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One nice advantage of wind and solar farms is that they can be added incrementally. Maybe you would need just as many millions of investment in infrustructure t
by lumberjack 11y ago
One nice advantage of wind and solar farms is that they can be added incrementally. Maybe you would need just as many millions of investment in infrustructure to get the same output capacity but you can start with 1/10 of the required capital, set it up and have it online and keep adding as you go.
- marcosdumay 11y agoLast time I looked, inverters were the elephant on the room. They are a big fraction of the costs, and the small end scales to power^(1/2) in price. Not to say that you are wrong, but you'll need at a minimum a several hundred thousand investment to stay competitive.
- jerven 11y agoYes, but at utility level the difference is invest in million increments to 100 million increments for solar(pv) and wind. While gas is in the same range, modern coal really starts at the top end of that range and nuclear is just an order of magnitude higher. Wind and solar projects often get cancelled and restarted, mostly because the risk profiles allow for that. Committing to gas is dependant on existing infra, if there is a good gas supply infra then unlikely to cancel if planning permission ok. Once committed to nuclear, you either finish it or go bankrupt... Coal is getting to be very risky from a regulatory perspective which is why power company execs don't like adding new capacity.
- rtuins 11y agoNot just the incremental additions, there basically are no other generation sources below few KWs. Gasoline or diesel generators can be used as a backup only requires a lot of maintenance.