Technology Tuesdays: What the Duck?!

Hello Partners!

This week for Technology Tuesdays I would like to ask the question: What the Duck?!

No, really what is the duck curve people are always talking about and where did the duck come from?

Admittedly, I am one of those people that finds ducks insanely cute. I often find myself stopping at the store for a loaf of bread before I head to the park. Unfortunately, that’s not the duck we are talking about now. Not only is the duck CURVE not something that’s cute, it’s also not something we want to be feeding.

Allow me to explain: the duck curve describes the shape of a chart. This particular chart covers a 24-hour period of time during the spring in California. The season is important because during the springtime, there is still a lot of sunlight which translates into solar generation however, people are not using their air conditioning or heating. This makes for a dramatic curve in the chart. Some people still say they can’t see the duck, but I assure you, it’s there. You can find a really great graphic of the duck curve here.

During the early parts of the day, there is an abundance of solar generation. Sometimes, too much solar generation which is called overgeneration. However, as soon as the sun begins to set for the day, there is a critical period of time where the electrical grid must ramp up significantly and in a short period of time to meet the energy demand when solar is no longer available. This ramp up has been an ever-increasing challenge for utility companies and is the reason behind the duck curve concept.

Ramp up doesn’t sound so bad, right? What issues could this possibly cause? Well, one of the primary concerns is that larger generators cannot be turned up quickly. Also, attempting to increase suddenly to meet that demand can lead to an unstable grid and even power outages. We want to avoid those as much as possible.

What does all this mean for us? Should half of us just flip our work schedules so we can offset the stress to the grid between 4 PM and 9 PM? Maybe we should do away with solar energy generation altogether because the duck is just too troublesome! There are actually some less drastic solutions. One of them is solar energy storage. The idea here is to leverage the fact solar energy is over-generated. That extra energy that was not needed during the day can be stored and used during the ramp up time just after the sun sets. This would alleviate putting such a substantial amount of pressure on the grid.

The savings never stop!

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Sources:
https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/confronting-duck-curve-how-address-over-generation-solar-energy#:~:text=The%20duck%20curve%E2%80%94named%20after,demand%20peaks%20in%20the%20evening.
https://www.synergy.net.au/Blog/2021/10/Everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-Duck-Curve