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You require inertia in the grid to maintain frequency and other stability stuff.

Solar PV is great but is mostly grid-following so cannot operate on it's own. As I understand it you need a minimum fraction of power generation to be large spinning turbines.

I think this problem can be mitigated with add-on rotational mass style kinetic energy batteries or something like that. I don't think variable energy pricing will help if it's an issue with over-demand the grid managers can do rolling blackouts to manage while fixing the supply problems. The grid is just broken at the moment and the solar can't maintain the grid alone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverter-based_resource




Large Inverter Based Resources (IBR) such as huge solar parcs, grid-scale batteries or high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) lines can be programmed to behave like rotating generators, or even to smooth out smaller ripples. They also don't necessarily need a leading grid frequency but can be used to generate their own frequency normal to cold-start or resync a grid.

Only "small stuff" IBRs need a leading frequency from the grid and disconnect outside their safety corridor because those usually aren't controllable from some central grid authority. Thus the stupid-but-safe behaviour mandated for them.


While this is plausible, this solution works in the world of simulations.

We do not have a solid understanding of how inverter-based fast frequency response works with an existing grid that uses physics-based inertia.


What about large scale distributed containerised Iron Salt batteries?

I've seen some papers saying that they help stabilise grids.




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