Provide a source that shows a company which business model is to buy renewable energy when the price is low and then sells it when the price is high, recovering the cost of investment and operations by the margin between the low and high price point.
Shouldn't be hard. I can provide a link of a company which business model is to buy groceries at a cheap price and then sell them to customers at a higher price. Buy low sell high is one of the most simplistic business model that exist.
What does not count is a pumped storage that operate as a grid balancer, where the profits is not from the margins between price points but rather to provide a service of keeping the grid balanced when other power plants are ramping down or ramping up. They don't get paid per kw/h, and they don't sell just when the price is high.
> Also the idea that whole months go by with little to no wind is a myth
There is statistics about this if one do a few searches. The risk that you get a whole month with little to no wind is a statistical probability higher than 0. More commonly there are periods of low wind lasting weeks to months, with individual day that have slightly more or slightly less. Just as there can be unusual stormy weather a few months, there can be months with unusual calm weather.
If you read the literature of any of the three projects I just mentioned it will give the numbers.
>What does not count is a pumped storage that operate as a grid balancer, where the profits is not from the margins between price points but rather to provide a service of keeping the grid balanced when other power plants are ramping down or ramping up.
The 350GWh of storage provided by, for example, snowy 2 puts it just a little bit beyond what would be required for adjusting the frequency of the grid.
>There is statistics about this
Yeah, this is an interesting conversation that only ever seems to happen seven thread layers deep into the 1,543rd article about how nuclear is totally truly 100% the future and just like, so safe.
It definitely deserves its own thread.
>More commonly there are periods of low wind lasting weeks to months
More like days. We dont need months of storage. Anyway, whilst Id love to refute the same FUD i encountered two weeks ago on a complex topic six levels down in Yet Another Hacker News link started about how Nuclear Power is Just The Best Thing Ever im afraid I am rather busy today.
If you scroll through my history you should see that i have addressed this before though and posted research.
Snowy 2 is expected to come into operation in 2024. The key role, published on their website: System security and reliability – Snowy 2.0’s on-demand energy generation can respond within minutes to changing market needs.
They also have feasibility studies:
3. Commercial (omitted) 4. Business Analysis and Modelling (omitted)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A5ol58HEbqSaKG9D21CVGt-ntWx...
It will still be an interesting project to keep an eye on once it get online. If they can operate beyond doing grid system security and reliability, then it might become a proof of concept for renewable storage solution.
So do you got any source for a current operated pumped storage that buy renewables when supply is high, store the renewable energy, and then sell the supply when supply is low? If pumped storage for renewable is a solve and currently economical viable solution then surely a single example should exist? Rather than talking about FUD or "thread layers deep into the 1,543rd article", just link to an existing company doing pumped storage for renewable and be done with it. Do they exist or do they not?
If the answer is no, they don't exist but they may in the future then that is that. It is good that they try. It is good that they built infrastructure that may be used in the future for this purpose. Continue with the experiment and proof of concepts. With energy prices going up in many places they might very fast be working for this purpose, or at the very least replacing gas based generators that exist to create system security and reliability.
Not sure what you mean here. Like, a link to fengning? Kaprun? Snowy 2?
Also you dont buy "green power" on the grid. You just buy power.
We dont have much pumped storage right now coz (at least until feb) basically nothing could compete with gas as a peaker. Some is under construction though in anticipation of it being economic in a few years. With the subsidies nuclear eats for breakfast we could accelerate and bring online even more stable power than nuclear possibly could at lower cost.
>Wind doesn't have day and night cycles like that, but rather have periods lasting weeks or months of either good wind or poor wind.
It tends to anticorrelate with solar production which has a smoothing effect. Also the idea that whole months go by with little to no wind is a myth. Offshore in particular is a lot more stable than its reputation, topping out at 67% capacity factor, which is only slightly below France's 71% for its nuclear plants in 2020 (frances plants are getting decrepit).
Pro nuclear articles almost invariably avoid delving into this and comparing the economics and focus almost exclusively on safety because this isnt an argument it can really win.
>Since nuclear is presented as being the most expensive method to create energy, if you then store it in pumped hydro and add this additional storage cost, how in the world would that be economical viable?
Coz France subsidized the shit out of its nuclear industry in the 70s in reaction to the oil crisis. You can make anything economic if you throw subsidies at it. Whether those subsidies were well spent is another matter.
If you assume construction is a sunk cost, existing nuclear plants are economically competitive which is partly why new US nuclear legislation is focused on extending plant life. However, running decrepit old nuclear plants until the bitter end isnt particularly safe.
Hence why it's important to prime the public to think that it is with all those "nuclear power is the future!" articles. Consent must be manufactured.