Future power systems with today's weather

by deverton • 2 years ago

71 29 2 years ago

That's very cool.

On the default mix over the full time period I see a price spike immediately after it starts in 2015 and then a few more then it settles down by 2020. Is that just an artefact of storage not being built up?

raphaelj• 2 years ago

Looks like the demands gets lower over the years, so my guess is that the stress on storage and hydrogen gets lower, and thus the price lower too

Tade02• 2 years ago

Hydrogen might prove too nasty for long-term storage.

Methanol on the other hand can be produced from syngas, so hydrogen and CO:

https://netl.doe.gov/research/carbon-management/energy-syste...

konschubert• 2 years ago

It’s expensive to capture co2 though. And once you do that, it’s cheaper to sequester the co2 and burn nat gas.

Certhas2• 2 years ago

Sequestration at scale isn't free and isn't proven technology. Carbon Capture and Storage is clearly a part of the picture for a carbon neutral economy, we are too late to do without it. But I don't think we have a full picture yet of the relative importance of sequestration vs syngas.

euroderf• 2 years ago

In summers there can be virtually unlimited sunlight near the poles. Think: Scandinavia.

So what's an easy-to-store way to stockpile it? Methanol? Ammonia? What else?

I'm thinking household-scale here. DIY.

ZeroGravitas4• 2 years ago

Or import it as gas/liquids from other countries, which probably accounts for the majority of energy in the majority of countries today.

EVs and renewables will decrease the amount of imports needed for most countries, but a reduced amount might still be needed for some nations.

Only difference will be a less cartelized supply since there's a lot of countries that can set up solar and wind for export.

trashtester• 2 years ago

The intensity is low, though, and the weather can be rough on panels in the winter. If it's possible to stockpile the energy in fluid/gas form, it's better to produce it in Sahara and then ship it to wherever it's needed.

Tade02• 2 years ago

For household-scale I only have a proposition regarding storing/generating heat, namely compost.

A compost pile produces a surprisingly large amount of heat. If you run a hose through it you can have sufficiently hot water all winter.

You could maybe use it to produce biogas and burn it in a turbine, but that's anything but household-scale.

As for electricity you won't find anything better than batteries at the moment.

probablypower• 2 years ago

Cool toy, but this is a basic simulation of energy markets. You can't talk about future power systems without addressing system inertia, unless you dont care about being realistic.

timthelion• 2 years ago

What inertia do you mean? Demand or supply? Sure, decomissioning anuclear plant takes decades but a coal plant can be shut down in about 48 hours I think and at that point produces no new emissions...

scrlk• 2 years ago

"Inertia" in the context of power systems refers to the kinetic energy stored by rotating generators (coal, gas, nuclear, hydropower).

If the system frequency (a real time measure of supply and demand) were to suddenly change (e.g. a power plant were to trip), these generators are still spinning, and dampen the rate of change of frequency. This allows time for the grid operator to take corrective actions.

Inverter connected plant such as wind and solar does not inherently provide inertia.

sunshinesnacks• 2 years ago

Capacity expansion and production cost modeling are real and important modeling exercises. Immediately dismissing those efforts doesn't seem necessary - they can be done in parallel with work focused on things like inertia, e.g., see https://sites.google.com/view/unifi-consortium/home, https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy20osti/73856.pdf.

Animats2• 2 years ago

"There are multi-day periods with low wind and solar output."

That's the real problem. Days of storage are required if most power is coming from non-dispatchable sources. Batteries are not cost-effective for that, at least not at present. Electricity to hydrogen and back is maybe 30% efficient. Pumped storage is much more efficient but you need the right geography - two nearby lakes at very different elevations.

This keeps leading back to natural gas peaking plants.

otherme123• 2 years ago

Note that the simulation is only for Germany. If you add other countries to the grid, there will be less no solar-no wind days.

But also peaking gas plants are not that bad. We should dream about a zero emission scenary, but a 90% less emissions is not bad either, and we can always get better and better. This is, in fact, the current trend: each month is cleaner than the last.

sofixa2• 2 years ago

Note that the simulation is only for Germany. If you add other countries to the grid, there will be less no solar-no wind days.

But more transmission losses.

pmontra• 2 years ago

There is always some place on Earth where it's windy, where the sun shines, where it's summer. I have no idea if transporting such high loads on a global grid is feasible (let's say Australia's summer sun powering Europe in winter nights) but that probably works better in a peaceful world.

defrost• 2 years ago

let's say Australia's summer sun powering Europe in winter nights

https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/germany-s-660m-pitch-fo...

Not all energy is electricity, this is a deal for Australian sunlight --> Hydrogen | Ammonia --> Germany

https://arena.gov.au/blog/hydrogen-deal-unites-australian-in...

Animats2• 2 years ago

Averaging over subcontinent-sized areas still leaves a 4:1 wind variation in wind output over a day. You can look at the data for the PJM grid (most of the east coast) and the CAISO grid (most of the west coast), and see 4:1 ranges most days.

Tying the east and west coast together is technically feasible. China has a megavolt DC grid with links thousands of miles long. (China's cheap energy sources are in the northwest, while the big loads are in the southeast, so that makes sense.) But it doesn't seem to make sense for the US.

The US wind belt is roughly from the Texas panhandle north to Canada. That area does not, as yet, have enough links to either coast.

Certhas2• 2 years ago

30% efficiency is fine if you only need it for like 5% of the overall energy consumption.

The price and efficiency of H2 storage is contained in the models.

hoseja3• 2 years ago

I'm begging you, stop thinking hydrogen is viable or ever will be.

ZeroGravitas4• 2 years ago

Viable for what?

Currently most fertilizer is made with hydrogen that's separated from methane and the CO2 vented.

It's about 2% of global emissions.

Ammonia and Methanol and other efuels for shipping and flight generally require hydrogen as a building block.

The Hydrogen Ladder diagram lays out the areas where Hydrogen is necessary and where better current alternative tech exists. It gets updated every so often as tech progresses but generally shouldn't see any major changes.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/hydrogen-ladder-version-50-mi...

hoseja3• 2 years ago

Long-term storage and power generation. Of course it's essential as chemical feedstock but that's a necessity, not convenience. If it were (chemically) easy to use, say, the hydrogen in water molecules you bet it'd be used instead.

gary_0• 2 years ago

I would normally agree with you out of hand, but using hydrogen for temporary grid storage isn't as obviously stupid as, say, using it to power cars. Sure, most proposed uses of hydrogen are blatant red herrings invented by the fossil fuel industry, but not all of them.

jwilliams• 2 years ago

One part not considered is the grid connections - esp across time zones or geographies.

Some examples:

The SunCable link between Australia and Singapore https://www.suncable.energy/our-projects

The Viking Link from Demark to the UK https://www.euronews.com/business/2024/01/16/uk-and-denmark-...

Future power systems with today's weather

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