Reports have claimed that baseload power is not necessary in Europe, only grid flexibility. The basis for this thinking is Germany, which has achieved moments where they met 100% of energy demand without the long-duration energy storage Storelectric is developing. A rational analysis of these articles finds numerous contradictions and errors.
Need for Inertia
The articles claim that inertia is not necessary to keep the system stable, because Germany increased grid stability by making the grid more flexible. But this increased stability relies on inertial systems such as residual generation, hydro, pumped hydro and green (e.g. biomass, green gas) generation, all of which are inertial.
National Grid have published their technical requirements for inertia and related stability services here – so they perceive a big need for them. These documents give the technical requirements and data we seek for our solution, to discuss with their Pathfinder people with whom we have an ongoing conversation, and who await our technical response.
“Grid Flexibility Not Storage“
The error in the “not storage, just flexibility” thinking is very simple: if there isn’t enough energy available to the grid, then no matter how flexibly we use it, there won’t be enough. It’s like wrapping a present if without enough paper – regardless angle you turn the present, you will never be able to cover it completely.
The Forbes article cites Germany-Norway interconnectors to explain why flexibility can replace storage, and that the grid is more reliable than ever. However, the only reason those do the job is because they connect to Norwegian storage, and Germany’s increasing interconnection with Norway is effectively increasing the storage available to the German system.
Germany/Austria (they’re one market) themselves have more storage (pumped hydro) than most, even without Norway. So they’re relying on Norway for back-up. And as dispatchable generation assets reduce, they’ll reach the point at which all of this is inadequate, which we estimate by 2035.
“Prices just tell the truth”
No they don’t. Because of the short-duration contracts throughout Europe, there is insufficient investment into infrastructure assets to sustain the system. They’re living off their fat, on starvation rations or less. Special financial instruments (e.g. CfDs, CATOs, OFTOs, ROCs, Capacity Market, Cap-and-Floor …) are necessary to encourage any investment, and every special financial instrument has rules and is therefore a market distortion; they add to system cost rather than reducing it. Even interconnectors need subsidies and special arrangements to be profitable. If you’re interested in further analysis and a solution, please read A 21st Century Electricity System here.
Prices in Germany have been “frigged”. The power stations correctly told Merkel that if they can’t make profits they’ll have to shut, leading to blackouts. Quite correctly she ensured that this wouldn’t happen – but did so (a) by putting in place caps and floors on prices and (b) not putting in place incentives to develop large-scale long-duration storage to replace those power stations, so as to get out of this (arguably blackmail) situation. This price rigging means that even existing pumped hydro barely (if at all) makes profits, and new large-scale long-duration storage is not commercially viable.
“Baseload… is too much power when you don’t want it”
Only if the system is wrongly balanced. There is baseload demand (which fluctuates seasonally) and variable demand. This leads to three roles for baseload, in diminishing order of suitability:
- To cover demand in the minimum baseload season – it would need to be on all year round.
- To cover demand in the maximum baseload season – some would turn off during the “low season”, which would allow annual plant maintenance shutdowns. Baseload plants are flexible enough to vary on a weekly basis, so a one-season shutdown is easy.
- To cover somewhat more than baseload (the base of the curve, where demand is 70-99% of the time, for example) in conjunction with sufficient storage to absorb the excess – this would yield the cheapest total system costs.
Where demand is below 70% of the time, this would be met by renewables plus storage. To cover baseload demand, 1GW baseload generation would have to be replaced by roughly 3GW offshore wind plus storage, or 4GW onshore wind plus storage, or 6-10GW solar plus storage, because of load factors and storage efficiency. But in each of these cases the storage must be of sufficient scale and duration to cover the kalte dunkel Flaute, two weeks of continent-wide minimal renewables generation. Any dispatchable renewable generation (e.g. hydro, biomass, green gas) can replace the storage in these equations 1-for-1.
The article cites the unreliability of nuclear due to trips requiring spinning reserve. This just emphasises the need for inertia (they can’t have it both ways) and reinforces the case for large-scale long-duration storage such as Storelectric’s, which is inertial at the right scale, and ours is inertial 24/7.
Operating Grids Without Baseload
Some articles say South Australia is a wonderful example of where grids can operate without baseload power generation. This is the same grid that had such widespread blackouts a few years back that Tesla made a very expensive publicity stunt to deliver the world’s largest battery within 100 days or they would give it to the state for free. Not only does that prove the need for storage, but that reliance on it yields enormous profits for that plant – so much so that three other developers are planning similar plants, one of them bigger.
Some say hydro and CSP is a form of “flexible renewable generation” that doesn’t need storage. But both of these use storage within the system – hydro stores the water behind the dam, and CSP stores energy in molten salt. Therefore they are merely reinforcing the need for storage.
Green gas is efficient as long as it is not formed by electrolysis, e.g. anaerobic digestion. Because where it is formed by electrolysis (e.g. Energy Brainpool’s Windgas) its round-trip (electricity-to-electricity) efficiency is too low (currently high twenties to low thirties percent) and total plant costs too high (both capex and opex) so large-scale long-duration storage becomes a much more cost-effective solution.
Balancing grids continent-wide would require a fantastically huge electricity system that can redistribute half a continent’s energy needs from one corner to another at any given time. The cost of such a grid would be prohibitive, and a grotesque eyesore throughout the continent. How much better and cheaper to invest in large-scale long-duration storage!
