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On Clean Energy, the Wind Blows from Germany

25 points by T-A 11y ago

stuaxo 11y ago
It puts the UKs disappointing approach in perspective. The current government promised to be the greenest ever, but has cut renewable subsidies and is about to override local democracy by pushing through with fraking in Lankeshire.
- ygra 11y ago
  Subsidies are only needed to push a technology to market where it wouldn't be economically feasible in the beginning. At least in Germany the current state is that renewable energy is on par or cheaper than coal and nuclear, even without subsidies. In such cases it makes sense to cut the subsidies. Don't know whether that's the case in the UK already, though.
tmalsburg2 11y ago
The graph is pretty interesting. It shows that the contribution of wind can outweight other renewables by a huge margin. It also shows that the contribution of wind can range between almost 0% to more than 50% depending on the weather. The storage capacity needed to smooth out these differences must be breathtaking. Hard to believe that lithium-ion batteries can make a meaningful contribution to that.
- the8472 11y ago
  During the summer solar can stack on top of the wind energy, but obviously only during daytime. This causes even more uneven distributions. Select weeks 30 and 31 on [1] for example. The overproduction caused quite a spike in exports. Storage is one part of the solution, but not the only one. Adaptive consumption and simply building overcapacity are additional options. [1] https://www.energy-charts.de/power.htm https://www.energy-charts.de/power.htm
rodionos 11y ago
Similar graphs for Denmark, covering the last 15 years. Daily records in 2015: - Wind: http://apps.axibase.com/slider/energinet-2015/?slide=10 http://apps.axibase.com/slider/energinet-2015/?slide=10 - Conventional: http://apps.axibase.com/slider/energinet-2015/?slide=11 http://apps.axibase.com/slider/energinet-2015/?slide=11 Notice that you really have to have a) substantial spare installed capacity and 2) interconnects to survive a day without wind.

25 points by T-A 11y ago

It puts the UKs disappointing approach in perspective. The current government promised to be the greenest ever, but has cut renewable subsidies and is about to override local democracy by pushing through with fraking in Lankeshire.

ygra 11y ago
Subsidies are only needed to push a technology to market where it wouldn't be economically feasible in the beginning. At least in Germany the current state is that renewable energy is on par or cheaper than coal and nuclear, even without subsidies. In such cases it makes sense to cut the subsidies. Don't know whether that's the case in the UK already, though.

tmalsburg2 11y ago

The graph is pretty interesting. It shows that the contribution of wind can outweight other renewables by a huge margin. It also shows that the contribution of wind can range between almost 0% to more than 50% depending on the weather. The storage capacity needed to smooth out these differences must be breathtaking. Hard to believe that lithium-ion batteries can make a meaningful contribution to that.

the8472 11y ago
During the summer solar can stack on top of the wind energy, but obviously only during daytime. This causes even more uneven distributions. Select weeks 30 and 31 on [1] for example. The overproduction caused quite a spike in exports. Storage is one part of the solution, but not the only one. Adaptive consumption and simply building overcapacity are additional options. [1] https://www.energy-charts.de/power.htm https://www.energy-charts.de/power.htm

rodionos 11y ago

Similar graphs for Denmark, covering the last 15 years. Daily records in 2015: - Wind: http://apps.axibase.com/slider/energinet-2015/?slide=10 http://apps.axibase.com/slider/energinet-2015/?slide=10 - Conventional: http://apps.axibase.com/slider/energinet-2015/?slide=11 http://apps.axibase.com/slider/energinet-2015/?slide=11 Notice that you really have to have a) substantial spare installed capacity and 2) interconnects to survive a day without wind.