100% RE electricity this morning.

[AE-NMidlands]

We should see periods of zero gas on the grid next summer all being well.

so the nukes will give the frequency stabilisation? Or are renewables/battery backups now good enough to make it unnecessary? I guess hydro can do that, even if it is running at the same time as pumped hydro is taking power!

[dan_b]

My understanding is that frequency stability services are increasingly being provided by grid-connected battery storage, but I don’t know much more about it than that

[Tinbum]

so the nukes will give the frequency stabilisation? Or are renewables/battery backups now good enough to make it unnecessary? I guess hydro can do that, even if it is running at the same time as pumped hydro is taking power!

Aren't they just a generator powered by steam (heated by nuclear) so spinning, so yes.

[AE-NMidlands]

so the nukes will give the frequency stabilisation? Or are renewables/battery backups now good enough to make it unnecessary? I guess hydro can do that, even if it is running at the same time as pumped hydro is taking power!

Aren't they just a generator powered by steam (heated by nuclear) so spinning, so yes.

True, but I was wondering whether there was enough from the Nukes (and dispersed enough?) to do the whole stabilisation job by themselves?

[Countrypaul]

so the nukes will give the frequency stabilisation? Or are renewables/battery backups now good enough to make it unnecessary? I guess hydro can do that, even if it is running at the same time as pumped hydro is taking power!

Aren't they just a generator powered by steam (heated by nuclear) so spinning, so yes.

True, but I was wondering whether there was enough from the Nukes (and dispersed enough?) to do the whole stabilisation job by themselves?

Presumaby Drax using Biomass will also be another source.

[Mart]

My understanding is that frequency stability services are increasingly being provided by grid-connected battery storage, but I don’t know much more about it than that

Yeah that seems to be possible / happening. Tesla have 'virtual machine mode', and I assume others can do similar, or will be able to. I also assume that the big batteries being deployed can earn money for all these functions, such as peaker roles, on top of any arbitrage they manage.

The rate of change seems to be accelerating a lot this decade.

[dan_b]

The nukes certainly have inertia given they're big spinning steam powered generators - but I have no idea to what extent they provide any other types of frequency stabilisation services, or indeed load following (which the French fleet has to do).

[Oliver90owner]

Frequency stabilisation is easy for battery storage equipment. It is restarting the grid after an unfortunate blackout where the spinning generation is needed - hence gas fired/steam generators always being kept running - they were the historical systems equipped for restarts from a black grid.

Obviously there is a need for other alternatives as fossils generation reduce to zero.

The National grid is legally contracted to supply the correct voltage at the correct frequency. They take this responsibility very, very seriously and cannot/will not contemplate fossil-free generation until they are certain that they will not be caught out with ‘domino’ blackout failures spreading rapidly across the country regions.

[Moxi]

I can't speak for the new build at Hinckley but all the AGR's had their own gas turbine plants that could provide sufficient power to maintain the power station after a blackout and get it back on the grid once the Grid was ready to recommence a cold start up. So spinning reserve is still available on a reasonable scale until the last of the AGR's closes of course. The problem with using the nukes to restart the grid is that when they restart they have to come up on load in a very steady controlled manner and at around 50% power they need a pause for the poisoning daughter products of fission to be scrubbed from the coolant otherwise they lose criticality and the reactor goes back offline. They are therefore not the go to restart system as the plan usually requires critical infrastructure back online within 2 to 6 hours and this is way outside their restart capability.

https://www.theblackoutreport.co.uk/202 ... ack-start/

This report was very interesting at the time but is already starting to lose some of its relevance due to the rapid expansion of battery systems and even some WT farm capabilities. As always the problem is easy to solve - its the time and cost that often skew the solution, hence the need for the government and the political parties to agree a plan for the long term and then stick to it. Its a bit of a similar and mutually inclusive requirement for manufacturing as posted elsewhere AN-M, the concept of letting the "market" decide isn't always the optimal solution in the long term as the "market" doesn't look much further than 5 years (in line with government life expectancy ?) while infrastructure and manufacturing generally considers 15 to 50 year time spans.

We need to shift away some distance from near term strategies to something a bit more in line with the next two or three generations requirements.

Maybe as a nation we need to start thinking "would my great grandchildren benefit from this ?" in order to get some of the strategies more aligned ?

Moxi

[Mart]

Silly question but are there flywheel type solutions, not for enrgy storage (I appreciate that exists), but for frequency stabilization?