Comment by nemomarx
10 hours ago
can you expand? I'm not sure I get it. isn't then having a wider interconnection better for stability and to handle solar? they can share cheap power in gluts and pull in other sources at night and so on.
10 hours ago
can you expand? I'm not sure I get it. isn't then having a wider interconnection better for stability and to handle solar? they can share cheap power in gluts and pull in other sources at night and so on.
The energy mix of the physical grid (the western interconnect in this case) is what matters for stability. (in places with limited transmission this is more complicated but at a state level it's approximately true).
articles like this talking about high solar or wind in one state are tricking people into thinking we're can actually increase inverter power sources past about 25-30%.
local power authorities power mix data is about contracts and paper not energy.
this kind of article is basically just lying to people.
What do you mean by "inverter power sources"? A new build cost optimal power grid would get 90-98% of its power from solar, wind & batteries per Ember Energy.
solar is an inverter power source
electricity from a DC to AC inverter instead of a direct an generator powered by steam
yeah a grid that was more than 30% inverter sources (which includes batteries) would likely fail randomly. the big spinning metal in the stream generators provides literal inertia to the grid, flywheels can replace that but those also cost money.
solar panels are cheap... of you want 200-400v DC, but if you want a national scale grid with 99.9999% uptime... they're actually not
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