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The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

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Re: The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

#151

Post by recursive »

mortify wrote: post #122
recursive wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you get people to only charge their cars when it's windy? Market prices and "smart" chargers

That can encourage it, but people will need to charge even when it's not windy. Having a smart charger wait for cheap electricity which may never come is a great way to end up with dead battery.

That's not too smart then. I'm talking about something with a bag of weighted goals. Having a dead battery would have a strong enough cost that it would pay more for higher market rates if state of charge is low.

Re: The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

#152

Post by tedivm »

vericiab wrote: post #124
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Lots of states have cheaper rates than that: https://www.electricchoice.com/electricity-prices-by-state/ And none of them are anywhere near 40-80c, so maybe that commenter is in another country.

Although your bill might only show one bundled price depending on who supplies and delivers your electricity, the cost of electricity in the US usually includes both a "supply" or "generation" charge and a "delivery" charge. Based on what I'm seeing on that page I think it's almost certainly only showing the electric supply rates, not the combined total of supply + delivery. I don't live in California so the nuances…

To be clear when I said 0.11/kWh in Chicago I was giving the total price, including both the supply and delivery.

California has some ridiculously expensive power costs. I moved to Chicago in 2021 after living in the bay area for 11 years, and the amount I spent on electricity absolutely plummeted.

Re: The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

#153

Post by tedivm »

smeej wrote: post #139
tedivm wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This just isn't true. The burden on nuclear is the extremely long construction time and massive cost overruns.

But New Hampshire already has the plant built. That cost already happened. The question now is how best to meet the energy demand with the resources available, and that's already available.

New Hampshire is on the national grid. If they have more power than they can use they simply sell it to Massachusetts so they can turn down some of their natural gas generation.

Re: The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

#154

Post by adrianN »

bsder wrote: post #120
adrianN wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you had enough storage you could just build more renewables and produce the power at lower cost.

Repeat after me: Renewables can't do base load. Renewables can't do base load. Renewables can't do base load. If you have enough storage, you don't have to adapt your reactor second by second. You let the storage buffer out the peaks and valleys and you use the reactor to backfill the storage over the course of hours and days.

If you read my comment carefully I argue that with enough storage to run a nuclear power plant optimally, you can also run renewables, but cheaper.

Re: The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

#155

Post by bsder »

pyrale wrote: post #136
bsder wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any reason we can't repurpose these lines for HVDC? It seems like we could get quite a bit of extra juice by changing to DC transmission.

Same reason you don't repurpose a train into an airplane, the two have different benefits and drawbacks, and are used for different purposes.

Copper wires are copper wires. There are 3 of them for 3 phases. They are sized for AC and AC losses.

DC does not require 3 phases. DC does not have any skin effect or corona losses and thus can operate on smaller wires.

The problem, of course, is that HVDC requires a DC terminal which costs money. It is likely quite a bit easier to build two HVDC terminal on land that the electric company likely already owns than rip up and rewire a whole boatload of long distance wiring.

Re: The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

#156

Post by ac29 »

dubcanada wrote: post #134
bsder wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Repeat after me: Renewables can't do base load. Renewables can't do base load. Renewables can't do base load. If you have enough storage, you don't have to adapt your reactor second by second. You let the storage buffer out the peaks and valleys and you use the reactor to backfill the storage over the course of hours and days.

Hydro can do base load. Hydro is considered a renewable.

Geothermal as well

Re: The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

#157

Post by almazzz »

tedivm wrote: post #82
r00fus wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These days with even off-peak being 40-80c / kWh the best way to charge EVs (which are mostly owned by homeowners) seems to be to bypass the grid and charge using rooftop solar during the middle of the day (or time shifted using battery storage). Obv. not possible for renters or condo owners or for people who can install solar.

Where do you live with power costs that high? My power is about 11c/kWh (Chicago).

[dead]

Re: The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

#158

Post by smeej »

tedivm wrote: post #153
smeej wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But New Hampshire already has the plant built. That cost already happened. The question now is how best to meet the energy demand with the resources available, and that's already available.

New Hampshire is on the national grid. If they have more power than they can use they simply sell it to Massachusetts so they can turn down some of their natural gas generation.

Massachusetts has basically the same weather at the same time. When demand plummets in NH, it also does in MA.

Somebody somewhere would still have to store the energy being produced overnight, which happens to be when nobody wants to use it.

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