The relatively qualitative investigation of stability indicates that: 1. The sudden loss of the 5 GWe SPS output would probably cause a loss of load whenever the power pool was meeting a total load of roughly 40 GWe or less. The largest power pool considered in this study (peak demand = 50 GWe) meets a load of 40 GWe or less 88% of the time. 2. Sudden fluctuations in the SPS output could cause the operation of protective devices which themselves could exacerbate the stability problems. The investigation of reliability turned out to be basically a calculation of the total required installed capacity needed in a power pool if one or more SPS's (each with a generating capacity of 5 GWe) were installed instead of a number of conventional generating plants (each with a generation capacity of 1 GWe). This analysis was concerned primarily with the size of the proposed SPS, and therefore, most of the results would apply equally well to a 5 GWe terrestrial plant. The results indicate that whenever a 5 GWe generation is used instead of five 1 GWe generators (no change in the forced outage rate) an additional one to two gigawatts ($124 - $250 million) of extra reserve capacity (gas turbines at $125/kW) must be added if the system reliability is to be maintained. The magnitude of the assumed reliability criterion is not critical, since it is not likely to be changed when the SPS is added to tne power pool. The total amount of reserve generating capacity required in various power pools was calculated for power pools having yearly peak power demands of either: • 30 GWe, or • 40 GWe, or • 50 GWe, or a
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