Fast load change power plants vs. high efficiency

Here is a current example about increasing costs and CO2 emissions by ignoring a profitability transition. Some decades ago, nobody imagined that sun and wind energy could deliver more electricity than all the caloric power plants together. Let's look back into this time to understand the historic context: There are these peaker power plants; they work mainly at midday. They can change the load fast, so no problem replacing them on a sunny day with solar electricity. Medium-load power plants are also no problem. But maybe we will have so much photovoltaic power in the future that we will even have to switch off the base power plants. But these base load power plants have too slow a decrease to be down until midday and too slow an increase to have full power at sunset. So base load power plants are an enemy of the energy transition; they congest the grid! Really, statements like this were still being made by high-ranking Green politicians in Germany even in 2025. The conclusion: All new power plants have to be for fast load change. Who killed the electric car at the beginning of the 20th century? The lead-acid battery. My Tesla Y with lead-acid batteries would have 20 kWh capacity and 100 km range, 40 kW peak power, and the battery would need to be replaced every 6,000 km. No joke, painful experience at my first electric scooter test, 2006 to 2009 (1). The same goes for any thoughts towards grid-scale batteries. So the ideal of the fast-changing power plant was born to deal with the changes in photovoltaic and wind energy. This was the historic context about 3 decades ago. It is shocking that we are still in the first phase of the energy transition. There are 3 phases of using renewable energy from the sun and wind:

Random, the sun shines or the wind blows, and we reduce the output of caloric power plants.
24-electricity, stable supply in the range of a day; batteries make a cooperation between sun, wind, and caloric power plants possible.
24×365 electricity, a stable supply for every day of the year, and the fossil fuel for caloric power plants is replaced by power to X.

In the first phase, the idea is, whenever the sun shines or the wind blows, we decrease the output of caloric power plants. In the other direction, to increase the output of caloric power plants as soon as it becomes dark or windless. That was the time when the wish for all power plants to be able to make fast load changes originated. This method has a limit: it is not possible to switch off more power plants than are just running. Because of this limit and because people were unwilling to think ahead, 70 GW was cited as the expansion target for photovoltaics in Germany for many years. They did not even think that renewable energy has to evolve from random to 24-electricity. Why? Lithium batteries were at this time too expensive for this task, and they were not convinced that this could change. This is despite all the experiences with price decreases in emerging industries. 24-electricity is a cooperation between renewable energy and caloric power plants. There is a weather and demand forecast: the next day we split production on 80% renewable and 20% caloric power plants. When there are 10 caloric power plants, let just 2 of them run with the highest efficiency. All the different yields of photovoltaic and wind power during the day are flattened by batteries. Surprise, the demand for fast load changes at power plants is gone. The batteries make such a slow load change possible that even the slowest-changing base load power plant can follow. Let's look at the current situation at new power plants to be built in Germany.

Fast load change power plants vs. high efficiency
Who killed the electric car at the beginning of the 20th century? The lead-acid battery. The same goes for any thoughts towards grid-scale batteries in the past.

10% less CAPEX 10% less natural gas to burn is already a huge difference for the efficiency-optimized battery version. But thinking in the past, they continue to talk about fast load change power plants.

Download: CORP paper PDF Slides PDF Video 189 MB

Abstract
	To meet the necessary cost optimization targets, we cannot hold the energy problem separate from all other problems: another major problem is housing.

Introduction
	Many imaginations about our future had been created in the past with completely different parameters. Unchecked conclusions from the past endanger our future with unbearable costs.

My personal experience with a profitability transition
	Birds can fly without knowing all the terms of aerodynamics. I reacted with my design change to an ongoing “profitability transition” without knowing the term at this time.

Energy transition
	The long way from random electricity from sun and wind towards 24×365 electricity. Overseen profitability transitions have to be considered as major accidents.

Solar yield and conversion to 24×365 electricity
	The wide range of solar yield becomes much wider after the conversion of gross yield to 24×365 electricity. 6 examples from our research of 50 locations.

The GEMINI principle: double usage of land
	No better solar power plant, no better housing possible on the same ground is the ultimate target of the GEMINI principle.

Off-grid fast charging settlements
	It can start small, somewhere in a village, with a single GEMINI house with a big PV carport and 100 kW DC charging.

Energy-intensive industry
	I once developed a scale for off-grid solar possibilities depending on photovoltaic size. But now is to make a big jump upwards on this scale: running, energy-intensive industry.

Agriculture: How many square meters does a human need for his food?
	Mankind started as hunters and gatherers. 12,000 years ago, 500,000 m² to 2,500,000 m² per human. With the agricultural revolution, the land use was reduced by 2 magnitudes.

Conclusion
	All parameters are in a constant state of change. We have to check all the parameters and predict the development for the predictable future.

References
	Roland Mösl: Energy Optimised Settlements – Enabler for Necessary Civilization Targets, Graz 2025