Post #1883141
2023-06-04 10:12 UTC
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.
Replies (1)
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@sbi@toot.berlin 2023-06-04 10:13
And combustion engines have their ideal operating point. You usually want to run them close to where they are most efficient, and stress and wear is lowest, to minimize their costs. And there's more complications… So you need to balance a lot of variables and the solution depends on many factors: What are the exact numbers we are talking here? What risks can we take? Is this the power supply for a weekend home? Or for a whole metropolitan area, with hospitals, traffic lights, and subways?