New Role for Decommissioned Coal Plants
In the context of grid management, we hear a great deal about “ancillary services,” which normally means adding a bit of power to the electricity grid, specifically generated so as to manage seemingly small but extremely important issues like unwanted fluctuations in voltage and wave-form. Where do these “services” come from? Well, if you read ten articles on the subject, nine of them will tell you that they derive from our modern concepts in utility scale energy like storage—in the form of pumped hydro, batteries, flywheels, etc.—one day perhaps even V2G (vehicle-to-grid).
Would it astound you to think that the turbines in defunct coal plants might have a role here?
Unless they are spinning in a vacuum on magnetic levitation bearings, my guess is that these turbines will have a significant attached energy cost – overcoming air and bearing friction 24/7.
My guess is that spinning the turbines in very much reduced pressure would be relatively easy to achieve as they are already designed to extract energy efficiently from expanding gas. sealing and pumping the chamber to a near vacuum should therefore be fairly simple.
The bearings side would also be achievable, but may not be so easy.