Reposted from the NoTricksZone
By P Gosselin on 13. April 2021Share this…
By Blackout News
(Translated, edited by P. Gosselin)
Due to the government mandated coal phase-out, 11 coal-fired power plants with a total capacity of 4.7 GW were shut down on January 1, 2021. But the coal phase-out ended up lasting only 8 days, after which several power plants had to be reconnected to the grid due to a prolonged low-wind period.
Heyden coal-fired power station located near Petershagen, North Rhine-Westphalia, had to be restarted 6 times by late February. Photo: ChristianSchd, CC BY-SA 3.0
The affected large Heyden power plant had to be restarted six times by the end of February in order to secure the power supply.
The Federal Network Agency has now confirmed that it has reclassified the Heyden, Datteln, Walsum 9 and Westfalen power plants, which had already been shut down, as system-relevant and that they now must remain on standby as reserve power plants. The owners will therefore be required to continue operation in the short term.
Never mind that this sporadic operation of these coal plants is horribly inefficient and costly, as you will find out below.
Coal plant shutdowns have increased grid frequency instability
The large power plants are to primarily provide their rotational energy, i.e. run at full speed but not feed any electricity into the grid. The rotational energy is urgently needed to bridge the time needed by the medium- and peak-load power plants to deliver the missing power to the grid by adjusting the load accordingly. Smaller plants simply have too little flywheel mass to be able to provide this compensation. We described how to stabilize a power grid in more detail in the article “How to stabilize the power grid“. The number of these critical frequency drops has already risen sharply this year.
Consumers have to bear the costs
The Federal Network Agency adds, “The costs for the provision in the grid reserve, as well as for the conversion to a rotating phase shifter, are borne by the power grid customers, as these measures serve the safe and reliable network operation.” It is thus clear that these costs must also be financed through the electricity price.
The planned operational readiness to be able to provide only the flywheel mass in critical situations as a rotating phase shifter is an economic disaster for the operators. Because these have the costs for the facility and the maintenance of the plants and practically no incomes, since for the bridging with net frequency dips only a current feed in the range of some seconds and/or few minutes takes place. So you then have to subsidize these plants. This is paradoxical, because these power plants have generated the cheapest electricity to date and have managed without subsidies. That’s also why we now have the most expensive electricity in the world.
Government rushed the phaseout
The German government has allowed itself to be politically driven by Fridays-for-Future protests and other NGOs and has rushed the coal phase-out. The coal commission that decided on the phase-out neither included power grid experts nor power producer representatives.
More plants to be taken off the grid
In 2022, the last nuclear power plants and additional coal-fired power plants with a total capacity of 1.5 GW will be taken off the grid. These power plants would be able to generate about 3% of the total electricity demand. Moreover, approx. 6000 wind turbines with an installed capacity of 16 GW will be dismantled by 2022 due to the expiration of feed-in subsidies for older turbines. These generated approx. 7% of the total electricity demand in 2020.
But not enough green energy plants will be added
The planned new construction of green power plants will not even come close to offsetting this output. Should the electricity demand, after the Corona lockdown, rises again to the level of 2019, it will be suspenseful, especially during the coming winter. Because there will then be a shortfall of between 10% and 15% in capacity on the generation side.
Some people will then have to learn that the laws of physics apply – even if they don’t understand them.
A blackout is only a matter of time, so prepare yourself early.
This is the part of the German “Energiewende” that really strikes me:
“The coal commission that decided on the phase-out neither included power grid experts nor power producer representatives.”
In a nutshell: people with no experience in energy production decided what’s the best way to produce energy.
What makes it all the more shameful is that Angela Merkel has a science degree which should have given her a critical mind with respect to engineering and scientific projects. However, it seems that political blinkers have skewed her views.
Education does not denote intelligence. PM Trudeau of canada proves the rule
Pat,
He attended good schools, but did not learn anything
When your mind is already made up, mere facts and truth mean nothing. Just ask any Democrat!
Bought them books and bought them books, they just ate the pages.
Isn’t he highly qualified as an interpretive modern dance instructor? No wonder the girls love him!
I thought his field was more around cosmetics?
Spezer86 – Brilliant. I almost sprayed my milk out of my nose.
Little boys, not so much.
Justina used to teach Drama, not practices drama in the Canadian Parliament!
now practices drama in the Canadian Parliament!
Mike,
A PhD in Physics
Case in point: Carter, re: nuclear fuel reprocessing. Others, re: Green technologies, including intermittent/ renewables.
Mike,
Those were the good old days.
Putting a smart, no bullshit, nuclear engineer, at the top.
Unfortunately, he was followed by a smiley, advertising pitchman, b-rated movie actor.
Reagan inherited a real gasoline price of >$3.50/gallon from Carter. By the end of his eight years in office Reagan and George Shultz got that down to $1.50/gallon. (Constant 2012 dollars.)
Not too shabby for a smiley, advertising pitchman, b-rated movie actor. And not only was that massive price cut great for consumers and the economy, dropping oil prices played a big role in the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
It’s all good.
Show me Jimmah Cahter’s degree as a nuclear engineer. Trot it out for everyone to see.
Who was at least able to act presidential, unlike Carter who made it clear he had learned NOTHING throughout his life to that point. Still knows nothing.
@ Michael in Dublin
You’re assuming that these decisions are made in ignorance. Remember, Merkel is from the East. Perhaps she wants the power grid to fail.
What is shameful is that the German people keep voting for her. Of course, I’m assuming that the elections in Germany are not rigged like the elections in the U.S.
Every German I talk to where I work speak with absolute conviction that we need to reduce CO2. They don’t show a shred of doubt and they just want themselves and everybody else to just follow through to zero emissions.
The population is programable as Herr Hitler knew.
That’s why my parents left Germany in the 1950s. Most Germans are easily programmed with BS. From my experience times haven’t changed much.
The grid has to collapse completely to teach these people a lesson they so desperately need. “Setting an example” while China and India build more coal plants is pathological.
Also, I wonder if national security will be allowed to have any priority in government decisions.
Yes, learning by experience is what it will take.
It’s supposed to, but they just lie about that, too, claiming with an apparent straight face that “Climate Change™” is a threat to our national security. They are rather vague on the exact mechanism(s) at play to get from an alleged (and likely mythical) change in temperature to a bad outcome to our national security, but we’re supposed to just take their word for it.
Her speciality was probably spying as a member of Stasi. I think she ha/had little idea of science unlike Margret Thatcher who had a BSc (chemistry) from oxford University.
Her stasi files have never been found, which my German friends tell me indicates she was KGB not stasi. Being fluent in Russian is another big indicator.
Pierre,
That shows RE folks in Germany are just as big morons as RE folks in California.
This is all about setting an example of “GW fighting”
Germany UBER ALLE
Germany shows the way
Jingoistic nationalism
CALIFORNIA
Newsom and his cabal are extremist proponents of idiotic RE policies, that have driven California to the brink of disaster regarding electricity generation, which has become increasingly unreliable and expensive, just as in Germany and Denmark, which have the highest household electric rates in Europe, by far.
The long-suffering, over-taxed, over-regulated California people have had enough of Dem/Prog RE shenanigans
Governor Newsom will be recalled. That is at least several years overdue.
California imports about 30% of its annual electricity from nearby Southwestern states and from Washington and Oregon to cover any electricity short-falls; it has major connections to those grids. This mode of operation sufficed, until the US southwest had a major, multi-day, heat wave; during heat waves winds are minimal.
As a result, electricity supplies, from mostly coal-fired plants from Southwestern states, to California were curtailed by the exporting states. The result was rolling black-outs for several days, with 115F temperatures, because, among other RE zealot idiocies, California had closed 15 of its 19 Pacific Coast, low-cost, highly efficient, low-CO2 emitting, minimal-polluting gas plants, because they were warming up the Pacific Ocean. The other 4 were due to close down, but that idiocy has been placed on hold, not cancelled.
None of the above had anything to do with the California transmission and distribution grids.
The real deficiency was:
1) A lack of realistic energy policies
2) A lack of the usual imports during the heat wave
3) Insufficient spare generating plant capacity, MW, fueled, staffed, ready to serve, at a moment’s notice.
4) A lack of planning, in case of high electricity demand during heat waves, with minimal wind and minimal imports
Germany, another RE maven, has the same lack of spare capacity, but it has strong connections to nearby grids.
California is making the energy situation even less stable by pushing heat pumps and EVs, while California is shutting down fossil fuel plants and replacing them with wind and solar, and more imports.
The last remaining nuclear plant will shut down in less than 4 years.
It won’t be long before California will be importing more than 50% of its electricity. This over reliance on unreliable electricity sources will result in massive electricity shortfalls during the next major heat wave..
I hope all the German ratepayers fed up with higher prices, as well as the men and women who build good German stuff, like VW, Porsche, Audi, Mercedes, BMW and the like, will stop voting for idiots, and choose a leader who will act more like Trump, exiting the Paris climate deal, and saying “eff” off to the diaper wearing scaredy-cats of CAGW.
Come to think of it, I hope Americans will stop voting for delusional mental midgets, too.
Won’t happen until Germans get a good taste of Texas-style “freeze in the dark” for extended periods.
We have that here in the US. It is called the US Congress.
Hmmm, sounds a LOT like Joe Biden’s ‘plans’! He, too, knows NOTHING about power generation, distribution or much of anything else, yet he thinks HE can solve all of America’s and the world’s problems, single-handedly, because he is the ‘president’!
Only if the “solution” to the non-problem is to shout Net-Zero™ at the top of your lungs multiple times.
You CAN’T fix stupid as we continue to demonstrate.
If an engineer made the incorrect unilateral decision to cause economic loss he would be sued because he should have known better. If an unqualified bureaucrat makes such a decision then he won’t be sued. The only way to sort this out is by class action lawsuits to put unqualified bureaucrats in their place.
Gee, I wonder who will win in the budget fight from the need to replace all the early-adopter, inefficient or broken renewable energy capacity and the new project promoters. Let’s see how fast they can restart a partly dismantled coal power plant.
Management probably delayed anything difficult to restart from, knowing what was likely to happen.
Bet they won’t be given that option next time.
In the UK the coal plants were blown up as soon as the gates closed.
AIUI, an idle coal-fired generating station that has not been properly “moth-balled” is nothing but scrap metal within 18 months at the most. And even ones that have been moth-balled do not exhibit trouble-free restart very much.
Let all the German Green supporters suffer the consequences of their votes; maybe they will come back to reality…
Ditto for The Netherlands, California or Southern Australia
And soon to be added to that list, the UK, due to Boris Johnston’s headlong dash to “renewables” and the phasing out of gas central heating and internal combustion engine vehicles.
Trying to replace gas central heating in a cool, temperate country like the UK with air source heat pumps plus the extra demand on the grid and power generators due to the projected increase in electric vehicles should make for an entertaining lesson in real world physics and electrical engineering.
Sadly, the entire political class in the UK are so busy genuflecting to the religion of climate change and trying to virtue-signal their “green” credentials to an increasingly woke and gullible electorate that there is hardly a voice of opposition to be heard to all this madness. Throw in the BBC and other mainstream media outlets with their nonsensical, fantasy-driven propaganda and you have the perfect storm of destructive stupidity taking place before our very eyes.
Speaks for itself
And with the Labour opposition a bunch of juvenile Wokelings obsessed about every trivial minority and intent on making us like the disfunctional USA, the Tories look to be clear to govern for the next decade no matter how shit they are as the other option is worse.
The democratic/dictatorial form of governance clearly has integrated weaknesses.
It’s not nice to fool mother nature!
It’s not nice to try to fool Mother Nature.
There, fixed it for you!
This what i’m hoping to prevent here in Canada.
But unfortunately we will need a truly horrific event somewhere to get the majority to really understand.
We will never convince the majority of scientologists, but they are far from the majority, they are a loud minority.
Sounding like Germany/Europe will be the elected, california doesn’t get cold enough to get really bad
If it gets and stays cold enough one winter to begin freezing up your hydro power supply, then you will have your “truly horrific event.” The added bonus is that the New England states that depend on Canadian Hydro power will be punished also. A true Win-Win.
Of course that will also signal the beginning of the next glaciation, a really scary thought.
But, but, but, while the sun shines and the wind blows the energy produced is green. I00% backup is just the cost you bear for climate alarm. Capital costs – at least double. Operating costs ???
Griff will tell us, it’s BS, because Germany has enough windpower 😀 😀
Of course they do, for 1 minute of the year, every year, like clockwork.
It works exactly as it is supposed to.
When the inevitable Texas event happens, the story will be that renewables are not responsible because everybody knows they cannot be counted on.
Griff and his ilk need to think about this.
If a truly bad even happens with lots of death, i think Tommy Wils climategate email musing will likely come to be true, many people are going to need a safe place to hide.
We already have rising rates of suicide, especially among kids, mostly due to feelings of hopelessness because “climate emergency” don’t you know.
I have been publicly suggesting parents of kids and family members who do take their lives go see those who caused it.
At some point their has to be consequences for this insanity.
Griff doesn’t think, he and his ilk are professional trolls paid by the CCP to disrupt intelligent discourse on sites such as this one.
I don’t believe ANY of the trolls would be considered to be worth paying anything, anytime, anywhere
They are consistently the MOST USELESS empty socks/muppets I have ever seen.
They do it for free because they believe in The Cause. You know, useful idiots.
Trouble with that dingbat theory is, you can cover your country with all the windmills you want, but if there ain’t no wind to make ’em go roundy round…
This afternoon they’re only producing ~ 7.5 GW out of 62 GW installed capacity.
At this moment wind is providing 3% of UK demand, marginally less than coal!
And we don’t know how much of the power coming via interconnectors is coal-fired. Surprisingly it is very likely to be from France simply because the nuclear plants meet their demand and additional demand is met by firing up the coal plants.
Waiting to be told how this is all BS, not true, isn’t happening, etc.
.
Which is why COAL and NATURAL GAS are currently the largest sources.
So, to be clear, first Germany took a working grid and messed it up by using subsidies to get wind and solar generation built.
Then, when the subsidized wind and solar “appeared” sufficient, a non-scientific commission ordered coal plants closed. Once closed, it because ruthlessly obvious that wind and solar were not sufficient, so now coal plants are being ordered to run at full power on certain days for the sole purpose of serving as occasionally-required spinning reserve.
And, since such usage of a coal plant is idiotically uneconomic, the operators of those plants will now require massive subsidization, and from ratepayers of course.
So, instead of cheap electricity generated by longstanding sources of electricity (Coal, nuclear, gas), German ratepayers will now be forced to subsidize ALL sources of electricity resulting in the highest electric rates in Europe, and perhaps the world?
You’d think this would get even a good politician fired, if not parboiled.
Yet now the Biden administration has similar plans for the U.S. Grifters all.
And the UK
South Australia literally blew up their last coal fueled power plant, hastening their journey toward becoming the most expensive retail electricity provider in the world.
Germany is presently the most expensive for domestic electricity in Europe at 0.30 Euros/kWh. UK not far behind at 0.22 Euros/kWh. Serbia was lately criticised for investing in coal. Serbia’s electricity is 0.07 Euros/kWh. (Prices for first half 2020.)
See Eurostat for the data (values above read off a graph, so might be half a cent out).
Any idea what SA’s is?
flat/anytime tariffs 30-40 cents per kWh
Germany subsidises industrial electricity to keep industry in the country. The UK does not hence the migration of manufacturing industry elsewhere and the likely closure of steel production.
South Australia shortly after the coal fired plant had a blackout, steel set solid in the Whyalla steelworks see – https://www.9news.com.au/national/sa-blackout-paralyses-whyalla-steelworks/2569c637-29b3-46dc-b4a0-6518091217e6
Anyone know how to get the German Blackout-news.de in English? Looks like a TON of great articles.
Google translate works pretty well. It’ll often prompt and ask if you want the page(s) translated going forward.
John
Both Google Translate and also Bing Translator work with URLs as well as text.
8 days was long enough for the story to run around the World and demonstrate the German government’s commitment to all things green. The reality is that they are relying on nuclear power from France and Belgium to bridge the gap left by closing their own nuclear and coal plants. unfortunately the UK is also planning on depending on French nuclear too. The French authorities are left sitting in the middle selling off percentages of their production a bit like the accountant in the film “The Producers” – hoping that nobody notices that they have sold of 120% of their entire capacity a handful at a time
Before they succeed with old reliable, they must fail with new unreliables?
There was a time when the world ran on wind and solar power. We called it the dark ages.
John,
A time of pestilence and plague and the madness of crowds; sounds like a great time to be living in major urban areas! Will the Dark Ages 2.0 have witch burnings to please the mob?
Leftists are already trying to burn cops alive, so, yes, it will.
It is likely that we heretics who don’t believe in unicorn power will be the ones burned!
Pamela,
Good luck with that out here in the sticks! Any alarmists or Pantifa activists trying to burn Climastrology heretics in my neighborhood are likely to be put on a strict diet of boat-tailed, copper-jacketed lead!
My neighbors don’t seem to be buying into the whole CAGW scam, any more than they believe in 57 varieties of gender! We tend to cling to our guns and Bibles too much for some! On the plus side there’s plenty of elk or antelope for green chile enchiladas, and the bears and coyotes are very respectful!
If anyone questions you for having guns and Bibles, just say that you respect their views, but you have your own interpretation of the Bible. 😉
Karim,
I’m rather fond of the Old Testament! I’m always willing to be loving and kind to my neighbor; but when someone starts bullying, especially women and children, I feel a strong urge to get medieval!
I know it’s a major shortcoming, but I pray for strength and wisdom! Watching crooks and crazies destroying Mankind’s future still grates like fingernails on a chalkboard!
See Portland, OR…
We already have cancel culture and widespread censorship. All that’s needed are a few accelerants (except they don’t like fossil fuels).
The only lessons the Greens will learn for this is to be more forceful, and demand the physical demolition of the coal plants, so they can’t be reactivated. This worked for Hernán Cortés when he burned his ships at the coast before heading inland to conquer the Aztecs. And now the emergency is more dire, as the planet is at stake! /s
It’s ok. Once they sell enough electric cars they will be the built-in battery backup for the system.
Just hope you never need to drive somewhere on a cloudy/still day or early in the morning after one of those surprisingly common sunless nights.
“…one of those surprisingly common sunless nights.”
Windless nights are also surprisingly common.
http://www.usairnet.com/cgi-bin/launch/code.cgi?state=WI&sta=KMWC
Early in the AM this coming Friday and Saturday those dopey windfarms in central WI aren’t going to be doing much in a 2&3 mph breeze. Calm at zero dark thirty isn’t that uncommon.
Timmerman is my closest airport.
From the article: “Moreover, approx. 6000 wind turbines with an installed capacity of 16 GW will be dismantled by 2022 due to the expiration of feed-in subsidies for older turbines.”
I see, so this just goes to demonstrate that windmills, on their own, can’t make enough profit to stay in business. The government subsidies are the only thing keeping windmills profitable.
It’s the same principle as purchasing a diesel generator with your new Tesla … so you don’t get caught short but sill want to virtue signal.
Keep in mind, it’s apparently not even profitable just based on operation costs, as the generation facility was built a long time ago.
I wonder if they are also going to dismantle the 500t concrete bases?
We could offer them as landing pads for our new, extraterrestrial overlords.
Yeah, they never talk about what they are going to do with all the concrete they put in the ground. They don’t talk about all the birds they k!ll. They don’t talk about a lot of things.To use a Biden expression: Windmills are a Bonehead idea!
Next time they manage to get them shutdown there will be partial demo to insure they can’t be restarted.
It’s only serious when they dynamite the plants to show commitment.
Nonsense. Germany isn’t heading for blackouts.
There is a huge and continuing pipeline of wind turbines in Germany on and offshore. It is unlikely that 6000 won’t be replaced.
A great deal of the coal power generated in Germany is exported in any year.
Grid scale batteries are far more effective at maintaining frequency than spinning reserve.
I’ve been reading in Watts for well over a dozen years that the German grid must fail – and it hasn’t.
Hahahahahaha, you be funny. A liar, yet funny.
Their not heading for blackouts because their coal plants are staying open.
…and imported power.
Yes, without imported power, all these virtue-signalling regimes, from Germany to California, would be up a creek without a paddle.
It hasn’t because they
1) restart coal plants and
2) import coal-fired electricity from places with more sense like Poland.
Even with 1, if they were isolated like Texas there would have been several black/brownouts already.
“Grid scale batteries are far more effective at maintaining frequency than spinning reserve.”
Griff,
That statement is a bald-faced lie… A 4 Pinocchio-level of lie. It fails basic electrical engineering facts. It is a provable lie. You can have your ow opinion, but you can’t have your own facts. Saying that lie over and over, will never make it true.
I really, really wish I could give you more upvotes on this. Griff is completely ignorant of simple A/C electricity basics, and what little he knows about the grid itself qualifies as negative knowledge since it is all wrong.
For griff, a German windmill is a church or, at least his cruzifix
But discuss with industries about shut downs – why ?? 😀 😀
“There is a huge and continuing pipeline of wind turbines in Germany on and offshore”
Looks like that pipeline from Russia will need to be just as huge.
We can add to the list 2021,capacity now 62.6 MW that’s + 1.3 MW added in 2 years.
Things seem to be slowing down there a bit grifter.
Probably running out of space…
Do all those wind farms slow down evaporative cooling? (-;
Griff doesn’t do numbers. Try smiley/sad faces
Perhaps an argument that we shouldn’t discriminate against fuels of color would hold some sway. It’s important that we commit to supporting brown and black folks and coal.
“More and more family businesses are affected by significant network fluctuations,” complained the president of the family business association – and says what needs to be improved.
European smines are increasingly suffering from power outages – and they blame the energy transition. “Twenty years ago, everything was put into the expansion of renewable energies,” Reinhold von Eben-Worlée, president of the Association of Family Entrepreneurs, told the F.A.Z.
On the other hand, equally important issues such as grid expansion, intelligent grid control and the lack of baseload capability of alternative power sources have fallen by the wayside. “As a result, more and more family-owned companies are affected by significant network fluctuations,” complained Eben-Worlée, whose association represents around 180,000 companies with 8 million employees”.
German family entrepreneurs complain of power outages
Power outages in 2020
In Germany and Austria…..
Poor LYING and TOTALLY DELUSION and UNINFORMED little griff-twerp.
Germany are lucky they still have enough COAL and GAS to keep the system running
Looking at the last 24 hours (April 16th, 2021) at least half of all German electrical power came from coal and natural gas. Half of the power, all day long.
And another 10% constant came from nuclear.
Without coal/natural gas, there would have BEEN no grid to speak of. It would have shut down. Wind and solar simply were not plentiful enough to keep it going.
Wind and solar cannot exist without natural gas, coal, and nuclear providing massive power whenever needed. THAT is why wind and solar are always more expensive – they cannot exist without gas/coal/nuclear. Thus they are an EXTRA cost – not a “replacement” cost.
But …. but …. the cost of batteries is dropping rapidly!
Not any more. Rising energy costs have increased mining costs and (along with EV/renewable demand) have started to send base and rare earths through the roof.
No one even mentions the very large pachyderm in the room … the environmental cost of producing rare earth batteries.
That is because it is a Green Elephant
The cost of producing Green Energy (mining transportation construction maintenance) is a non factor for Green Energy sources…everyone knows that 😉
It’s all about that base, about that base no treble
Ahhhh … a GREEN elephant. Well that’s different then. They’re special, right? … all sorts of special dispensations, allowances and compensations?
Understood! No high notes … just low notes. Woof!
I “knew” as a teenager that mushrooms would make you see pink elephants. What do I have to smoke to see green elephants?
Unfortunately it will take massive blackouts, disruption of home heating, and shutdown of industry to prove to the faithful that wind and solar aren’t up to the task. Schadenfreude but the innocent will suffer as well.
Once you reduce a society to poverty and the middle class to serfdom, the wealth loss is pernicious. Digging out of that poverty hole is near impossible without a long period of poverty.
With everything that’s being pushed, it looks a lot like this is the goal. The so-called “elites” think they’ll be on top afterward (and with little impact to their lifestyle). If they succeed, at least they’ll have a hard reality to face.
Actually it will probably take many unfortunate deaths to convince people that RE can’t support modern societies. And it’s usually the most vulnerable that suffer the most in these situations.
“It is thus clear that these costs must also be financed through the electricity price.”
Gutting the middle class is what this will do. Energy poverty.
Another important point to make about using these coal-fired plants’ spinning generator mass as only a frequency stabilizer and not as net supply of power means when the German politicians show Germany’s power production by source, these plants kept turning will not impact the figures… more virtue signaling and deception.
One might say this decreases the coal they burn. That is only slightly true. THese are steam driven turbines turning the generator. The steam still must be brought to proper temperature and pressure for injection into the turbines. So the coal to do that must be burnt to keep the steam ready as the regulators open and close the valves to respond to the changing torque requirements on the generator.
System inertia MW has not been given sufficient attention imho. Solar and wind provide little to no inertia. The transient operation of the system during faults and loss of capacity are my major concerns.
It difficult to explain to laymen who don’t have the math. I had a terrible time explaining why power factor and var generation are important to independent power producers and co generators. This only got more difficult when I told them DC excitation of generators had to be controlled in real time without using the square root of -1.
I’ve not seen a working method of providing more system inertia particularly in transient conditions other than to have rotating generation. I expect it will take a high profile system wide crash of a renewable heavy system to get the needed attention.
If others have seen examples of this I’d be interested.
They provide zero frequency stability (inertia), because the power they produce goes through inverters to generate the AC power. Because of that, they can’t absorb or produce reactive power to the grid.
Once again, I wish I could give you more than 1 upvote. This is an incredibly important point that you make here. Off all the many deficiencies of RE power generation that one can list, this is one of the top 3, and is too often not taken seriously enough, even by RE critics. Thanks Joel, for continuing to pound on this issue.
In the US, the same people who are disregarding Constitutional and criminal law are also disregarding the laws of physics.
Off topic, sorry:
“Massachusetts is a model for bipartisan action on climate laws”
By Deb Markowitz | The Nature Conservancy in Massachusetts
https://www.masslive.com/opinion/2021/04/massachusetts-is-a-model-for-bipartisan-action-on-climate-laws-guest-viewpoint.html
“Recently, Gov. Charlie Baker signed a landmark bill, An Act Creating a Next-Generation Roadmap for Massachusetts Climate Policy—one of the boldest climate laws in the United States.
This new law will help us reverse and mitigate the impacts of climate change in Massachusetts and beyond. Most importantly, it will ensure the health of people, animals, nature and the economy now and for future generations.”
The Nature Conservancy used to be a smart organization- conserving land but not hesitating to drill for oil or cut timber on that land. But this is the Mass. branch of TNC and with Mass. being a climate emergency theocracy, any and all organizations in this state must prove that they are woke. She didn’t mention the hundreds of thousands of acres of fields and forests in Mass. that will have to be destroyed and turned into industrial scale solar “farms”. Nor the impact to the environment to install hundreds of wind turbines just off the coast. Nor the cost.
If all else fails, Germany can always beg France to send some extra power from its large fleet of nuclear reactors. Of course, the French will be happy to build the required transmission lines across the Rhine and transformers at German expense. Vive la France!
The transmissions already exist, not only to France.
Problem may be, if it’s longer hot and dry in France, it may be come to outages in France, the Germans may feel it 😀
They have a president named Macaroon who has put France on the road to ruin by committing to phasing out nuclear plants and replacing them with windmills. Only Marine Le Pen could stop that juggernaut.
Wahnsinnig
The real question is why could such problems be easily foreseen but ignored. Even if you are the most sceptical of sceptics, you are a fan of PRACTICAL free energy from wind or the Sun. You’re just against experimenting with the grid.
They were foreseen and ignored to push the leftist political agenda, and if you want to experiment do it with YOUR money and life, not everyone else’s. Nothing about wind and solar is free, it is, in fact, a failure. A massively expensive failure.
No wonder they need Nordstream 2 piped under the Baltic Sea. Hide the backup plan.
Sounds like the Germans have a math equity or ethnomath problem to deal with here.
Solar panel and wind turbine manufacturers should be required to use only their own energy production to demonstrate that it is possible to manufacture these systems with the systems themselves.
This has never been done. Thermodynamically, it never will be.
Prove me wrong, give me an example of a “renewable” manufacturer who has done this.
I’ll wait…
This is for al the politicos out there who got us into this RE mess:
Meanwhile they’re becoming more reliant on Russian gas. It’s like a noir movie. https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/14/nord-stream-russia-germany-481437
“Phase-out”? I think the more accurate phrase might be something like “temporary lacuna in demand” (ok, guilty. My PhD advisor is a Brit :-))
So only 9 0f the 11 coalplants remain closed
Sounds not too bad
Now they can fire up 10 and 11 and have a functioning electric grid again. Give them lots of power to demolish all those wind mills and solar panels and plenty left over. Win/Win!