Court reserves judgement in climate activists' case against 3,000MW gas power plant

[Cosmik Debris]

Modern engines are online in seconds

No, they have to start and then warm up before load can be applied. Sudden load on a cold diesel running at generation speed will drastically reduce it's life. Modern software will wait for the diesel to be warm and increase the speed gradually to generation speed depending on temperature.

Once at generation speed (Essential because the frequency of the electricity is dependent on the speed of the generator) the software will synchronise the phases of the generator with the power being supplied and then switch it on line. An unsynchronised generator switched on line can cause catastrophic damage to the diesel engine or generator.

This can be done manually too but requires experience.

 

[Cosmik Debris]

Nothttps://diysolarforum.com/threads/lifepo4-battery-site-fire-safety.36695/.

Just one site regarding LiFePO4 fires. The reason a battery shed should be built for your battery bank far away from anything that can burn:

If you put enough heat on a LIFEPO4 Pack it will vent gas out of the cells, that gas will light like propane if enough is vented, then you will have to wait as your whole bank burns down. the BMS protections handle internal fires, not external.

LIFEPO4 battery site fire safety

NFPA 855 https://www.nfpa.org/codes-and-standards/all-codes-and-standards/list-of-codes-and-standards/detail?code=855 One thing about ESS systems that is often overlooked is the requirement to keep flammable materials over 4ft away in all directions. It's not as much about the batteries...

diysolarforum.com

 

[wingnut771]

Just one site regarding LiFePO4 fires. The reason a battery shed should be built for your battery bank far away from anything that can burn:

If you put enough heat on a LIFEPO4 Pack it will vent gas out of the cells, that gas will light like propane if enough is vented, then you will have to wait as your whole bank burns down. the BMS protections handle internal fires, not external.

LIFEPO4 battery site fire safety

NFPA 855 https://www.nfpa.org/codes-and-standards/all-codes-and-standards/list-of-codes-and-standards/detail?code=855 One thing about ESS systems that is often overlooked is the requirement to keep flammable materials over 4ft away in all directions. It's not as much about the batteries...

diysolarforum.com

 

[Spizz]

No, they have to start and then warm up before load can be applied. Sudden load on a cold diesel running at generation speed will drastically reduce it's life. Modern software will wait for the diesel to be warm and increase the speed gradually to generation speed depending on temperature.

Once at generation speed (Essential because the frequency of the electricity is dependent on the speed of the generator) the software will synchronise the phases of the generator with the power being supplied and then switch it on line. An unsynchronised generator switched on line can cause catastrophic damage to the diesel engine or generator.

This can be done manually too but requires experience.

You’re reading the wrong things dude. I do this for a living and have built numerous engine power plants. Gas/dual fuel engines can go to full load in typically 30 seconds and the dual fuel variety have LFO/HFO stored at temperature. Optimisation can have the max load achieved in a few seconds from cold to 100% if customer requires.

Combustion Engine vs Gas Turbine - Ramp rate - Wärtsilä Energy

Wärtsilä engines can ramp at over 100%/minute, much faster than gas turbines. Ramp rate – the rate at which a power plant can increase or decrease output.

www.wartsila.com

I’m off to the whisky show in Cape Town but I’ll gladly pick up the conversation tomorrow if my head is clear

 

[Cosmik Debris]

You’re reading the wrong things dude. I do this for a living and have built numerous engine power plants. Gas/dual fuel engines can go to full load in typically 30 seconds and the dual fuel variety have LFO/HFO stored at temperature. Optimisation can have the max load achieved in a few seconds from cold to 100% if customer requires.

Combustion Engine vs Gas Turbine - Ramp rate - Wärtsilä Energy

Wärtsilä engines can ramp at over 100%/minute, much faster than gas turbines. Ramp rate – the rate at which a power plant can increase or decrease output.

www.wartsila.com

I’m off to the whisky show in Cape Town but I’ll gladly pick up the conversation tomorrow if my head is clear

My living too at one stage with Siemens SCADA systems running Mercedes diesel engines via Siemens PLC's. Trained at Siemens in Erlangen, Germany and MTU at Friedrichshafen, Germany. Trained at General Electric in the USA on Gas Turbines and in Rotterdam, the Netherlands on their control systems.

Any customer that asks for load at 100% from start within a few seconds has lots of money to spare.

In my experience a customer that needed a standby generator on a cold diesel from start to full load in 7 seconds due to a power failure had to be supplied with a large expensive Rolls Royce diesel as it was the only engine that could withstand the stresses for the years it may have been needed for.

I'm not talking home or small plant generating systems here. This is big stuff I'm talking about. Not diesel generators in a container.

Normal diesel generating plants with diesels constantly on line like the Karpowerships with multiple diesel engines run to warm before switching the load on line when more power is required. Otherwise maintenace requirements and relevant costs are increased dramatically.

 

[Cosmik Debris]

Combustion Engine vs Gas Turbine - Ramp rate - Wärtsilä Energy

Wärtsilä engines can ramp at over 100%/minute, much faster than gas turbines. Ramp rate – the rate at which a power plant can increase or decrease output.

www.wartsila.com

Regarding your ramp rate, the engine is already warm and running on line when the ramp rate is increased or decreased. It's not from a cold start:

One measure of this flexibility is ramp rate – the rate at which a power plant can increase or decrease output. Wärtsilä engines can ramp at over 100%/minute.

Flexible generating units help provide stability to the electric grid by ramping output up or down as demand and system loads fluctuate.

The increase or reduction in output per minute in spinning mode is called the ramp rate and is usually expressed either as% per minute or MW per minute.

 

[Oldfut]

You’re reading the wrong things dude. I do this for a living and have built numerous engine power plants. Gas/dual fuel engines can go to full load in typically 30 seconds and the dual fuel variety have LFO/HFO stored at temperature. Optimisation can have the max load achieved in a few seconds from cold to 100% if customer requires.

Combustion Engine vs Gas Turbine - Ramp rate - Wärtsilä Energy

Wärtsilä engines can ramp at over 100%/minute, much faster than gas turbines. Ramp rate – the rate at which a power plant can increase or decrease output.

www.wartsila.com

I’m off to the whisky show in Cape Town but I’ll gladly pick up the conversation tomorrow if my head is clear

In SA? I ask as I am aware of relatively few engine plants, none dual fuel. To provide 100% quickly the engine does have to be warm (the oil) and the gas purged. Even then, takes a little while to get to speed and synchronise, luck if it is seconds. The dual fuel (gas/oil) must be interesting as regards the injection/carburettor system as the gas engines I was involved with (GE Jenbacher) typically run with the fuel control full open. Power is (cleverly) controlled by turbo boost.

Heard today that City of Cape Town has a few of these engines standing idle waiting for electrical connection I believe.

 

[Spizz]

Combustion Engine vs Gas Turbine - Ramp rate - Wärtsilä Energy

Wärtsilä engines can ramp at over 100%/minute, much faster than gas turbines. Ramp rate – the rate at which a power plant can increase or decrease output.

www.wartsila.com

Regarding your ramp rate, the engine is already warm and running on line when the ramp rate is increased or decreased. It's not from a cold start:

One measure of this flexibility is ramp rate – the rate at which a power plant can increase or decrease output. Wärtsilä engines can ramp at over 100%/minute.

Flexible generating units help provide stability to the electric grid by ramping output up or down as demand and system loads fluctuate.

The increase or reduction in output per minute in spinning mode is called the ramp rate and is usually expressed either as% per minute or MW per minute.

Some reading for you in the meantime. I built one of these…

StackPath

www.centrica.com

 

[Johnatan56]

Even if you are a retarded environmentalist and believe all the climate change nonsense, the fact is that natural gas plant emits less than half the CO2 per kwh than Eskom's 40 year old coal power stations (and this is being very conservative in terms of estimation, Eskom's plants are notorious for being major pollutants) . If SA switched entirely over to natural gas fracked from the Karoo and elsewhere, we would be able to half the country's CO2 emissions from energy. That gives the economy time to grow whilst renewable energy projects come online to fill the gap until the country can switch over to nuclear power entirely.

A sane environmentally friendly plan to fix the energy shortage is this:
1) Switch from coal to natural gas immediately for base load and retire all coal power stations -> 50% + reduction in CO2 without further destroying economy. Natural gas stations should be able to handle base load and peaking load by design.
2) Start building nuclear power stations.
3) While nuclear power stations are being built, start building renewable energy plants. As renewable energy projects come online, switch natural gas projects over to peaking load.
4) Once nuclear power stations come online, you can start phasing out natural gas.

Renewable is as fast or faster to build than gas plants.

Most if not all the gas would need to be imported, don't think there are any major reserves South Africa is tapping into, and options like there in the garden route are not good, they would destroy the entire area, and the Karoo fracking is a bad idea with how the water situation is already there.

And that while nuclear is dumb, nuclear best case is 8 years, that's without scoping, delays, etc. And it's one of the most expensive ways to generate power. Would make no sense if you can build renewable in the mean time that comes online as and when it's done without the risk of contaminating an area, the issue of storage, South Africa's corruption, etc

Right now, battery in conjunction with renewable is cheaper than gas.

Also battery storage you're talking about within a few second response time, gas is not a few second but rather tens of minutes, it is way faster than coal (and nuclear is peak permanently).

 

[Spizz]

Renewable is as fast or faster to build than gas plants.

Most if not all the gas would need to be imported, don't think there are any major reserves South Africa is tapping into, and options like there in the garden route are not good, they would destroy the entire area, and the Karoo fracking is a bad idea with how the water situation is already there.

And that while nuclear is dumb, nuclear best case is 8 years, that's without scoping, delays, etc. And it's one of the most expensive ways to generate power. Would make no sense if you can build renewable in the mean time that comes online as and when it's done without the risk of contaminating an area, the issue of storage, South Africa's corruption, etc

Right now, battery in conjunction with renewable is cheaper than gas.

Also battery storage you're talking about within a few second response time, gas is not a few second but rather tens of minutes, it is way faster than coal (and nuclear is peak permanently).

Gas is seconds.

 

[Johnatan56]

Gas is seconds.

Just stealing this from: https://www.wartsila.com/energy/lea...ns/combustion-engine-vs-gas-turbine-ramp-rate
The Wärtsilä is a combustion engine, they state 2 minutes, not seconds. Normal gas plants are over 5 minutes.

They are never <10 seconds (10% to 100% load is around 42 seconds based on that article, but that's with it already spinning, not cold).

 

[Cosmik Debris]

Gas is seconds.

Gas Turbine or Gas fueled Internal Combustion Engine?

 

[Geoff.D]

Even if you are a retarded environmentalist and believe all the climate change nonsense, the fact is that natural gas plant emits less than half the CO2 per kwh than Eskom's 40 year old coal power stations (and this is being very conservative in terms of estimation, Eskom's plants are notorious for being major pollutants) . If SA switched entirely over to natural gas fracked from the Karoo and elsewhere, we would be able to half the country's CO2 emissions from energy. That gives the economy time to grow whilst renewable energy projects come online to fill the gap until the country can switch over to nuclear power entirely.

A sane environmentally friendly plan to fix the energy shortage is this:
1) Switch from coal to natural gas immediately for base load and retire all coal power stations -> 50% + reduction in CO2 without further destroying economy. Natural gas stations should be able to handle base load and peaking load by design.
2) Start building nuclear power stations.
3) While nuclear power stations are being built, start building renewable energy plants. As renewable energy projects come online, switch natural gas projects over to peaking load.
4) Once nuclear power stations come online, you can start phasing out natural gas.

Just leave that fracking idea where it belongs --- in the USA. The Karoo cannot afford ANY tampering with the already precarious water supply and underground water table.

 

[Geoff.D]

The world needs more carbon. If the CO2 levels drop below 170ppm, all plant life dies. It is currently around 470ppm thanks to us. It has been at over 2000ppm with no disaster. There is historically very little cerrelation between CO2 levels and Temperature

At least one other person on myBB knows the facts.

 

[Cosmik Debris]

Some reading for you in the meantime. I built one of these…

StackPath

www.centrica.com

Yes, when running already. Not from cold start:

Capable of producing enough power to meet the needs of 100,000 homes, the 50MW* facilities have been designed to respond to peaks in demand within two minutes.

The plants each comprise 5 x 9.8MW engines, delivering a total capacity of 49MW.

I would love to see any 9.8 MW diesel engine going from cold start to full on line 100% output in seconds.

Engines that size have electric motors the size of swimming pool pumps as oil priming pumps to pump oil around before and during starting as it takes a while for oil to reach all the working parts from the engine driven oil pump(s). They are also turned over with decompression cocks open to make sure there is no hydraulic lock in one or more of the cylinders before starting.

What was your function in the build of the plant?

 

[wingnut771]

Which is cheaper to buy/build, a 50MW turbine or a 50MW Internal Combustion Engine?

 

[Cosmik Debris]

If SA switched entirely over to natural gas fracked from the Karoo

The result of fracking in Pennsylvania, USA:

Fracking Chemicals Found in Pennsylvania Drinking Water | The Takeaway | WNYC Studios

In Bradford County, Pennsylvania, new research has found that a chemical used in fracking operations has made its way into drinking water that was sampled from three homes in the region.

www.wnycstudios.org

 

[Cosmik Debris]

Which is cheaper to buy/build, a 50MW turbine or a 50MW Internal Combustion Engine?

Steam or gas turbine?

 

[wingnut771]

Steam or gas turbine?

Karpowership type vs OCGT/CCGT.

 

[Cosmik Debris]

Renewable is as fast or faster to build than gas plants.

Sure. But the distribution lines have to be built to serve the areas most suitable for wind and solar which have little infrastructure due to being so remote and sparsely populated. High capacity distribution lines in those areas are rare. You're talking thousands of km of HV powerline.