[donw]

I'm going to hazard a guess.

If we assume the numbers for a sort of medium-size nuclear plant, we've got a total power generation of 500MW.

Dumping that kind of power is... hard.

If I haven't missed an order of magnitude, that's enough to boil an Olympic-sized swimming pool in about 25 minutes (500MW to boil 2.5ML of water, assuming STP).

So you'd either need to build and maintain the infrastructure to burn that kind of energy when it isn't needed (not cheap) or just sell the power at a loss (likely cheaper).

[peteretep]

> that's enough to boil an Olympic-sized swimming pool in about 25 minutes

This is in a country that — as I understand it — could definitely do with more desalinated water. How capital intensive can putting a huge kettle element in the sea with something to catch the vapour be?

[flukus]

More desalinated water would be handy, but typically it's not needed anywhere near the salt water and where it is needed more electricity isn't.

[mcv]

So use the energy to pump the water to where it is needed. Use it to generate hydrogen or methane or something to sell as fuel. Mine bitcoin even. It seems weird and wasteful to just shut off free energy.

[Scarblac]

Those are really capital intensive solutions to a problem that occurs only now and then and might stop entirely if the situation changes a bit. In the meantime, to give people a reason to implement them, there is this market mechanism.

[qtplatypus]

One of the projects is to build an interconnect to the snowy mountains. When this happens the power can be used to pump water up hill to fill the hydro electric dams.

[donw]

But can't those plants just pull from the (now cheaper) power on the grid?

[hanniabu]

> Dumping that kind of power is... hard.

Why not route it to a nearby neighborhood? It's free it doesn't matter if a lot is lost in transmission and you don't need to pay somebody to take it.

[teraflop]

Because that nearby neighborhood already has enough power being generated to meet its demand. You can't just send the power somewhere without either increasing demand or reducing other suppliers.

[hanniabu]

> reducing other suppliers

This would be the case, what's wrong with this? It's better than paying people to take your electricity and isn't this how business works? I don't see why they shouldn't be able to increase supply (And hence reduce other suppliers) just because it would ruin the profit margins of others. Unless there's something I'm missing here or not following correctly.

[Scarblac]

What, how? Increase the voltage and damage people's electronics?