Energy Storage Replace Gas Plants

[Wombat + 1,028]

On 5/5/2020 at 10:18 AM, markslawson said:

I can take the debate on this a little further. Leaving aside mere variations in the wind, one problem with Europe's wind power efforts is that there are long periods when there is no wind at all. A high pressure system arrives and basically stays for days, even weeks, meaning little wind over a wide area. It is not possible to build enough storage to tide grids over such periods. In Australia, wind varies but does not die for days at a time - at least to judge from the sites that track wind energy in South Eastern Australia. The longest period of low activity I saw was maybe two days. Wind power still does not make much sense in Australia but maybe it makes more sense than in Europe, for what that is worth. 

Actually, both wind AND solar make sense in Australia now, coal and NG no longer. Victoria building large wind farm in Bass Strait that will power 1.1 million homes.

[Wombat + 1,028]

On 5/5/2020 at 10:28 AM, KeyboardWarrior said:

Maybe, but consider the fact that much of it is government intervention. You say a fossil fuel plant would take longer because of permits, but that's just Cali for you. 

 

Slow down. Two things: Combined cycle plants will improve too, and 40% is pretty god damned high for 5 years of R&D. Are costs still giong to decrease if efficiency increases? Probably not for a while. Here's the real kicker. If you reach 40%, you'll be equal to combined cycle plants in their current state, not ahead; and probably not ahead of the future designs especially. This is good enough for me, but not good enough for your claims and your agenda (indicated by comments you make later). 

I'm not strictly anti solar, but people are getting way ahead of themselves when touting the death of oil. It will come.. in 150 years maybe. Its replacement probably won't be what you'd expect either. If we quit strangling nuclear power, that will become the dominant and most profitable energy solution. 

I disagree, think you should search this site for Perovskite solar cells. Looks like they on the way. Many on this blog do not bother to read the articles, despite their profound potential effect on O&G industry.

[Wombat + 1,028]

On 5/5/2020 at 10:32 AM, markslawson said:

I side with the other posters on this. The reports talk of MW rather than MWh so they don't really mean anything. You want both max output and total storage. Other points always missing in these stories is how does the capacity (when correctly stated) compare with the overall max/min grid load, and what do the owners intend to do with the battery? Peak load management, frequency control management or output replacement? Or whatever earns money I guess. As matters stand the journalist seems to have cut and pasted the press release without asking basic questions. I was a journalist for 38 years, and I am sad for my profession.   

Makes no difference. They will be used for all of the above, peak load management AND frequency control management AND output replacement. That is the beauty of batteries. Point of the article is simply that: "They are coming now"! No need for technical details?

[Wombat + 1,028]

On 5/5/2020 at 10:53 AM, Coffeeguyzz said:

Mr. KeyboardWarrior

The newest  iterations of Combined Cycle are in the 62/64% range regarding energy efficiency (measured in heat potential in versus power out, also measured in heat potential).

The ongoing innovations with these H Frame units are extremely impressive, as is also - in all fairness - the engineering improvements in the Renewable field.

However, it cannot be sufficiently emphasized, that the quick ramp up/load off characteristics of the CCGPs just blow the doors off alternative producers that are currently on the market.

 

Massive 1,500 Megawatt plants going up all over the USA (Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, Michigan to mention just a few) have ~30 fulltime employees, do not burn fuel in low revenue time frames throughout the 24 hour cycle, and can be turned online with the flick of a switch.

The "Bible" of this comparative Cost of Electricity stuff is the brief (19 page?) pdf easily downloadable from Lazard.

Looking at the data on pages #11 and #18 (18 containing the ... skewed ... parameters), one should quickly recognize the overwhelming advantages of CCGPs.

This, in fact, is why they are rapidly being built out in Bangladesh, Brazil, Vietnam, Mexico ... all over the globe with LNG-supplying FSRUs being the final piece of the puzzle.

Goodbye coal?

[NickW + 2,714]

41 minutes ago, Wombat said:

Wrong. China already has a hybrid grid. Half is AC, half is high-voltage DC (which is able to transmit 4X as far for same heat loss). V = IR, P = IV = I2R. That is, heat loss proportional to square of current. That is why we use step-up transformers for AC transmission. High voltage, lower current. AC = 500,000V but DC 1,000,000V.

Where exactly am I  wrong?  I'm well aware of the benefits of HVDC for long distance transmission however the fact remains that China will need large amounts of Copper / Aluminium & steel to built the transmission lines or have the CCP managed to reduce the distance between Tibet and the Eastern provinces? 

[Wombat + 1,028]

On 5/5/2020 at 11:56 PM, Douglas Buckland said:

Damn!!! I think I agree with Marcin! Might be time for a good head shake...😂

No Doug, you should never agree with Marcin. He doesn't have much grey matter between his ears and forgot to tell you how much 20 years of NG would cost to burn? That is the life of a battery.

[Wombat + 1,028]

On 5/6/2020 at 7:52 AM, KeyboardWarrior said:

Desalination is energy intensive enough to take any additional power a solar farm will produce. In fact, solar won't be there enough of the time to keep the plants online. Not without storage or plant throttling.

Plant throttling, btw, is a great way to increase capital expenditure without getting a notable increase in returns. Imagine overbuilding a plant to twice its capacity just to make use of extra power here and there, effectively using the addition about 25% of the time and generating shitty returns. 

A drought is a drought. Plant throttling cannot be avoided. It is just another cost of climate change that the deniers "deny"? Maybe there should be variable water charges? Cheap when the dams are full, triple during drought times? Say when overall dam capacity below 50%?

[Wombat + 1,028]

On 5/6/2020 at 8:14 AM, Jay McKinsey said:

Ignoring the fuel cost is not the best way of looking at this stuff.

Haha, that is what I pointed out but it seems u beat me to it. I am only half-way thru this thread

[NickW + 2,714]

53 minutes ago, Wombat said:

Wrong. Once a few more of your LNG plants completed over next 24 months, Henry Hub natural gas price will jump to at least $4/mmbtu, and will be EVEN LESS COMPETITIVE with solar/battery.

Ron and others here usually fails to see that that  domestic solar / battery has to compete with retail not wholesale prices. 

[Wombat + 1,028]

On 5/6/2020 at 1:21 PM, Jay McKinsey said:

Well I'm not a fancy engineer, just a lowly economist, but in my quick research I came across numerous resources describing how batteries excel at voltage regulation through both active and reactive power supply and "battery-based energy storage can provide inertial response for system reliability much more efficiently, at a lower cost and with substantially reduced emissions than a much larger quantity of thermal generation." https://www.energy-storage.news/blogs/digital-inertia-energy-storage-can-stabilise-grid-with-1-10-the-capacity-of

What is more, the O&G industry is seasonal, so why not have a seasonal H2 industry? You build enough solar + wind capacity to supply 70% of summer/winter peaks, then ramp up H2 production in autumn/fall and store it to supplement summer/winter peaks? I am sure this would work for Florida/California?

[NickW + 2,714]

16 hours ago, pisstol said:

Mr. McKinsey:

I don't have enough time to read and I might have missed something. But I don't know if you have considered the worsening trade relations between the US and China. An American utility not might be able to buy solar panels from China at some point -- maybe in a few months. If a panel failed, I assume that a replacement made in Maylasia or somewhere else could be bought. And if a battery failed, a replacement could be bought from somewhere else. But at what cost? Don't most of the panels come from China? Batteries don't last long. Will the replacement batteries at electric utilities cost twice as much if they don't come from China?

Solar panels are modular. If one panel fails on your 5 MW solar farm you then have a 4.9997MW solar farm.

Stationary deep cycle batteries last for decades. You are assuming the utility lifespan for an EV  /car starter  battery is relevant to stationary storage - it isn't. The battery just declines slowly in capacity.  Over time rhe operator may have to buy a few more to maintain the same storage capacity.  

Edited May 7, 2020 by NickW

[Wombat + 1,028]

On 5/6/2020 at 1:45 PM, nsdp said:

You need to ignore the sales pitches that sales engineers put up on the web.  Pay attention to IEEE spectrum for what  meets the reserve requirements of N-1 conditions of NERC standards.

"

Severe voltage drops, for example, hobble SVCs, whose reactive power output drops at double the rate of line voltage. In contrast, a synchronous condenser’s spinning rotor keeps on pumping out reactive power. It will also generate real power if needed, moderating the drop in AC frequency that would result, say, from shutting down a power plant.

And the condenser’s output can briefly handle several times its rated capacity for tens of seconds as its metal components heat up temporarily—behavior that is not possible for devices relying on comparatively fragile silicon switches. “Because they’re iron and copper, they have a lot of overload capability. You can’t overload silicon significantly,” says Nicholas Miller, a power systems expert with GE Energy Consulting, in Schenectady, N.Y.  https://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/the-smarter-grid/zombie-coal-plants-reanimated-to-stabilize-the-grid  and

To emulate the inertial behavior of massive rotating equipment, a renewable generator must somehow find extra power quick. Québec's wind turbines do so through a collaboration between the turbines' solid-state power electronics and their moving parts. "When the wind turbines see an imbalance between load and generation that causes a frequency deviation on the system they’re able to … extract some kinetic energy that is stored in the rotating masses of the wind turbines,” explains Aubut.

 

 

 

During a December 2015 transformer failure that took more than 1,600-MW of power generation offline, synthetic inertia kicked in 126 MW of extra power to arrest the resulting frequency drop. Quebec’s AC frequency bottomed out at 59.1 hertz – well below its 60-hertz standard – but Aubut and his colleagues estimate that it would have dropped a further 0.1-0.2-hz without the synthetic inertia. And they estimate that this was roughly the same contribution that conventional power plants would have provided.

"If we had had only synchronous generation instead of wind with the same event and operating conditions, we’d have had about the same deviation,” says Aubut.

 

The trouble, says Aubut, is what happens after the frequency drop. In all but the strongest wind conditions providing synthetic inertia will slow a wind turbine's rotor. Re-accelerating to optimal speed thereafter absorbs some of the wind power that the turbine can export to the grid. Data from ENERCON shows power reductions of up to 60 percent in some turbines.

This energy recovery phase delays the grid’s frequency recovery. After Québec’s December 2015 transformer event, for example, the system frequency flat-lined for several seconds at 59.4 Hz before additional power reserves could push it back to 60. Under different conditions, says Aubut, that post-inertia recovery could have actually caused a “double-dip” in system frequency, increasing the risk of triggering protective relays at substations and causing blackouts. 

Hydro-Québec is revising its synthetic inertia to minimize the risk of a double-dip. It plans to limit power reduction during recovery to no more than 20 percent of a wind turbine’s capacity. Turbine manufacturers are already testing second-generation synthetic inertia systems that comply with the new standard. 

 

ENERCON presented an upgraded synthetic inertia control scheme at last year’s Wind Integration Workshop. Whereas the first generation of ENERCON Inertia Emulation revved rotors back to their optimal speed as quickly as possible, the new scheme uses power estimation and closed-loop control to enable smooth and tunable re-acceleration. https://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/renewables/can-synthetic-inertia-stabilize-power-grids

 

Markus Fischer, ENERCON’s Montreal-based regional manager for grid integration, says the upgraded scheme showed "promising results" in tests on full scale turbines and commercial rollout is “expected to happen in the near future.” Retrofitting its first generation machines, he says, will require no added hardware. 

 

Synthetic inertia requirements, meanwhile, may be spreading. Grid operators in Ontario and Brazil have already joined Hydro-Québec’s lead, and Fischer says the first harmonized grid code for European generators, which entered into force earlier this year, “opens the doors to European system operators to ask for inertial response from wind.”https://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/renewables/can-synthetic-inertia-stabilize-power-grids

Currrent NERC reliability regulations don't allow synthetic inertia due to the double dip and the 2X rate of voltage collapse.

 

 

On 5/6/2020 at 1:45 PM, nsdp said:

You need to ignore the sales pitches that sales engineers put up on the web.  Pay attention to IEEE spectrum for what  meets the reserve requirements of N-1 conditions of NERC standards.

"

Severe voltage drops, for example, hobble SVCs, whose reactive power output drops at double the rate of line voltage. In contrast, a synchronous condenser’s spinning rotor keeps on pumping out reactive power. It will also generate real power if needed, moderating the drop in AC frequency that would result, say, from shutting down a power plant.

And the condenser’s output can briefly handle several times its rated capacity for tens of seconds as its metal components heat up temporarily—behavior that is not possible for devices relying on comparatively fragile silicon switches. “Because they’re iron and copper, they have a lot of overload capability. You can’t overload silicon significantly,” says Nicholas Miller, a power systems expert with GE Energy Consulting, in Schenectady, N.Y.  https://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/the-smarter-grid/zombie-coal-plants-reanimated-to-stabilize-the-grid  and

To emulate the inertial behavior of massive rotating equipment, a renewable generator must somehow find extra power quick. Québec's wind turbines do so through a collaboration between the turbines' solid-state power electronics and their moving parts. "When the wind turbines see an imbalance between load and generation that causes a frequency deviation on the system they’re able to … extract some kinetic energy that is stored in the rotating masses of the wind turbines,” explains Aubut.

 

 

 

During a December 2015 transformer failure that took more than 1,600-MW of power generation offline, synthetic inertia kicked in 126 MW of extra power to arrest the resulting frequency drop. Quebec’s AC frequency bottomed out at 59.1 hertz – well below its 60-hertz standard – but Aubut and his colleagues estimate that it would have dropped a further 0.1-0.2-hz without the synthetic inertia. And they estimate that this was roughly the same contribution that conventional power plants would have provided.

"If we had had only synchronous generation instead of wind with the same event and operating conditions, we’d have had about the same deviation,” says Aubut.

 

The trouble, says Aubut, is what happens after the frequency drop. In all but the strongest wind conditions providing synthetic inertia will slow a wind turbine's rotor. Re-accelerating to optimal speed thereafter absorbs some of the wind power that the turbine can export to the grid. Data from ENERCON shows power reductions of up to 60 percent in some turbines.

This energy recovery phase delays the grid’s frequency recovery. After Québec’s December 2015 transformer event, for example, the system frequency flat-lined for several seconds at 59.4 Hz before additional power reserves could push it back to 60. Under different conditions, says Aubut, that post-inertia recovery could have actually caused a “double-dip” in system frequency, increasing the risk of triggering protective relays at substations and causing blackouts. 

Hydro-Québec is revising its synthetic inertia to minimize the risk of a double-dip. It plans to limit power reduction during recovery to no more than 20 percent of a wind turbine’s capacity. Turbine manufacturers are already testing second-generation synthetic inertia systems that comply with the new standard. 

 

ENERCON presented an upgraded synthetic inertia control scheme at last year’s Wind Integration Workshop. Whereas the first generation of ENERCON Inertia Emulation revved rotors back to their optimal speed as quickly as possible, the new scheme uses power estimation and closed-loop control to enable smooth and tunable re-acceleration. https://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/renewables/can-synthetic-inertia-stabilize-power-grids

 

Markus Fischer, ENERCON’s Montreal-based regional manager for grid integration, says the upgraded scheme showed "promising results" in tests on full scale turbines and commercial rollout is “expected to happen in the near future.” Retrofitting its first generation machines, he says, will require no added hardware. 

 

Synthetic inertia requirements, meanwhile, may be spreading. Grid operators in Ontario and Brazil have already joined Hydro-Québec’s lead, and Fischer says the first harmonized grid code for European generators, which entered into force earlier this year, “opens the doors to European system operators to ask for inertial response from wind.”https://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/renewables/can-synthetic-inertia-stabilize-power-grids

Currrent NERC reliability regulations don't allow synthetic inertia due to the double dip and the 2X rate of voltage collapse.

 

 

 

 

 

All the more reason to require that wind farms should be forced to allocate 20% of production to battery storage!

 

[NickW + 2,714]

1 hour ago, Wombat said:

Wrong. China already has a hybrid grid. Half is AC, half is high-voltage DC (which is able to transmit 4X as far for same heat loss). V = IR, P = IV = I2R. That is, heat loss proportional to square of current. That is why we use step-up transformers for AC transmission. High voltage, lower current. AC = 500,000V but DC 1,000,000V.

Putting aside transmission issues Tibet really does look like Chinas 'Saudi Arabia' of wind and solar. if they utilise both then that would make for more efficient use of the HVDC network. 

https://globalwindatlas.info/

https://globalsolaratlas.info/map?c=10.228437,69.082031,3

[Wombat + 1,028]

On 5/6/2020 at 1:54 PM, nsdp said:

Hornsdale also collapsed and blacked out the entire South Australia grid.  

The reason they(Hornsdale) did not get paid was the reactive was not dynamic reactive power able to perform through a voltage collapse.   Walter Heisenberg proved that won't happen.  something to do with Quantum Mechanics and electrons and order of multiplication inside the Matrix. .

Rubbish, SA Blackout had nothing to do with Hornsdale. The battery was not built until AFTER the blackout. As a physicist, I can assure that the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle or Shrodinger's equation not relevant either. All you need to know about is "back emf". The cyclone that hit SA was unprecedented, first one ever. First, the wind farms stopped due to hitting max speed, so all SA electricity was coming from the interconnector with Victoria. But the storm was so powerful, it destroyed the interconnector towers, toppled them! That was why Hornsdale was built, and second interconnector being built (to NSW), plus small pumped hydro facility, plus new gas-fired stations with quick-start capacity that opened last year. Hornsdale capacity will be increased by 50% in next few months, can you imagine why?

[Wombat + 1,028]

On 5/6/2020 at 2:22 PM, KeyboardWarrior said:

Wow. Read carefully, because apparently what I'm about to say wasn't obvious.

I'm talking about how the energy efficiency translates to percent return on invested capital. In order for solar to match the returns of combined cycle, it will need to reach efficiencies somewhere in the order of 30%-40%.

Do you want me to lay out the math?

Looks like @Jay McKinsey didn't understand this either. "great reply" my ass. 

Don't bother, ur math is crap. U need to go back to school first.

[Wombat + 1,028]

On 5/6/2020 at 2:33 PM, KeyboardWarrior said:

Should also have been obvious since combined cycle is 55% efficiency and I claimed that 40% was on par with this. Hmm.. must have been something missing there eh? Maybe read the first post I made where I laid out the 20 year return?

 

 

You missed SOMETHING? Try EVERYTHING!

[Wombat + 1,028]

On 5/6/2020 at 3:08 PM, nsdp said:

you are hitting about  180X the cost of hydrogen storage built using current oil field technology.  A Hydrogen powered turbine    You have cherry picked the NERC Rules and ignored the N-1 system reliability standards which are not permissible for multiple reasons.  I can tell that NERC regs are uncharted waters for you and it is about as dangerous  to use Google search on them as using Google search on the United States criminal code.  Let me know when you take the course , pass the test and get the certificate below.

IEEE04082018.pdf 361.93 kB · 2 downloads

Where do you plan to get the H2 from? I bet u love they grey and blue stuff, not the green stuff right?

[Wombat + 1,028]

20 hours ago, Jay McKinsey said:

The problem with relying on using free excess electricity is that it only happens for a couple hours a day and all storage technologies will be competing for that free power, which means it won't be free anymore. Ultracapacitors are the best tech for rapidly absorbing that excess energy. The electricity will then be made available through the day for all other demands and at a market price.

Electricity only has a 5% energy loss in transmission and distribution so gas doesn't make up much for its low efficiency in that regard. And it will suffer from the same distribution losses, so the recovered efficiency will only be for the transmission part of the equation. https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=105&t=3

We do need long term storage for system reliability backup and some seasonal shifting. But this won't be a booming market sector. I suspect that the solution we settle on for powering heavy transport and flight will also be the most economical solution for electrical backup because of industry scale.

 

 

 

I disagree. Here in Australia, we have barely scratched the surface when it comes to solar/wind penetration, yet wholesale price regularly hits down-limit of minus $1000. Seasonal shifting will indeed become booming market sector, including batteries, H2, and pumped Hydro.

[Wombat + 1,028]

17 hours ago, NickW said:

Also buys one hell of a gas import bill. 

Again and again I hear this argument which completely overlooks the fact the UK is now a major importer of gas - approx. half its requirement. 

They no longer import any coal though?

[NickW + 2,714]

15 minutes ago, Wombat said:

They no longer import any coal though?

The UK uses very little coal now. Remaining coal fired plants are used sparingly over the winter. Drax has largely been converted to wood chip (I don't agree with that as its mostly imported wood chip) . Some people still use solid fuel heating. The steel industry uses about 3 million tonnes of coke. Interestingly a new metallurgical coal mine is opening in Cumbria which will mine about 3 million tonnes per annum. 

The invisible import of coal fired electricity comes from Europe - more specially Germany's coal fired plants. 

So yes - wind farms in the UK basically reduce the UK's gas import bill. 

[Wombat + 1,028]

2 hours ago, NickW said:

Where exactly am I  wrong?  I'm well aware of the benefits of HVDC for long distance transmission however the fact remains that China will need large amounts of Copper / Aluminium & steel to built the transmission lines or have the CCP managed to reduce the distance between Tibet and the Eastern provinces? 

It will still be cheaper than importing coal and LNG?

[NickW + 2,714]

8 minutes ago, Wombat said:

It will still be cheaper than importing coal and LNG?

No doubt and will also have energy security* benefits for China

* another aspect of solar / wind that many on here overlook as regards net energy importers. 

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

1 hour ago, Wombat said:

Don't bother, ur math is crap. U need to go back to school first.

Okay retard, might want to demonstrate why. I don't have time for people who are just going to ignore numbers. 

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

3 hours ago, Wombat said:

I disagree, think you should search this site for Perovskite solar cells. Looks like they on the way. Many on this blog do not bother to read the articles, despite their profound potential effect on O&G industry.

Yea, max 33% which finally makes them worth it IF capital costs either stay the same or go down and IF they're in a desert. Opportunity cost for commodity synthesis (syngas, ammonia, etc) is still too high since selling the power directly is more profitable. 

[Wombat + 1,028]

13 minutes ago, KeyboardWarrior said:

Okay retard, might want to demonstrate why. I don't have time for people who are just going to ignore numbers. 

I will ask again, how much does 20 years worth of NG to feed a generator cost? As Dan said, photons are free.