On 08/13/2016 12:03 PM, Robert Bruninga via EV wrote:
The grid will actually need less spinning reserves with solar than they
have now. When we think solar is "variable" then we are ignoring the fact
that when a coal or nuke or gas plant drops off line due to any number of
*routine* causes, the drop on the grid woiuld be catastrophic. Hence, the
grid already maintains spinning reserves at least equal to their biggest
single plant at any time.
Solar *never* goes down like that. Solar is quite predictable and on
partly cloudy days the clouds are not everywhere at once. So the spinning
reserve argument does not hold water when you compare the backup needed for
a centralized plant compared to distributed solar. Its just obfuscation.
An interesting situation developed in Texas a few years ago. There was
legislative stimulus to build wind and a very large industry developed
in west Texas. At the time it was building out, the "grid", ERCOT,
estimated it could accommodate no more than about 5% wind energy due to
the unpredictability. Since, the peak wind has, at times, been around
15%. Accommodating that relatively large fraction seems to be due to
high quality forecasts. I believe they need something like an hour to
bring natural gas generation up to speed to fill a shortage. The
infrastructure to get the power from west Texas to the consuming areas
in the central and eastern areas of the state was built out. It turns
out, the wind produces mostly in the evenings and nights and the
transmission infrastructure is largely unused mid-day. Now, there is
developing a large west Texas solar industry which already has the
transmission infrastructure in place.
Oops! My 15% number is a year old:
http://www.utilitydive.com/news/ercot-wind-energy-provided-record-45-of-electricity-on-dec-20/412241/
Also interesting reading:
http://www.utilitydive.com/news/ercot-wind-solar-nearly-two-thirds-new-capacity-in-2016/415715/
_______________________________________________
UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub
http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org
Read EVAngel's EV News at http://evdl.org/evln/
Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
