Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by hoerensagen 743 days ago
"You don't need to stabilize a grid that has sufficient CO₂ free base capacity."

Yes you do. Even if all your generation is dispatch able, demand will still vary a lot.

1 comments

No. I mean, yes, you do need some stabilization, but the amount is trivial.

First, it is only the demand that varies, not both supply and demand. Second, variations in demand are very predictable, unlike variations in supply by renewables (those aren't completely unpredictable, but highly so). Third, the magnitude is just not nearly the same.

For example, the cost for grid stability measures in Germany increased by more than an order of magnitude between 2011 and 2020.