Besides the fact they’re costly to operate compared to normal power plants (about 3X of generating cost), it takes a lot to warm up these power plants at a moment notice.
Our solution in Toronto was to just run them half of the time all the time.
I think the warm-up cost isn’t really there when the plant is operating continuously.
Oddly for a peaker plant, they built these as combined cycle, which wouldn’t make financial sense if it was to only run for short periods.
A “true” peaker plant is inefficient but with lots of capacity but we basically build a “proper” power plant that has good efficiency, so it’s not too bad. But makes you wonder what went so wrong in the planning (even though the mistake turned out advantageous).
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Our solution in Toronto was to just run them half of the time all the time.
Haaaaaaard paywall: https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/ontario-gas-plants-were-...
Wouldn’t it be more cost effective to make a new power plant at that operating expense?
I think the warm-up cost isn’t really there when the plant is operating continuously.
Oddly for a peaker plant, they built these as combined cycle, which wouldn’t make financial sense if it was to only run for short periods.
A “true” peaker plant is inefficient but with lots of capacity but we basically build a “proper” power plant that has good efficiency, so it’s not too bad. But makes you wonder what went so wrong in the planning (even though the mistake turned out advantageous).