Understanding “Baseload Power” and Debunking the Myths that Surround It
Here’s an all-too-typical comment I received recently, which I present here to clarify an important point about variable energy resources, including wind and solar energy, and to clean up a common misunderstanding:
Wind power and solar, produce variable amounts of power, depending upon an unpredictable energy source.
Electricity grids and their customers are not designed to cope with this sort of dynamic. In fact, quite the opposite, all grids are designed to provide baseline power, provided by stable easily controlled generation energy, and the only problem is predicting and coping with demand variables.
There are a few fundamental errors here, the largest of which is that variable resources are unpredictable. In fact, our ability to predict the amount of energy we’ll be able to extract from the sun and the wind is at least as good as our ability to predict demand.
The concept that baseload power sources like coal and nuclear are required to maintain grid reliability is also incorrect; in fact, the entire concept of baseload is becoming an anachronism, as former Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) chief Jon Wellinghoff told reporters at a U.S. Energy Association forum a few years ago.
Here’s a short talk from energy expert Amory Lovins on the subject.
As an example of handling variable power generation from renewable resources, note how Germany handled the recent solar eclipse.
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2015/03/german-solar-ages-first-eclipse-passes-with-brief-surge-in-power-price?cmpid=rss
I found this one statement interesting “Only about 30 percent of the balancing power tendered had to be called for by the grid operators. So we haven’t been at the verge of a blackout.”
Granted they knew it was coming.
Brian
Another misperception bites the dust and another expert is coming out in agreement with my position.
No new nuclear or coal plants may ever be needed in the United States, the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said today.
“We may not need any, ever,” Jon Wellinghoff told reporters at a U.S. Energy Association forum.
The FERC chairman’s comments go beyond those of other Obama administration officials, who have strongly endorsed greater efficiency and renewables deployment but also say nuclear and fossil energies will continue playing a major role.
Actually the FERC chairman and the “other Obama administration officials” are both right. These two seemingly divergent positions are not in conflict and both agree with my long and well researched position. What I’m saying is that nuclear and fossil energies will continue playing a major role but no more new nuclear or coal fired generation plants may ever be needed in the United States and in fact building more of those would only put humanity in greater peril than it already is.
We need to be building county scale biorefineries that can produce heat, power, biofuels and agrichar if we are to upgrade humanity’s chances of survival over the long haul. And those new installations need to be both highly fuel flexible and highly process flexible.