Post #1883140
2023-06-04 10:10 UTC
On a sunny day, only 40% of your fossil fuel generator capacity is needed, but if some dark clouds come by, you might suddenly need 80% of it. And you need to be prepared, because cloud cover changes within minutes or seconds.
However, rotating generators might need considerable time to startup and shutdown, so in order for a generator to quickly take over, it needs to already be running. But they usually have a minimum power output, and that might be considerable.
Replies (1)
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@sbi@toot.berlin 2023-06-04 10:12
The minimum power of all your generators might well be higher than 40% of your demand. You could curtail the output of your PV panels so that they can never produce more than what your idling generators do not provide for the current demand. But then you throw away power provided by the sun for free ("excess renewables") and use fossil fuel instead. Or you could turn off some of the generators, thereby risking not having enough generators running in standby to compensate for sudden fluctuations.