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Originally posted by hypermax
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Of course it occurred to me........thats exactly why they are there, for when the wind don't blow n the sun don't shine. The beauty of gas turbines is they can reach superheat very quickly. You just open a valve to start the process. A coal fired power station module must maintain heat even when there is an oversupply of power eg a hot sunny day and all those household solar panels in the cities are churning it out. And where is all this excess going.....its going to "earth"....... or being consumed in resistors which turn electrical energy to heat which is disipated into the earth and atmosphere. Yet the base load coal power station keep producing albeit at a reduced rate, just in case the sun goes behind a cloud! And when this does happen the coal stations start feeding coal, a slow process so the satellite gas plants jump in.
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We have had peaking plants for a long time . Whether they be gas fired or pumped hydro , we have actually needed them for much longer than you think . In the past we didn't rely on them as much as we do now but times have changed .
