Today the Government has announced a new consultation to promote energy security (yet to be published) as part of its ongoing Review of Electricity Market Arrangements (“REMA”). Two main elements are being highlighted – a desire for more gas-fired generation to provide a backup for renewables in the absence of bulk seasonal electricity storage, and a move towards locational power pricing, in an effort to try to persuade generation and demand to co-locate.
In the United States we need not look more California and Texas two states with different opposite in almost every way except to two boarders Mexico-take from the what you will-and both sufferer from electrical generation issues. The culprit is the same "renewables", solar and wind. The near grid collapsed experienced by both Texas and California came about because capital chasing subsidies while neglecting their based load infrastructure. This has created a situation were when the states need to produce power on demand that can't. Review the respected grids of both states during weather related stress on their grids. This situation is not lost of some governments-see China build out of coal power plants to avoid issues like this and Germany's return to the coal mines with investment in natural gas power plants for the same reason-or Berkshire's pitch to Texas to build natural gas back up plants for $10 billion per annum. With natural gas being so cheap-in America-it's flexibility to be ramped up so quickly-so plants can ramp up in 10 mins-on paper it will make any green dream come true. This is what Germany thought before it fucked around and found out.
Reality is a great tutor - Couthino says more gas will help the transition to a renewable grid, no it wont, it will have to grow with it as 24/7/365 back up - 2 distinct generation networks on the same grid, all paid for through higher consumer bills - utter madness
In the United States we need not look more California and Texas two states with different opposite in almost every way except to two boarders Mexico-take from the what you will-and both sufferer from electrical generation issues. The culprit is the same "renewables", solar and wind. The near grid collapsed experienced by both Texas and California came about because capital chasing subsidies while neglecting their based load infrastructure. This has created a situation were when the states need to produce power on demand that can't. Review the respected grids of both states during weather related stress on their grids. This situation is not lost of some governments-see China build out of coal power plants to avoid issues like this and Germany's return to the coal mines with investment in natural gas power plants for the same reason-or Berkshire's pitch to Texas to build natural gas back up plants for $10 billion per annum. With natural gas being so cheap-in America-it's flexibility to be ramped up so quickly-so plants can ramp up in 10 mins-on paper it will make any green dream come true. This is what Germany thought before it fucked around and found out.
Reality is a great tutor - Couthino says more gas will help the transition to a renewable grid, no it wont, it will have to grow with it as 24/7/365 back up - 2 distinct generation networks on the same grid, all paid for through higher consumer bills - utter madness