Reply to post: Re: "run on more renewable energy sources:"

We need a 20MW 20,000-GPU-strong machine-learning supercomputer to build EU's planned digital twin of Earth

Binraider Silver badge

Re: "run on more renewable energy sources:"

The electricity network doesn't care what your source of generation is. What it does care about is the ability to adjust itself to stay at 50 or 60Hz as per your local networks standards dictate, in response to short term fluctuations like 20M people putting the kettle on at the close of a world cup final. Renewables fundamentally have less control over output compared to a gas turbine, a nuke, or a coal plant that have the advantage of physical inertia in the generator to ride out short term fluctuations. To facilitate mass renewables to fully replace heavy spinning generators, we need capable storage systems. Dinorwig is hugely capable, but also 40yr old and priced accordingly to it's mostly unique capabily in England & Wales. Smaller scale pumped storage such as that touted by Rhenergise or some of the battery ideas knocking about are key enabling techs to get unhooked from heavy spinning plant. The investment is slowly coming, but we do need more. I remind people of the events of August 2019 that lead to disconnection of demand due to a short term shortfall of generation when two big generators shut down within seconds of each other.

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