I’m sure most here are aware that the existing grid contains a stabilizing influence at the time scale of seconds because of the enormous mechanical inertia of its turbomachinery. Also, a grid with 100% green generation with PV and Wind does not contain that feature.
Have you come to any assessment on the significance of this inherent stability issue when associated with a fully green energy USA infrastructure?
There is increasingly more attention to this issue in the literature, but I haven’t been able to decide whether the issue is within the realm of existing technologies, or if we need some here-to-fore unknown approach.
My gut feeling is that it’s probably not a showstopper to the 100% green energy transition, if for the simple reason that no energy infrastructure – including the current one – can guarantee that there will be no blackouts somewhere, sometime. In fact, current response to blackout events sometimes purposely shut of a region of the grid, to prevent a larger blackout.
Of course, there’s a brute force method available to green energy, and that would be to use electrolytic hydrogen to generate steam in >90% efficient H2/O2 steam generators and use the resulting steam to turn the turbomachinery for electric power. An advantage here is that much existing turbomachinery can be kept in the green energy grid. But the disadvantage is that it would require additional inefficiencies that you don’t have with online generation.
