The quickest gas generation (gas engines) can go from cold start to fully ramped up in 4-5 minutes. A typical OCGT/CCGT is a bit slower and has a higher start cost (and a CCGT won't reach peak efficiency for hours). Pumped storage hydro takes 20 seconds or so.
However, turning generation on or off isn't the only way the grid is balanced in the short term - turning up/down tends to be a big part of it too and most conventional generation can do that faster (sometimes a lot faster) than startup/shutdown.
It depends on the type of natural gas plant. Some of them are designed for efficiency which takes longer to spin up and down while some are peaker plants which can spin up in a matter of seconds/minutes.
The quickest gas generation (gas engines) can go from cold start to fully ramped up in 4-5 minutes. A typical OCGT/CCGT is a bit slower and has a higher start cost (and a CCGT won't reach peak efficiency for hours). Pumped storage hydro takes 20 seconds or so.
However, turning generation on or off isn't the only way the grid is balanced in the short term - turning up/down tends to be a big part of it too and most conventional generation can do that faster (sometimes a lot faster) than startup/shutdown.
It depends on the type of natural gas plant. Some of them are designed for efficiency which takes longer to spin up and down while some are peaker plants which can spin up in a matter of seconds/minutes.
Yep, 15 minutes to full load is not uncommon with gas plants.