- Thread starter
- #21
JoshPlumSE
Structural
- Aug 15, 2008
- 9,637
Greg -
I couldn't find that 60 hours of storage discussed in the "A Simple Challenge" thread.
The idea of needing only 5% storage seems silly. In the winter, we go dark at 5pm-ish. And, don't see the light again until after 6am the next morning. So, let's assume there are days in there where the wind just doesn't blow. That would mean we'd need 13 hours of power, admittedly at the low usage times. But, we're all powering our laptops, cell phones, TV's, Computers, and such during this time. Just not AC. I'd guess that it's no less than about 20% of the winter daily usage just to get through an average night.
Then, let's look at summer. We have more hours of solar for sure. The longest day of the year would only have 10 hours of darkness. Many of us might easily be running our AC's at night. Our offices might be running them too so that it's not hot when we get there at 7 or 8 am. My guess is that no less than about 15% of daily usage would be required to get us through the night.
Now, you may be able to compensate with natural gas power, nuclear, or hydro. Wind just isn't nearly as reliable enough to serve as any kind of a backup.
I should point out that the Ivanpah solar power plant does use natural gas at times (early morning and on cloudy days). To some people that's considered a negative for Ivanpah. But, to me it adds a ton of flexibility to the system. The kind of flexibility needed for the future of our power grid. Note, this is because Ivanpah uses sunlight and mirrors to generate steam. From then on, it's just a conventional steam turbine system. So, it's easy to see how all it needs to do is create steam a different way to run at other times.
I couldn't find that 60 hours of storage discussed in the "A Simple Challenge" thread.
The idea of needing only 5% storage seems silly. In the winter, we go dark at 5pm-ish. And, don't see the light again until after 6am the next morning. So, let's assume there are days in there where the wind just doesn't blow. That would mean we'd need 13 hours of power, admittedly at the low usage times. But, we're all powering our laptops, cell phones, TV's, Computers, and such during this time. Just not AC. I'd guess that it's no less than about 20% of the winter daily usage just to get through an average night.
Then, let's look at summer. We have more hours of solar for sure. The longest day of the year would only have 10 hours of darkness. Many of us might easily be running our AC's at night. Our offices might be running them too so that it's not hot when we get there at 7 or 8 am. My guess is that no less than about 15% of daily usage would be required to get us through the night.
Now, you may be able to compensate with natural gas power, nuclear, or hydro. Wind just isn't nearly as reliable enough to serve as any kind of a backup.
I should point out that the Ivanpah solar power plant does use natural gas at times (early morning and on cloudy days). To some people that's considered a negative for Ivanpah. But, to me it adds a ton of flexibility to the system. The kind of flexibility needed for the future of our power grid. Note, this is because Ivanpah uses sunlight and mirrors to generate steam. From then on, it's just a conventional steam turbine system. So, it's easy to see how all it needs to do is create steam a different way to run at other times.
