Security wise, a much more decentralize system have some big advantages...
Yes managing intermittence have a cost, but battery is not the only solution out there.
A good diversified / complementary mix of source of energy reduce the level of the intermittence. Aside of thermal powerplant, some hydropower and biomass can be very flexible for example.
Solar and wind are so cheap now, that it make sense to build more than we need at peak, giving some extra buffer.
You can work on the demand side of electricity. Lowering the peak or making demand more flexible for example.
On the electricity storage, stationary batteries make sometime sense... EV can also play a role. There are also other solution like pumped hydro.
And thermal storage have a huge potential - and it is relatively cheap
A lot of things are going to be chasing intermittent power once it is basically free at peak solar output. Prices are going to heavily reflect that in the future.
This article and blog series appears to primarily focus on fossil fuel plants failing in extreme weather events (which are growing more frequent). This is an important dimension to track, but isn't directly comparable to "normal" reliability - ie, how much storage do you need to keep your 100% wind+solar+hydro mix providing all your typical energy needs through a typical night (for example).
Also, I don't particularly think these articles make great arguments. For example, "Similarly, 56% of the generating capacity knocked offline came from gas plants during Winter Storm Uri". Texas' overall energy capacity mix is ~40% gas. So while yes, it is disproportionate, I don't think it's hugely so, especially without taking into account other factors - for example, typical solar capacity in winter.
So it's important to take into account the reliability derating of gas plants, but it doesn't really change the fact that solar/wind are in a significantly different class of reliability compared to gas plants.
I've lived in California for my whole life. A blackout in the 80's was an anomaly. They were so rare that I remember them as being fun, a little adventure, because they were very rare.
In current year California I experience them on a regular enough basis that they are an genuine annoyance, especially because they are most common in the high heat of Summer. It's bad enough that I have invested in backup batteries for my home so I don't lose my refridgerated food and other essentials.
One can blame PG&E, Wall Street, whomever, and they certainly bear fault, but what's changed is the Federal and California energy policy. They shut down the nuclear pathway and pushed "renewables". It became a religious issue in which simply questioning the notion that we can derive all our energy needs from "clean energy" makes you a bad person.
So now California has extremely expensive energy and poor reliability. It's a mess. But you don't live in California so it's OK right, no, not really, California is where they prototype these policies and you can see them being pushed to other countries and the rest of the US.
It really comes down to the old saw that doing dumb things is ultimately bad for you, no matter how good the intentions. Now we're in the retcon phase of this process where the apologists and beneficiaries of these policies try to gaslight us into believing that it was always this bad, and that things are actually getting better instead of worse.
I agree... but it all depend on the situation. For example, existing power grid, including conventional power plant can take 20% or 30% of intermittent power with close to no extra cost... And the energy mix, the interconnections, the location, the consumption habits all have an impact on the price. Simulation at a grid level, including demand response, thermal storage... can give some precise ideas.
Note that for doing apple to apple we should also include positive and negative externalities
More than that, they should include the opportunity cost of setting aside that much land to be a polluted or sunless wasteland, fairly close to population centers.
Something like nuclear puts the large wasteland far away from dense populations, with only the small reactor close by
Where and when energy is truly needed, the sun does not shine and there is no wind.
So this is kinda futile lip-flapping in style of the German Green Party.
Sure, in Australia, which is one of the best places for renewable power in the world. Is the same thing true in Germany or the US midwest? What about in the winter when it is dark and still?
Why don't you answer the question though? Is it actually cheaper to use solar power in Michigan or Ohio than it is to use fossil fuels? Our local water company sure didn't think so, as an engineer there told me that they had been getting a lot of pressure to go 100% renewable for their pumps in the past two years but couldn't make it work cost-wise without a rate increase.
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National security mandates a functional level of baseline power capacity and current green energy diminishes that national security.
So it behoves the power utilities to deploy even more green-energy battery-based storages ... just to shore up the national security.
Yes managing intermittence have a cost, but battery is not the only solution out there.
A good diversified / complementary mix of source of energy reduce the level of the intermittence. Aside of thermal powerplant, some hydropower and biomass can be very flexible for example.
Solar and wind are so cheap now, that it make sense to build more than we need at peak, giving some extra buffer.
You can work on the demand side of electricity. Lowering the peak or making demand more flexible for example.
On the electricity storage, stationary batteries make sometime sense... EV can also play a role. There are also other solution like pumped hydro.
And thermal storage have a huge potential - and it is relatively cheap
We should try to do apples to apples here. To match the reliability provided by traditional sources, we need storage.
Any comparison between intermittent and base load generation should always include the cost to make wind/solar reliable.
See for example: https://www.ucsusa.org/about/news/new-ucs-issue-brief-examin...
Also, I don't particularly think these articles make great arguments. For example, "Similarly, 56% of the generating capacity knocked offline came from gas plants during Winter Storm Uri". Texas' overall energy capacity mix is ~40% gas. So while yes, it is disproportionate, I don't think it's hugely so, especially without taking into account other factors - for example, typical solar capacity in winter.
The blog post that actually starts digging at some numbers (https://blog.ucsusa.org/mark-specht/how-reliable-are-gas-pow...) indicates that we might expect gas plants to have a reliability of ~70-80%.
From another blogpost from them, we can find a very rough estimate of solar/onland wind reliability of ~30-40% (measured in ELCC, same as the 70-80% figure above) https://blog.ucsusa.org/mark-specht/elcc-explained-the-criti...
So it's important to take into account the reliability derating of gas plants, but it doesn't really change the fact that solar/wind are in a significantly different class of reliability compared to gas plants.
In current year California I experience them on a regular enough basis that they are an genuine annoyance, especially because they are most common in the high heat of Summer. It's bad enough that I have invested in backup batteries for my home so I don't lose my refridgerated food and other essentials.
One can blame PG&E, Wall Street, whomever, and they certainly bear fault, but what's changed is the Federal and California energy policy. They shut down the nuclear pathway and pushed "renewables". It became a religious issue in which simply questioning the notion that we can derive all our energy needs from "clean energy" makes you a bad person.
So now California has extremely expensive energy and poor reliability. It's a mess. But you don't live in California so it's OK right, no, not really, California is where they prototype these policies and you can see them being pushed to other countries and the rest of the US.
It really comes down to the old saw that doing dumb things is ultimately bad for you, no matter how good the intentions. Now we're in the retcon phase of this process where the apologists and beneficiaries of these policies try to gaslight us into believing that it was always this bad, and that things are actually getting better instead of worse.
Note that for doing apple to apple we should also include positive and negative externalities
Something like nuclear puts the large wasteland far away from dense populations, with only the small reactor close by
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