Rick Perry, the former governor of Texas and former secretary of the Department of Energy, said foxnews in a maintenance that we need basic welding power. He believes we need basic load power because that’s what we use when we turn on a light at 2am in the morning. He’s wrong. But unfortunately, many people understand things the way he does, and they hold back the energy transition.
Base welding power can in many cases provide the electricity in the middle of the night, but power from other sources can be used instead. The problem is not technical. It’s just a matter of cost. If there was something that could provide that electricity cheaper and better, we could rather use it and save money. (Spoiler alert: has something.)
We need to think about what the base charge is and why it matters.
In the early days of the electrical network, power suppliers realized that there would be a minimum demand level they could count on to always be there. Demand will never fall below that level as long as the network is functioning normally. That minimum demand level is the base load. Please note that the base charge is the minimum demand level.
A base load power plant is specifically designed to meet the minimum demand. Because the base charge would always be there, the plant could operate 24/7 at 100% power. The plant will never need to adapt to changes in demand, so it can be built without the features needed to track changes in demand. And that made the construction and operation of the plant very cheap.
Clearly, since base load plants cannot adapt to changes in demand, there must be other power plants doing that work. This includes load-bearing plants, along with a few other species. They supply all the electricity we use above the minimum. The problem we have with them is that the electricity they generate costs much more than base welding power.
Maybe we should take note of a few things here.
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The big trick to operating an electricity network is to make sure that power production meets demand as close as possible.
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The load shedding power plants can supply 100% of our electricity, if we were willing to pay the price. In fact, very small electric grids generally have no base welding power. In diesel-powered grids on islands, the diesel generators automatically meet the demand, in their clumsy way. One big problem they have is that the electricity they generate is very expensive.
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Since demand is always changing, base load power plants cannot provide 100% of network power over any long period of time. For example, the only way a grid for a full hour could be driven entirely by base load power would be if demand remained at the minimum level, unchanged, for that hour, a scenario that is highly unlikely. Base welding plants cannot supply all our power.
The reason why we use base load power plants is therefore not that they are technically required, but because we wanted them to keep costs low. We do not need them to supply our electricity at 02:00. We wanted them to provide a fixed amount of cheap electricity throughout the day, and that fixed amount would be the minimum we would ever need.
We can consider base load power technology as a paradigm for a power grid, but this is just one paradigm where others can be used. And in fact, there is no reason to stick to the base charge paradigm if there is another one that is cheaper.
Recently, NextEra Energy announced its Investor Conference Report 2022 to its shareholders. In it, NextEra Energy claims to be the largest supplier of renewable energy in the United States. But it also owns, directly and through subsidiaries, many fossil fuel plants and seven nuclear reactors.
Interestingly, as it looks to the future, it appears that NextEra is not particularly interested in thermal power plants, the type that include base load plants. He plans to close his last coal incineration plant in 2028. And he expects natural gas-generated electricity to drop to 18% in general for all U.S. producers by 2035. A look at a graph on page 122 shows us why.
There are some terms used for the graph that require explanations.
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“Almost firm” power assumes a battery that will have reliability during peak times that are more or less the equivalent of transmissible generating sources.
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The “storage adder” is the increase in the cost of an energy source needed to cover the cost of storage.
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We should mention for the sake of interest that the “carbon adder” is the increase in cost of fossil energy due to government policy.
One thing to keep in mind is that although not nearly firm solar power or almost firm wind power we will spend every night reliably on its own, based on the definition of almost firm, a combination of the two can be designed to make it easy for most places, most of the time. This is because solar and wind power are generally free; wind power is strongest at night and in winter, and solar power is only productive during the day and generally the most productive during summer. And if there is insufficient power from those two sources, there are other renewable energy sources available, including hydropower, tidal power, biomass, geothermal, and others. And long-distance transmission lines could bring in power from other parts of the country.
NextEra’s graph shows that of the eight electricity sources listed, the least cost is almost firm wind and solar power. The others are all more expensive, and with the exception of offshore wind power, these happen to be base load sources. We can note that existing natural gas, nuclear and coal plants have a limited life expectancy and need to be replaced at some point. And we must also note that the electricity from new natural gas and new nuclear plants is very expensive, in comparison.
(If you’ve never felt sorry for Bill Gates, this may be the time to start. He’s invested quite a bit of money in small modular reactors, and it’s hard to imagine how that money can be recovered if NextEra is correct. over tariffs.Small modular reactors will have to compete with almost firm renewable energy that produces electricity at less than 4 ¢ / kilowatt-hour.)
Wind and solar power, with occasional additions from other renewable energy sources, can supply almost all of our demand, about as reliably as base charge plants. Many observers have commented on the fact that we live in a time when it is reasonable to close existing coal, gas and nuclear plants because the electricity is too expensive compared to renewable energy. And in fact, base load plants have closed for exactly that reason. So we may ask, is there any reason, apart from cost, to use base load power at all?
Another thing to consider is the quality of the electricity.
Historically, base load plants had a variety of power sources that could provide electricity to cover changes in demand. Some may change their output to meet demand within a quarter of an hour. Some may respond within minutes. The cost of electricity was high – normally up to 27 ¢ / kilowatt hour, but sometimes more than that. With changes in supply taking minutes, there are differences between supply and demand, and this can be compensated for by changing the frequency of AC power very slightly, which meant that clocks ran too fast or too slow. More drastic changes in power can damage cars and other infrastructure. The grid is not perfect, but it works most of the time.
In contrast, the batteries used for almost firmly renewable resources can adapt almost immediately to changes in power demand, ensuring a much higher quality of electricity than we had from the base charge paradigm. And also, the cost of batteries has dropped to the point that the cost of the ‘solar power generator’ is about 0.5 ¢ / kWh. Clearly, almost firm renewable energy is better.
We should not be surprised about this. The base load paradigm originated at a time when a new car could be a Model T Ford and the fastest ride from New York to San Francisco would be on a coal-burning train. That was about a hundred years ago. It was a time when a very good computer was a moving rule and when you picked up a phone, you heard an operator say, “number please.” Things have changed since then.
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