Vancouver Power Grid Thread

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Yes and no - Germany put all their money on solar and onshore wind in the 2010s, and they ended up with brownouts (and subsequent increased dependency on coal and gas). They're decent for peak load, but we'll need more baseload generation too; Site E, offshore wind, run-of-river dams and SMRs seem to be the way forward.

The nice thing about hydroelectric dams is that water can be banked up like a battery and released on demand to match electricity needs. The great thing about solar and onshore wind is that at least sometimes they increase the electricity supply meaning the dams can reduce generation and hold back water during those times. Then when solar and onshore wind aren't generating as much, we can pass more water through the dam than we otherwise would have. Solar and onshore wind actually do increase our baseload capacity because of this, specifically due to our hydroelectricity dominant system.

Hooray for hydroelectricity!

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Yes and no - Germany put all their money on solar and onshore wind in the 2010s, and they ended up with brownouts (and subsequent increased dependency on coal and gas).

Germany's not suffering brownouts because they invested in solar and wind, they're suffering brownouts because they shut down all their nuclear generation. In the light of the Ukraine war that's turned out to be a very unfortunate decision. But then it was also stupid of them to become so dependent on Russia for their energy in the first place.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

Germany's not suffering brownouts because they invested in solar and wind, they're suffering brownouts because they shut down all their nuclear generation. In the light of the Ukraine war that's turned out to be a very unfortunate decision. But then it was also stupid of them to become so dependent on Russia for their energy in the first place.

Kind of what I was getting at - if we try renewables without enough baseload (e.g. Germany's reactors) in place, we're going to have problems.

Originally Posted by chowhou

The nice thing about hydroelectric dams is that water can be banked up like a battery and released on demand to match electricity needs. The great thing about solar and onshore wind is that at least sometimes they increase the electricity supply meaning the dams can reduce generation and hold back water during those times. Then when solar and onshore wind aren't generating as much, we can pass more water through the dam than we otherwise would have. Solar and onshore wind actually do increase our baseload capacity because of this, specifically due to our hydroelectricity dominant system.

Hooray for hydroelectricity!

To a certain extent - Alex M. pointed out a while ago (think it was in one of the politics threads?) how there's only so much water that pumped storage can move back upstream before the downstream flow is visibly affected.

Also, most of our solar energy is in the southern Interior, nowhere near the dams... and the wind potential around WAC, Peace Canyon and Site C is a little dismal.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Kind of what I was getting at - if we try renewables without enough baseload (e.g. Germany's reactors) in place, we're going to have problems.

Germany's approach to renewables is very different from here. 6.3% of gross domestic electricity consumption in 2000 was from renewables, and that grew to 51.8% in 2023. Uniquely, it's not just big solar and wind farms; In 2019, local initiatives owned 40.4% of Germany’s total installed renewable power generation capacity, through community wind energy cooperatives, farm-based biogas installations, and household rooftop solar.

The whole reason for the rejection of German nuclear power was concern about large concentrated sources of power. It's the basis of the German Green Party, who I think are probably still the most influential in any country.

The rest of the energy supply (while the country transitioned to closer to 100% renewables) was supposed to be from Russian gas. That's where the brown-outs came from when it was cut off.

They're ramping up delivery of new renewables even faster now; nuclear is still unpopular (and expensive, and in the case of SMSs, so far unproven). Overall, the past year has seen record renewable power production nationwide, (60% of generation in March 2023) a 60-year low in coal use, sizeable emissions cuts, and decreasing energy prices.

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

To a certain extent - Alex M. pointed out a while ago (think it was in one of the politics threads?) how there's only so much water that pumped storage can move back upstream before the downstream flow is visibly affected.

Also, most of our solar energy is in the southern Interior, nowhere near the dams... and the wind potential around WAC, Peace Canyon and Site C is a little dismal.

I don't know why I have to always say this; Holding back water is not pumped storage!

Also:
1. If you think the southern interior doesn't have our hydroelectric dams, I have to tell you a small small story about a river called the Columbia...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_River_Treaty

2. Most of our big wind farm developments are up in the Peace, around Tumbler Ridge and such.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meikle_Wind_Farm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dokie_Ridge_Wind_Farm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear_Mountain_Wind_Park

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Changing City

The whole reason for the rejection of German nuclear power was concern about large concentrated sources of power. It's the basis of the German Green Party, who I think are probably still the most influential in any country.

You sure about that? I'm pretty sure it was a response to the Fukushima disaster.

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

You sure about that? I'm pretty sure it was a response to the Fukushima disaster.

It's like we live in different realities. Not many government policies can be traced to one single event but Germany was pretty clear in 2011. Nuclear moratorium, shutdown all the reactors that we can.

https://world-nuclear.org/informatio...es-g-n/germany

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by chowhou

It's like we live in different realities. Not many government policies can be traced to one single event but Germany was pretty clear in 2011. Nuclear moratorium, shutdown all the reactors that we can.

https://world-nuclear.org/informatio...es-g-n/germany

Thanks for that link. Interesting to note they had already shut down any East German (Soviet?) reactors right after re-unification. All of their operating plants were West German Siemens designed.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by chowhou

- snip -

A river has a finite flow rate. If we hypothetically manage to pump 100% of that flow back up to the top of the dam, there is now nothing left to pump up because the river is now dry. Incidentally, that's how we "turn off" Niagara Falls.

Of which only Mica and Revelstroke are capable of producing more than 200 MW (one would assume that a smaller dam has a proportionately smaller reservoir); according to the map, you've got some solar potential in the upper Columbia, but not as much as the southern Kootenays.

Fair enough, though I don't see the point when we apparently have 59,000 GWh of offshore wind. NaiKun's proposal alone is nearly all of Tumbler Ridge's current output combined.

Originally Posted by Changing City

- snip -

And yet since they botched the transition and couldn't build enough renewables to cover the gap, they ended up having to restart their deactivated coal plants and buy Russian gas. We should learn from that and have all our ducks lined up.

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Thanks for that link. Interesting to note they had already shut down any East German (Soviet?) reactors right after re-unification. All of their operating plants were West German Siemens designed.

Nuclear power in Germany has a really sad history. Makes me hurt. All of it is understandable with historical context, but it's all for irrational reasons.

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

A river has a finite flow rate. If we hypothetically manage to pump 100% of that flow back up to the top of the dam, there is now nothing left to pump up because the river is now dry. Incidentally, that's how we "turn off" Niagara Falls.

Of which only Mica and Revelstroke are capable of producing more than 200 MW (one would assume that a smaller dam has a proportionately smaller reservoir); according to the map, you've got some solar potential in the upper Columbia, but not as much as the southern Kootenays.

Fair enough, though I don't see the point when we apparently have 59,000 GWh of offshore wind. NaiKun's proposal alone is nearly all of Tumbler Ridge's current output combined.

It feels to me like you don't comprehend the full extent of the Mica and Revelstoke dams and reservoirs and the flow of the Columbia. Mica is the largest generating station in the province, more than the WAC Bennett Dam or the eventual capacity of Site C and Revelstoke is larger than Site C will be too.

And NaiKun can work in tandem with Kemano which despite its low profile has almost as much generation potential as Site C.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by chowhou

It feels to me like you don't comprehend the full extent of the Mica and Revelstoke dams and reservoirs and the flow of the Columbia. Mica is the largest generating station in the province, more than the WAC Bennett Dam or the eventual capacity of Site C and Revelstoke is larger than Site C will be too.

And NaiKun can work in tandem with Kemano which despite its low profile has almost as much generation potential as Site C.

You were referring to the entire Columbia watershed, not Mica or Revelstoke; the Keenleyside Dam (like the nine others like it) isn't capable of producing the same power output.

Columbia's flow rate is 7,500 m³/s, Niagara, 5,796 m³/s; if we can turn one off, we can turn the other off. Fortunately, solar is so crap up near Mica/Revelstoke that it won't come to that.

This is the SkyTrain/Fraser Valley Express argument all over again. Given a choice between NaiKun and a similarly-priced wind farm on Tumbler Ridge, Victoria will likely go with NaiKun; offshore wind is stronger and much more consistent than onshore, so NK'll have more output and likely won't need Kemano at all.

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

You were referring to the entire Columbia watershed, not Mica or Revelstoke; the Keenleyside Dam (like the nine others like it) isn't capable of producing the same power output.

Columbia's flow rate is 7,500 m³/s, Niagara, 5,796 m³/s; if we can turn one off, we can turn the other off. Fortunately, solar is so crap up near Mica/Revelstoke that it won't come to that.

This is the SkyTrain/Fraser Valley Express argument all over again. Given a choice between NaiKun and a similarly-priced wind farm on Tumbler Ridge, Victoria will likely go with NaiKun; offshore wind is stronger and much more consistent than onshore, so NK'll have more output and likely won't need Kemano at all.

Mica and Revelstoke are the Columbia (well not entirely, but Keenleyside and the others like it can be considered irrelevant, they're more for flow control as part of our treaty obligations than power generation.) I feel like you have this idea that you have to co-locate solar/wind with hydroelectric dams for the storage to make sense, but obviously we can power Vancouver with the output of the Peace River or the output of offshore wind so that's a moot point. In British Columbia electricity is electricity. If the wind/solar generation is part of the grid, you can reduce the demand for hydroelectricity and reduce the flow through our hydroelectric dams regardless of where they are in the province.

FYI there's no such thing as similarly priced onshore and offshore wind. Offshore wind is much hard to justify economically. Even if it was it's still not an on-demand source. There's no such thing as ramping up output. So it still can and should work in tandem with our hydroelectricity dams to let the dams hold back water for higher demand periods.

(Also did you stop for a moment to think about the fact that the flow rate of the Columbia is 25% more than the flow rate of the Niagara? We have so much water it's a shame to waste it.)

[CanSpice]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Fortunately, solar is so crap up near Mica/Revelstoke that it won't come to that.

Why do the solar farms need to be near dams? Do they produce some kind of different electricity that can't be transmitted over transmission lines?

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by chowhou

Mica and Revelstoke are the Columbia (well not entirely, but Keenleyside and the others like it can be considered irrelevant, they're more for flow control as part of our treaty obligations than power generation.) I feel like you have this idea that you have to co-locate solar/wind with hydroelectric dams for the storage to make sense, but obviously we can power Vancouver with the output of the Peace River or the output of offshore wind so that's a moot point. In British Columbia electricity is electricity. If the wind/solar generation is part of the grid, you can reduce the demand for hydroelectricity and reduce the flow through our hydroelectric dams regardless of where they are in the province.

Originally Posted by CanSpice

Why do the solar farms need to be near dams? Do they produce some kind of different electricity that can't be transmitted over transmission lines?

Longer distances require more infrastructure and money, and have more voltage loss (especially with BC's size and terrain) - that's part of why decentralized smart grids and battery farms haven't taken off like environmentalists want them to. "Live where you work" and all that. The recent brain fart about piping water from here all the way down to SoCal to fight drought comes to mind.

Originally Posted by chowhou

FYI there's no such thing as similarly priced onshore and offshore wind. Offshore wind is much hard to justify economically. Even if it was it's still not an on-demand source. There's no such thing as ramping up output. So it still can and should work in tandem with our hydroelectricity dams to let the dams hold back water for higher demand periods.

(Also did you stop for a moment to think about the fact that the flow rate of the Columbia is 25% more than the flow rate of the Niagara? We have so much water it's a shame to waste it.)

Or we could use it to take pressure off Victoria and Nanaimo's baseload - for that higher price, you're getting 396 MW compared to Meikle's 185.

We can use some. At a certain point, that "some" might get big enough to become a problem elsewhere.

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Longer distances require more infrastructure and money, and have more voltage loss (especially with BC's size and terrain) - that's part of why decentralized smart grids and battery farms haven't taken off like environmentalists want them to. The recent brain fart about piping water from here all the way down to SoCal to fight drought comes to mind.

Or we could use it to take pressure off Victoria and Nanaimo's baseload - for that higher price, you're getting 396 MW compared to Meikle's 185.

Without looking it up, what percentage of electricity in BC do you think is lost due to transmission losses? Just drop it, if anything if we can build solar farms or wind farms closer to Vancouver than the big hydroelectric dams are that just means that the transmission losses will be lower for the system as a whole. Again I think you have this mental model that wind and solar combined with hydroelectricity means "sending" electricity from the solar and wind farms "to" the hydroelectric dams, when that's really not how it works at all. Electricity in the electrical grid does not know or care about where sources or sinks are, it only feels current and voltage flowing from sources to sinks.

Also I did a little reading into the NaiKun project and it seems to be dead in the water (so to speak.) Offshore wind isn't really that economically viable, and on top of that it's politically unpopular.

[Alex Mackinnon]

Originally Posted by chowhou

Nuclear power in Germany has a really sad history. Makes me hurt. All of it is understandable with historical context, but it's all for irrational reasons.



It feels to me like you don't comprehend the full extent of the Mica and Revelstoke dams and reservoirs and the flow of the Columbia. Mica is the largest generating station in the province, more than the WAC Bennett Dam or the eventual capacity of Site C and Revelstoke is larger than Site C will be too.

And NaiKun can work in tandem with Kemano which despite its low profile has almost as much generation potential as Site C.

Kemano makes/will make more power than Site C, despite the lower peak capacity. It doesn't work well for what you're proposing though, since it's basically run at a steady rate rather than following demand. They're not really as water constrained as the other systems are.

Kemano basically dumps 750 MW into the Alcan Smelter at all times, with a bit leftover for sale to the grid.

Some other storage system would be better set to be paired with a big wind farm like NaiKun.

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by chowhou

Without looking it up, what percentage of electricity in BC do you think is lost due to transmission losses? Just drop it, if anything if we can build solar farms or wind farms closer to Vancouver than the big hydroelectric dams are that just means that the transmission losses will be lower for the system as a whole. Again I think you have this mental model that wind and solar combined with hydroelectricity means "sending" electricity from the solar and wind farms "to" the hydroelectric dams, when that's really not how it works at all. Electricity in the electrical grid does not know or care about where sources or sinks are, it only feels current and voltage flowing from sources to sinks.

Also I did a little reading into the NaiKun project and it seems to be dead in the water (so to speak.) Offshore wind isn't really that economically viable, and on top of that it's politically unpopular.

Probably around 5% (stats from 2014)

https://cortescurrents.ca/transmission-grid-loss/

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by Alex Mackinnon

Kemano makes/will make more power than Site C, despite the lower peak capacity. It doesn't work well for what you're proposing though, since it's basically run at a steady rate rather than following demand. They're not really as water constrained as the other systems are.

Kemano basically dumps 750 MW into the Alcan Smelter at all times, with a bit leftover for sale to the grid.

Some other storage system would be better set to be paired with a big wind farm like NaiKun.

It's not about water constraints though, it's about matching supply to demand and increasing the baseload supply we have from our existing hydroelectric dams. Since Kemano is privately held it's probably an even better example of how it work in real world; When wind and solar power are peaking in generation capacity, electricity is going to have a high supply relative to demand, so the price of electricity Powerex is going to aim for is going to be lower. Kemano might choose to produce less excess power during this period. Then as the sun sets and the wind calms and everyone's heatpump kicks in to start heating, supply will be lower relative to demand and Powerex will be looking to buy and Kemano can ramp up production to profit.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by chowhou

- snip -

Yes. Drop it. I looked it up, and HVDC loses 3.5% per 1,000 km; AC, even more so (total loss from all sources is 5-6% overall on average); if we're okay with bleeding up to 10 MW from every new farm - and we're happy with sending it straight to the recipient - then maybe we don't need pumped storage as much as you think we do. Again, there's a certain orange man thinking that all California needs to do is build a pipeline up to BC which'll solve all their water problems.

Unpopular to owners of golf courses in Scotland, perhaps. BC, for its part, still has dozens more proposals on the table.

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Yes. Drop it. I looked it up, and HVDC loses 3.5% per 1,000 km; AC, even more so (total loss from all sources is 5-6% overall on average); if we're okay with bleeding up to 10 MW from every new farm - and we're happy with sending it straight to the recipient - then maybe we don't need pumped storage as much as you think we do.

Unpopular to owners of golf courses in Scotland, perhaps. BC, for its part, still has dozens more proposals on the table.

No one is talking about pumped storage.

Originally Posted by chowhou

I don't know why I have to always say this; Holding back water is not pumped storage!

We also don't use HVDC anymore in BC AFAIK.

And yes, that's pretty standard for electrical generation. Nothing is perfect, and considering how far away the Peace River is from Vancouver and Vancouver Island where the bulk of BC Hydro's customers are I don't think it's much of a worry to have solar farms in the South Interior or wind farms in the South Peace.