It would be cool if individual generators shared this curtailment status/reserve in realtime publicly similar to how ERCOT reports real time generation mix data.
Citations:
The grid frequency itself functions as a signal: a deviation below 50/60 Hz indicates support is needed, and a deviation above means curtailment is needed (or load added).
Instant frequency-response assets such as batteries typically monitor the frequency independently and respond as required. They don't need to wait for explicit signals from the ISO.
[1] https://www.tesla.com/support/energy/tesla-software/autobidd...
[2] https://www.tesla.com/support/energy/tesla-software
[3] https://electrek.co/2023/09/15/tesla-autobidder-product-330-...
What I mean to say is that solar and batteries are likely an order of magnitude faster to respond to sudden demand changes. So I would expect a more reliable system when more solar and especially batteries are being added.
The point of ramping up the power plant is to make sure that the rotor doesn't change speed (by e.g. burning more fuel to push it harder, because there's suddenly more load on it), and that can happen a lot faster than spinning up the rotor from scratch. Indeed a heavy rotor helps to stabilise the grid "for free" by acting as a flywheel (which, in a way, responds even quicker to the demand change than a battery can).
A quarter of a 60 hz cycle or a fifth of a 50 hz cycle is really fast. For comparison, it takes a current limiting fuse around a half cycle to clear a short circuit current and a GFCI takes around two cycles to clear a ground fault.
With that said, turbines responding in couple minutes are more reliable as a baseline when you’re planning load flow of as big as country or wider area. The basic reason is that you have source of energy under your control such as nuclear, water, gas, coal. You cannot have solar, wind as your baseline, I don’t want sound dramatic, but it’s kind of suicidal to do that. Solar’s ramping is not a win when you consider greater scale.
With regards to transmission congestion, that is easily fixed with installing batteries at currently storageless renewable generation facilities (the batteries then charge with excess solar, and can continue to discharge after the sun sets or the wind dies down, maximizing transmission utilization temporally). The Inflation Reduction Act also enables those batteries to charge from utility side if needed, whereas before they could only charge from the renewable generation (AC vs DC coupling).
See https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy24osti/86932.pdf. It deals with estimating reserves from these types of resources, but also talks a bit about general considerations, and references other good papers and demonstrations.
Because a few hundred thousand chips in solar systems costs less than an entire network rethink.
If you like grid data, we have a lot more info for the entire country here: https://www.gridstatus.io/live
Also your original post link states event happened at 7:02 AM, your links here points to 8:05 AM. Can you explain this?
The amount of heat that can be dissipated by evaporating water is kind of incredible.
(It's obviously not a meltdown situation!)
The reaction can be slowed with control rods, which stops/minimizes the heat from being generated. The previously generated heat still needs to be handled, however (by evaporation).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reactor
A meltdown occurs when the reaction can't be slowed down through normal means because the safety systems fail.
For example, Fukushima and Chernobyl:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_accident
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster
However, those safety systems are obviously designed expressly to prevent such a disaster. For example, control rod systems are often designed to be fall (via gravity) into the reactor in the event power fails. These failsafe systems are typically very reliable, in the absence of other external events (such as the flooding and earthquake that took place in Fukashima.)
Also, nuclear poisons (neutron absorbers) build up after the reactor is shut down. After the control rods are withdrawn it takes a few days for the poisons to be burned up and the reactor can resume power production. I think they call that poisoning out the reactor.
From the RISKS archives:
"A fail-safe system fails by failing to fail safe."
It incentivises the grid-stabilizing deployment of batteries.
Texas is really the market to watch and learn from.
