Dirty diesel gensets in the Renewables equation

Calahonda52

food for thought, before you put away you mask.:D

the_amazing_raisin

Calahonda52 wrote: »

food for thought, before you put away you mask.:D

While I'm no fan of the general tone of the article, he does make a good point regarding the poor state of electricity infrastructure in the US

Such is the state of California's grid that it's easier for PG&E to just turn off people's power in a heatwave to prevent fires than for them to just fix up the grid to a workable state

That plus the typical American attitude towards self reliance, cheap fuel and not much regulation about storing diesel would make a generator a decent investment

The "standard" method of wiring a generator in the US seems to be to plug it into the dryer socket and backfeed the house's wiring. Also has to great side effect of potentially backfeeding the grid and electrocuting any poor workers trying to fix the grid

Not sure it makes as much sense over here, fuel is expensive and AFAIK you can only store limited quantities of fuel without getting an expensive bunded tank

When I get solar I'm going to get a generator hookup installed as a backup. I figure it's a lot cheaper to install the cabling during a big job than afterwards

Doesn't mean I'll actually get a generator and even if I did it would likely only be used a few times a year

Phil.x

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/electricity-supply-concerns-spark-emergency-plans-for-dublin-1.4608199?mode=amp

BryanF

Wrong forum really, but, the article suggests, ‘Power demand has grown sharply in recent years in line with economic growth and a big rise in energy demand from power-hungry data centres.’

Is there a clear culprit here? Is it this clear cut? If so surely the government should be driving the data storage companies to pay/invest in Ireland’s wave & off-shore wind network? In some sort of power required to renewable production investment..

the_amazing_raisin

BryanF wrote: »

Wrong forum really, but, the article suggests, ‘Power demand has grown sharply in recent years in line with economic growth and a big rise in energy demand from power-hungry data centres.’

Is there a clear culprit here? Is it this clear cut? If so surely the government should be driving the data storage companies to pay/invest in Ireland’s wave & off-shore wind network? In some sort of power required to renewable production investment..

The market kind of does that anyway

Wind generators don't set the price of electricity, their fuel is free and they can't choose when to generate. So they just take whatever price is available and they tend to drive the price very low because they're putting a lot of power into the grid

As demand for electricity rises, so does the price. So data centers won't expand if it isn't economically viable

So it makes market sense for data centers to ensure energy is cheap. We've all seen news articles of tech companies investing in wind farms. It's not just about green credentials, they can ensure there's adequate capacity in the grid to keep the price low