Base Load and Peaking Power Plants
Base load power plants operate at maximum output. They shut down or reduce power only to perform maintenance or repair. These plants produce electricity at the lowest cost of any type of power plant, and so are most economically used at maximum capacity. Base load power plants include coal, fuel oil, almost all nuclear, geothermal, hydroelectric, biomass and combined cycle natural gas plants.
Peaking power plants operate only during times of peak demand. In countries with widespread air conditioning, demand peaks around the middle of the afternoon, so a typical peaking power plant may start up a couple of hours before this point and shut down a couple of hours after. However, the duration of operation for peaking plants varies from a good portion of the waking day to only a couple dozen hours per year. Peaking power plants include hydroelectric and gas turbine power plants. Many gas turbine power plants can be fueled with natural gas or diesel. Most plants burn natural gas, but a supply of diesel is sometimes kept on hand in case the gas supply is interrupted. Other gas turbines can only burn either diesel or natural gas.
Read more about this topic: Load Following Power Plant
Famous quotes containing the words base, load, power and/or plants:
“The desire of most parents is first and foremost to do what is best for their children. Every interview with a mother or father confirms this, every letter written by a parent breathes this deep-seated wish, “I hope I am doing the right thing for my child.” This is real and honest, and at the very base of parenthood.”
—Irma Simonton Black (20th century)
“The only human beings I have thoroughly admired and respected in the world have been those who carried the load of the world with a smile, and who, in the face of anxieties that would have knocked me clean out, never showed a tremor. Such men and women end by owning us, soul and body, and our allegiance can never be shaken. We are only too glad to be owned. Religion is nothing but this.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“I have no hesitation in saying that although the American woman never leaves her domestic sphere and is in some respects very dependent within it, nowhere does she enjoy a higher station. And ... if anyone asks me what I think the chief cause of the extraordinary prosperity and growing power of this nation, I should answer that it is due to the superiority of their women.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
“Probably if our lives were more conformed to nature, we should not need to defend ourselves against her heats and colds, but find her our constant nurse and friend, as do plants and quadrupeds.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)