How the Balancing Mechanism works (The Energy Academy - S3 E8)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 พ.ย. 2024
- Hi, I’m Neil Weaver, and in this episode of the Energy Academy, I’ll be explaining how the Balancing Mechanism works.
To start, it’s worth bearing in mind that Great Britain’s power system is always out of balance.
This means that supply and demand are never completely aligned.
There are many reasons for this - power stations may be unexpectedly unavailable, the wind might blow less than was forecasted, the nation could all turn on their tellies at the same time in response to a major breaking news story - and generators and suppliers could fail to meet the promises made in their Final Physical Notifications. The possibilities are endless.
Also, as our system increasingly relies on intermittent generation technologies like wind and solar power, the system is more prone to being imbalanced.
Because of this, National Grid ESO puts provisions in place to make sure that the system is balanced enough to prevent a blackout and keep frequency as close as possible to 50 Hz.
Enter the Balancing Mechanism.
Find out more: platform.modo....
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Simply superb
Great job man !
The reality is wind and solar voltaic generated electricity has to be backed up 100% by natural gas turbine generators running at high service idle consuming 70% of the fuel of full power output, but producing little electricity in order to be a scheduled electricity provider.
These are not natural gas combined cycle plants that can make use of the hot exhaust of the jet turbine to make steam for a steam cycle adding 50% efficiency. The large near instant response needed to back up large amounts of wild AC from wind and solar voltaic generated electricity does not allow the use of steam turbine which are slow to respond with common steam plants.
It is likely more fuel efficient on natural gas to run a few less natural gas turbines at 85% output where they are at high efficiency and are them able to make use of steam cycle increasing efficiency 50% making all the electricity rather than to run a few more natural gas turbines at 70% fuel consumption to back up wind turbine generators.
The UK doesn't appear to have self sufficient mining of natural gas. It does have or did have high quality bituminous coal. In the US with cheap natural gas the crossover break even fueling price in 2022 for a new ultra supercritical clean burning coal plant burning high BTU bituminous coal was at a natural gas price of $0.80 per million BTUs natural gas. The low cost off season wholesale price for natural gas in the US in spring 2024 was $2.50 per million BTUs. The new coal plant would be expected at a minimum to be 1/3 the fueling cost of a natural gas combined cycle plant making full use of its steam cycle.
The new coal plant cost many times more to build than than NGCC plant and cost more staff to run. The cost of the coal includes its shipping costs. Its a fair cost comparison for when power companies are considering from which plants to schedule power.