In reply to Jed Rothwell's message of Fri, 10 Mar 2006 18:36:36 -0500: Hi, [snip] >With this scheme it >would not be a problem because whenever demand fell significantly you >would divert the load into hydrogen generation, and you would >continue to supply some electricity with quick response >load-balancing generators, which I suppose would be natural gas turbines.
I don't really see the need for this. Current which is being diverted through an electrolysis cell can very rapidly be redirected to the grid almost effortlessly. IOW electrolysis doesn't really demand constant current. The only net result would be that the H2 production would fluctuate considerably, but so what? Or were you referring to times when no wind was blowing? BTW if all wind generators are hooked into the national grid, then load balancing shouldn't really be that much of a problem, because "The wind is always blowing somewhere". Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://users.bigpond.net.au/rvanspaa/ Competition provides the motivation, Cooperation provides the means.
