poweralert....

Status
Not open for further replies.
Segg said:
Negative ghost rider, what happens when the clouds move over and the wind stops blowing? You need an energy source that is instantly dispatchable for base load

When renewables are performing at their best then yes you can turn down the base load generators, but even this is very rare in countries with well established RE sectors
Click to expand...
Same as what happens when your base load throws a turbine and is down for 2 weeks.

There's more chance of catastrophic breakdown in one single big plant than hundreds of individual panels and turbines spread across the country all having simultaneous weird weather (no wind AND no sun...). So tell me what do you do when a 1800MW plant breaks at once and I'll tell you what 1800 X 1MW plants spread across the country also hit the highly unexpected everything down at the same time problem.
 
Segg said:
Negative ghost rider, what happens when the clouds move over and the wind stops blowing? You need an energy source that is instantly dispatchable for base load

When renewables are performing at their best then yes you can turn down the base load generators, but even this is very rare in countries with well established RE sectors
Click to expand...
Same as what happens when your base load throws a turbine and is down for 2 weeks.

There's more chance of catastrophic breakdown in one single big plant than hundreds of individual panels and turbines spread across the country all having simultaneous weird weather (no wind AND no sun...). So tell me what do you do when a 1800MW plant breaks at once and I'll tell you what 1800 X 1MW plants spread across the country also hit the highly unexpected everything down at the same time problem.
 
Lupus said:
Yet they are now generating over 40GW of power from the nuclear plants, while Germany can barely get 10GW out of it's 63GW of wind.
Also renewables are not more reliable, even with the EAF under 60% renewables are still half that.
Click to expand...
It doesn't matter than the EAF is only 30% if you expect it!
 
richjdavies said:
Same as what happens when your base load throws a turbine and is down for 2 weeks.

There's more chance of catastrophic breakdown in one single big plant than hundreds of individual panels and turbines spread across the country all having simultaneous weird weather (no wind AND no sun...). So tell me what do you do when a 1800MW plant breaks at once and I'll tell you what 1800 X 1MW plants spread across the country also hit the highly unexpected everything down at the same time problem.
Click to expand...

Not at all, in a properly functioning generation system with an EAF of 75% plus, renewables are much less reliable and much less dispatchable.

I'd even think that eskoms current EAF (54% IIRC) is about the same reliability as a well run renewables plant, excluding geothermal or non-pumped hydro dam
 
Segg said:
Not at all, in a properly functioning generation system with an EAF of 75% plus, renewables are much less reliable and much less dispatchable.

I'd even think that eskoms current EAF (54% IIRC) is about the same reliability as a well run renewables plant, excluding geothermal or non-pumped hydro dam
Click to expand...
The EAF is just baseload mentality.
Any competent energy planner knows that base loads are "dispatchable" either -- nuclear and coal do not change when you want them to.

A competent system will have forecasts for minute by minute energy future based on weather etc. Will have storage to dispatch and gas peakers. It's not rocket science, but it is modern grid balancing.
It's not the kind of thing old industry boys are used to, but they need to retire and leave it to smarter algorithms!
 
  • Like
Reactions: Yuu
Update:
FRI: Stage 5 from midnight until 5am, then stage 4 until further notice.
 
Brian_G said:
Update:
FRI: Stage 5 from midnight until 5am, then stage 4 until further notice.
Click to expand...
Relieved - was headed for a 4 hour slot from 6am tot 10am. Now only 2 hours.
My fridge reaches an internal temperature of around 18 degrees at the end of a 4 hour slot. Ambient in my house is around 25 degrees.
 
ajax said:
Relieved - was headed for a 4 hour slot from 6am tot 10am. Now only 2 hours.
My fridge reaches an internal temperature of around 18 degrees at the end of a 4 hour slot. Ambient in my house is around 25 degrees.
Click to expand...
Don't get your hopes up though.... they're far too unstable currently.

("current" pun unintended :giggle:)
 
ajax said:
Relieved - was headed for a 4 hour slot from 6am tot 10am. Now only 2 hours.
My fridge reaches an internal temperature of around 18 degrees at the end of a 4 hour slot. Ambient in my house is around 25 degrees.
Click to expand...
Full all the empty space in your fridge with water bottles.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X