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How the electricity markets respond to a nuclear trip

blog.gridstatus.io

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Re: How the electricity markets respond to a nuclear trip

#31

Post by megaman821 »

gunapologist99 wrote: post #12
toomuchtodo wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a fair point (why curtailment is in effect), and I think speaks to the fact that more granular and timely data is needed wrt all nodes and transmission segment within the system. Also a call for more batteries everywhere between generation and load. With regards to transmission congestion, that is easily fixed with installing batteries at currently storageless renewable generation facilities (the batteries then…

Batteries are extremely expensive per megawatt, not very durable, require carefully controlled temperatures, and their manufacturer and recycling extract a tremendous cost from the environment. For non-mobile usage, batteries shouldn't be seen as any kind of viable solution at scale. However, there are other ways to store energy; unfortunately, most involve converting electricity to another form of energy such as pot…

Not a single thing you said about batteries is true. Pumped hydro is in no way competitive with batteries for most locations. In the future it is likely they won't be competitive in any location.

Re: How the electricity markets respond to a nuclear trip

#32

Post by jillesvangurp »

megaman821 wrote: post #31
gunapologist99 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Batteries are extremely expensive per megawatt, not very durable, require carefully controlled temperatures, and their manufacturer and recycling extract a tremendous cost from the environment. For non-mobile usage, batteries shouldn't be seen as any kind of viable solution at scale. However, there are other ways to store energy; unfortunately, most involve converting electricity to another form of energy such as pot…

Not a single thing you said about batteries is true. Pumped hydro is in no way competitive with batteries for most locations. In the future it is likely they won't be competitive in any location.

Better still; the amount of deployed batteries world wide is projected to overtake the amount of deployed hydro this year. Pumped hydro is barely growing. Battery capacity is growing exponentially to eclipse it this year. That's driven by pure economics. Cheaper, better, faster, etc.

Re: How the electricity markets respond to a nuclear trip

#33

Post by bboygravity »

shagie wrote: post #19
floatrock wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For non-mobile usage, batteries shouldn't be seen as any kind of viable solution at scale. Lithium-ion, sure, but aren't there a whole host of other battery chemistries that are basically too big / too heavy to put on vehicles but a lot cheaper so well suited for stationary storage? Are they all still at the research phase and so currently more expensive than the decades-of-learning-curve lithium-ion?

The vanadium redox flow battery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanadium_redox_battery > For several reasons, including their relative bulkiness, vanadium batteries are typically used for grid energy storage, i.e., attached to power plants/electrical grids. VRFBs' main advantages over other types of battery: no limit on energy capacity can remain discharged indefinitely without damage ... wide operating temperature ra…

How is 10 - 20 years "sustainable"?

Re: How the electricity markets respond to a nuclear trip

#34

Post by bell-cot »

markus92 wrote: post #29
bell-cot wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAEE (not an electrical engineer), but doesn't a gas turbine spin at a constant speed to drive a 60Hz generator, regardless of whether it's running at 20%, 60%, or 100% of capacity?

When there’s a load imbalance on the grid (more load than capacity), the turbines physically slow down as inertial energy is extracted from them. This causes the grid frequency to drop. It takes some time to ramp up production and speed up the turbine etc.

The maximum slow-down of the turbines (before the generator trips off-line, removing the load on it) is far less than you seem to assume. The article's graph shows the 60.00Hz grid frequency dropping...all the way to 59.92Hz. That's 0.1333%.

For an on-line gas turbine, the time to ramp up production is the second or few needed for the automated controls to open the throttle on the "Gas IN" pipe. It's basically a natural gas-burning turboprop jet engine, with the propeller replaced by a generator. (Yes, this can be less efficient in a combined cycle plant.)

Re: How the electricity markets respond to a nuclear trip

#35

Post by galangalalgol »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #7
kccqzy wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most curtailment IIRC is due to insufficient transmission capacity. I doubt curtailed solar can be called upon in an emergency unless the emergency is located very close to the curtailed solar.

It's a fair point (why curtailment is in effect), and I think speaks to the fact that more granular and timely data is needed wrt all nodes and transmission segment within the system. Also a call for more batteries everywhere between generation and load. With regards to transmission congestion, that is easily fixed with installing batteries at currently storageless renewable generation facilities (the batteries then…

The secure authentication of all those nodes concerns me. Are these old scada systems coommunicating over plaintext rs232 or similar? Is it something running crowdstrike?

Re: How the electricity markets respond to a nuclear trip

#36

Post by sunshinesnacks »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #2

Something interesting is that with substantial solar and batteries being deployed in the ERCOT market (in scope grid operator for this piece), solar generation in excess of what the grid can consume with load combined with grid forming inverters (vs traditional grid following) can step in when called upon if a traditionally firmer generator (coal or nuclear) trips out. The potential is already there (photons hitting…

Grid following inverters can do something similar, although their response time is usually limited to the grid operator's automatic generation control (AGC) communication cycle, which is typically on the order of 4 to 6 seconds. And this requires plant controllers, and markets/contracts, to be setup for it.

See https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy24osti/86932.pdf. It deals with estimating reserves from these types of resources, but also talks a bit about general considerations, and references other good papers and demonstrations.

Re: How the electricity markets respond to a nuclear trip

#37

Post by toomuchtodo »

bboygravity wrote: post #33
shagie wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vanadium redox flow battery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanadium_redox_battery > For several reasons, including their relative bulkiness, vanadium batteries are typically used for grid energy storage, i.e., attached to power plants/electrical grids. VRFBs' main advantages over other types of battery: no limit on energy capacity can remain discharged indefinitely without damage ... wide operating temperature ra…

How is 10 - 20 years "sustainable"?

We’re currently experiencing a Cambrian explosion in battery tech. As the technology matures, and we establish a closed loop ecosystem to build and then recycle these systems, longevity can improve over time. To get better at something, you must first suck at it, and 10-20 years is not an immaterial service life for an asset that just sits and hums with no moving parts.

Re: How the electricity markets respond to a nuclear trip

#38

Post by leymed »

huijzer wrote: post #11
toomuchtodo wrote: post #2

Something interesting is that with substantial solar and batteries being deployed in the ERCOT market (in scope grid operator for this piece), solar generation in excess of what the grid can consume with load combined with grid forming inverters (vs traditional grid following) can step in when called upon if a traditionally firmer generator (coal or nuclear) trips out. The potential is already there (photons hitting…

An individual inverter can usually switch in about 4 ms. A Tesla Megapack can go from 0% output to max output in 100 ms. Conversely, gas turbines (the fastest type of traditional power plant) takes about a minute to go from say 40% to 60%. Even in the fastest possible design, there is a mechanical rotor (kinetic energy) that has to change speed. What I mean to say is that solar and batteries are likely an order of ma…

I think you’re missing the point how turbine-generator works. The rpm speed has to stay the same, meaning the rotor speed doesn’t change. As long as you don’t have closed circuit you’ll waste that mechanical energy. If you meant starting from stand still position, then you’re right it takes couple minutes to pick up the load.

With that said, turbines responding in couple minutes are more reliable as a baseline when you’re planning load flow of as big as country or wider area. The basic reason is that you have source of energy under your control such as nuclear, water, gas, coal. You cannot have solar, wind as your baseline, I don’t want sound dramatic, but it’s kind of suicidal to do that. Solar’s ramping is not a win when you consider greater scale.

Re: How the electricity markets respond to a nuclear trip

#39

Post by ZeroGravitas »

gunapologist99 wrote: post #12
toomuchtodo wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a fair point (why curtailment is in effect), and I think speaks to the fact that more granular and timely data is needed wrt all nodes and transmission segment within the system. Also a call for more batteries everywhere between generation and load. With regards to transmission congestion, that is easily fixed with installing batteries at currently storageless renewable generation facilities (the batteries then…

Batteries are extremely expensive per megawatt, not very durable, require carefully controlled temperatures, and their manufacturer and recycling extract a tremendous cost from the environment. For non-mobile usage, batteries shouldn't be seen as any kind of viable solution at scale. However, there are other ways to store energy; unfortunately, most involve converting electricity to another form of energy such as pot…

A recent article asks:

"Why did the U.S. miss the battery revolution?"

https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/why-did-the-us-miss-the-batter...

About half the comments on the article were Americans saying very similar things to your comment and denying there was a revolution to have missed, which kind of answers the question posed.

Re: How the electricity markets respond to a nuclear trip

#40

Post by ViewTrick1002 »

leymed wrote: post #38
huijzer wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An individual inverter can usually switch in about 4 ms. A Tesla Megapack can go from 0% output to max output in 100 ms. Conversely, gas turbines (the fastest type of traditional power plant) takes about a minute to go from say 40% to 60%. Even in the fastest possible design, there is a mechanical rotor (kinetic energy) that has to change speed. What I mean to say is that solar and batteries are likely an order of ma…

I think you’re missing the point how turbine-generator works. The rpm speed has to stay the same, meaning the rotor speed doesn’t change. As long as you don’t have closed circuit you’ll waste that mechanical energy. If you meant starting from stand still position, then you’re right it takes couple minutes to pick up the load. With that said, turbines responding in couple minutes are more reliable as a baseline when y…

Reliable until it isn’t.

The entire grid is a statistical system where we define the acceptable uptime.

Renewables are as good as any other energy source bringing its own fuel, just need to take the variability into account.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/15/business/nuclear-power-fr...

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