Gnads wrote on Jun 16
th, 2018 at 6:59pm:
freediver wrote on Jun 16
th, 2018 at 11:34am:
Quote:All intermittent power requires base load power (Coal & gas) to be on line just in case
Not true, for several reasons:
batteries (of various sorts, including
pumped hydro)peaking suppliers (intermittent hydro,
gas fired plants)
demand-side arrangements
On the third point, there is no actual baseload in demand. For the most part it was a response to the historical use of coal fired plants for the majority of the supply. This lead to significant periods in each day where power was very cheap, and a lot of industries evolved to take advantage. Those industries will evolve in exactly the same way to more volatile supplies. Likewise, retail customers became psychologically accustomed to fixed prices regardless of wholesale costs, but again there is nothing fundamental there. We now have the technology cheaply available to manage retail pricing the same way as wholesale pricing. This used to be managed by, for example, having your hot water system on off-peak power, but that's a pretty crude adaptation.
If prices were more rationally matched to supply and demand, there would be all sorts of retail and industrial consumers willing to cease consumption based on the spot price. At the moment this is largely driven by politics and legacy hard investments.
Pumped hydro... ok how does the initial (salt water) get pumped up to the top dam dam? Surely not by electricity generated by coal fired power stations?
And "gas fired" power is still burning fossil fuels ... much of which would be extracted by hydraulic fracturing coal seams ... a process totally devoid of being clean or green or any other smacking colour of the rainbow.
They are typically fresh water, and yes you use electricity. It's a battery, not a net source. But you can get the energy from anywhere - most likely renewables, as they have a higher tendency to temporarily over-supply.
Gas has a lower carbon footprint than coal.
Quote:If we had reliable electricity supply the backup system would rarely be used .... with wind, solar it would be used more often .... & what does the back up system run on?
Petrol/diesel?
There are plenty of options.
Quote:Well you have found one. Why don't you tell us how much "true" baseload power is needed? Is that diffeent to "skewed" baseload power, whatever that is?
Like I keep telling you, it is a meaningless concept, invented by people struggling emotionally with the changes to the electricity industry. People who actually need an ininterruptable power supply buy one instead of relying on an imaginary network baseload.
What percentage of the demand side would you say needs true baseload power from the network? Do you agree with me that it is 0%?
Am I also correct that you do not know what you yourself mean when you say a "large" state?
That is two questions that seem to turn a climate change denier into a blubbering mess.