Post #1883134

2023-06-04 10:02 UTC

The TL;DR: i) Due the need to do primary control (frequency response), a 100% renewable grid is impossible. You need either combustion engines or batteries to run your grid. ii) Batteries are not great for storing significant amounts of energy, but they are very well suited for frequency response.

Replies (3)

@sbi@toot.berlin 2023-06-04 10:03

Disclaimer: While I have been writing code in this domain for a decade, I am not an electrical engineer and mostly only learned what I needed on the job. Electrical engineering is complicated, people spend years studying it, and there is no way I could cram everything needed into this thread even if I knew it all—which I absolutely do not. So I have to oversimplify things. Dear electrical engineers, reading this might physically hurt you. I am sorry. Now let's get started!

Open ##1883135
@mdione@en.osm.town 2023-11-19 11:53

@sbi excellent thread, very eye opening. what about physical energy storage, like pumped hydro, gravity batteries or spinning flyweels?

Open ##1883194
@jaj@mastodon.social 2024-04-07 08:00

@sbi In Luxembourg for many years there has been a plant where water is pumped up a hill into a reservoir when energy demand is low and it can be released when demand surges. I think that's a pretty good route for the frequency control problem

Open ##1883198