gas)

Re: The data behind New York's increasingly dirty electricity peaks

#18

Post by C4K3 »

99_00 wrote: post #5
zdragnar wrote: post #3

I appreciate the analysis, though I am not sure that any of the results should surprise anyone. - NY is moving away from nuclear (counted under "clean") - none of the "clean" sources can easily scale on demand. Sun, wind, hydro and nuclear have either fixed or random output - all peaker plants and less-desirable and so less-fully-maximized sources fall under the dirty category. Sun not providing enough juice? Ramp up…

Is there a battery technology on the market that can be used at scale or do we need to wait for this to be invented?

Lithium batteries are used on the grid, for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gateway_Energy_Storage

Re: The data behind New York's increasingly dirty electricity peaks

#19

Post by pydry »

99_00 wrote: post #5
zdragnar wrote: post #3

I appreciate the analysis, though I am not sure that any of the results should surprise anyone. - NY is moving away from nuclear (counted under "clean") - none of the "clean" sources can easily scale on demand. Sun, wind, hydro and nuclear have either fixed or random output - all peaker plants and less-desirable and so less-fully-maximized sources fall under the dirty category. Sun not providing enough juice? Ramp up…

Is there a battery technology on the market that can be used at scale or do we need to wait for this to be invented?

Hawaii recently canceled a grid interconnect between the islands and is building battery backed solar instead.

Re: The data behind New York's increasingly dirty electricity peaks

#20

Post by ZeroGravitas »

zdragnar wrote: post #3

I appreciate the analysis, though I am not sure that any of the results should surprise anyone. - NY is moving away from nuclear (counted under "clean") - none of the "clean" sources can easily scale on demand. Sun, wind, hydro and nuclear have either fixed or random output - all peaker plants and less-desirable and so less-fully-maximized sources fall under the dirty category. Sun not providing enough juice? Ramp up…

Why are they moving away from nuclear? They have a 100% carbon free target, which doesn't exclude nuclear and they intend to introduce a carbon price, which lets nuclear fight on an even ground with other carbon reduction moves. I guess it just didn't make sense financially?
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