It all depends on how reliably wind farms can commit to a specified production for up to the start-up time of the back-up fossil fuel plants. Otherwise, the fossil fuel plants must remain in hot stand-by with a very high fuel consumption while doing nothing.
The "high fuel consumption" is all relative - it's high per kWh produced, but no so much in overall terms, so it's an acceptable trade off.
And you might find this text interesting. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
How much? I don't have hard numbers so I'd like you to come up with them as this is a wind problem :)
But my limited knowledge of rotary and thermal machines tells me at least 20% from rated power consumption to maintain pressure, minimal flow and, most important, temperature. Maintaining a stable temperature is absolutely essential. Otherwise you break things like exchangers or turbine blades on fast ramp-up. Maintaining a stable temperature profile is also vital in the flue system for pollution control or you start spewing NOx and, if there any halogen in the fuel, dioxins.
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Your link is too long to do it justice and properly eviscerate it.
It's BS. The guy is simply projecting his British incompetence on the French system.
He's flat out wrong about nuclear "inflexibility". Wrong as in "just plain wrong". EdF performs load following with its nuclear power plants and even shuts down some of them over weekends to kick them back online in the wee hours of Monday mornings. That's why the capacity factor of French nukes is pretty low - 75% vs. 90 to 95% in the US - but their availability is much higher - 85% to 95%.
He's also completely off-base on EJP. It's about grid reliability and the fact that EdF - by virtue of being a well-run monopoly with high technical know-how - has been in a position to do load management way, way before it was cool.
EdF is simply taking advantage that for many industrial clients, even the level of reliability offered by EdF is not enough. So those clients MUST have a backup no matter what. When an industrial oven looses juice, you don't lose just the melt and a day of production. You loose the oven. The clean up is done with circular saws, jack-hammers and cutting torches and the oven has to be rebuilt pretty much from scratch. For things liek aluminum refining, a lose of power for more than a few hours is simply catastrophic. The entire plant is lost. So EdF is giving those clients with backup that deal so it can shed load very quickly if something goes wrong. And some other customers with high electricity bills make the math and jump on board. The result is a very stable grid.
When I was in Paris, nearly two year, I've had all in all 0 blackouts. Zero. I was in the 15ème. I know that there are more problems in some of the inner arrondissements because of the age of the local distribution equipments and the difficulty to maintain and replace them (very cramped sheds, low accessibility, street work is a nightmare, etc.). But EdF reliability for consumers is pretty amazing.
In comparison, since I've been back in the US in the tender care of PG&E - not even two years - I can count at least 6 times without juice at home or at the office. Actually I even had to buy a special alarm clock with an integrated battery backup, one that rings the alarm even without grid juice, not just to keep the hour. And thanks God, there are showers at the office.
And the rant about overnight water heaters. Please...
At this level, I'm not sure if it's Anglo disease or Mad Cow disease.
