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Portugal runs for four days on renewable energy alone
- codecamper 10y agoThat's pretty amazing. I'm actually here in Portugal, down in the Algarve & you don't actually see very many solar panels or wind turbines around. Though there is a big geothermal plant not too far from here.
- glaberficken 10y agoThat's probably a thermal-electric (gas/other type of fossil fuel burning station) To my knowledge there are no geo-thermal station in Portugal.
- nusq 10y agoJust so you can improve your knowledge, Portugal as geo-thermal power plants in Azores.
- glaberficken 10y agoSorry had that edit open in a tab i ended up not submitting, you are of course correct =). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power_in_Portugal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power_in_Portugal
- bubuga 10y ago> To my knowledge there are no geo-thermal station in Portugal. There are,mainly in the Azores islands. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power_in_Portugal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power_in_Portugal
- griffinheart 10y agoI'm Portuguese but far from knowledgeable in matters of energy. Going north from Lisbon you'll start to see many wind turbines while in the freeway and inner roads.
- lagadu 10y agoYou'll see a lot more in the centre of the country than in the south.
- jventura 10y agoAfaik, mostly relevant sources of geothermal power in Portugal are in the Azores islands (wonderful place to visit, btw). Regarding wind power, the highest locations are on the northern part of the country (above Lisbon), so most wind turbines are there. Same thing for water dams, as it is natural that most rivers and streams are on mountain's valleys. Only solar power is quite pervasive, as Portugal is known to have a very high average number of days of solar exposure. I live some 3/4 kms of a quite big solar power array that is the source of the majority of electrical power in the nearby houses. And in Alentejo (just north of Algarve), you can find the Amareleja power station which in 2008 was considered the largest solar power array in the world (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moura_Photovoltaic_Power_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moura_Photovoltaic_Power_Stati...).
- ascorbic 10y agoIn the north they're everywhere.
- joaoaccarvalho 10y agoAs others said you'll find more wind and hydro power in the north. As far as solar power is concerned, there's not so much in Portugal, because it was expensive until some couple of years. Nowadays we have a remuneration scheme that allows you to consume directly from your solar panel, thus not increasing the accumulated tariff debt (it is currently at ~5billion€. Spain is worse at ~27billion€. They invested in solar power too early)
- ocschwar 10y agoA pity. Portuguese solar can take a big bite out of French peak demand. The sun sets on Marseilles, and everyone's coming home for dinner, but there's still some sun in PT.
- bubuga 10y agoIIRC, France has been very adamant in refusing to get its energy from spain and portugal due to political reasons. This became patently obvious in the EU's energy union negotiations, and in the way France insisted in forcing the so called Pyrenees power bottleneck (the only limitation to Spain and Portugal's ability to supply electrical energy to France) http://www.reuters.com/article/france-spain-electricity-idUSL6N0VG3V020150213 http://www.reuters.com/article/france-spain-electricity-idUS...
- ocschwar 10y agoInsane. The French prefer depending on Nigerois uranium instead of Portuguese solar? Unreal. Learn a new thing every day.. Thanks
- nelmaven 10y agoIn Algarve, between Lagos and Aljezur there's quite a few wind turbines.
- nunobrito 10y agoVery happy to read the good news. Last time was about 11 hours some three years ago. This time 4 days. I'm crossing fingers for next time to reach two weeks.
- anewhnaccount 10y agoMeanwhile the UK is dragging its heels by cutting the renewable subsidies -- a move which at this point can really only be ideologically motivated.
- tonyedgecombe 10y agoYes, so much for the greenest government ever [1]. [1] http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/may/14/cameron-wants-greenest-government-ever http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/may/14/cameron-w...
- toyg 10y agoIf by ideology you mean "backhands from old-money oil companies", yeah totally.
- crdoconnor 10y agoAnd on nuclear too: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-17/u-k-china-poised-for-deal-on-world-s-costliest-nuclear-plant http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-17/u-k-china-... The cost doesn't even include the implicit subsidy from the liability cap the government gives them. Fukushima-style cleanup costs falling on the taxpayer = free insurance.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- andyjohnson0 10y agoReal-time(-ish) UK consumption details can be found here [1]. At the time of posting (late morning) wind is generating 7.9%, coal 4.1% and nuclear 22.1% of total demand. Unsurprisingly there appear to be no figures for solar. [1] http://gridwatch.co.uk/ http://gridwatch.co.uk/
- jsingleton 10y agoThis is explained at: http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk "As no solar PV to date is metered centrally, we cannot show real time figures on solar PV power yet. It appears only as a mid-day dip in overall demand, on the demand graph." The French data does include solar: http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/france http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/france
- jneves 10y agoIf you wish, you can follow the daily statistics of the Portuguese grid at: http://www.centrodeinformacao.ren.pt/PT/Paginas/CIHomePage.aspx http://www.centrodeinformacao.ren.pt/PT/Paginas/CIHomePage.a... (in Portuguese) or http://www.centrodeinformacao.ren.pt/EN/Pages/CIHomePage.aspx http://www.centrodeinformacao.ren.pt/EN/Pages/CIHomePage.asp... (in English).
- jneves 10y agoIf you wish, you can follow the daily statistics of the Portuguese grid at: http://www.centrodeinformacao.ren.pt/PT/Paginas/CIHomePage.aspx http://www.centrodeinformacao.ren.pt/PT/Paginas/CIHomePage.a... (in Portuguese) or http://www.centrodeinformacao.ren.pt/EN/Pages/CIHomePage.aspx http://www.centrodeinformacao.ren.pt/EN/Pages/CIHomePage.asp... (in English).
- jventura 10y agoCuriously enough, this information has not been publicly relayed in the national media. I've only read about it on the international media.. It's indeed a pity that we don't know that sometimes our money is spend in a nice way.. :/
- zemanel 10y agoI'm portuguese and always found national media to be generally bad. Case in point, todays cover of http://www.jn.pt/ http://www.jn.pt/ : - soccer - X murdered Y - something about the police - bad thing Z happened on freeways - how the weather is going to be on the weekend - world news: the weather in India is apparently very nice today :-)
- karmapolice 10y agoOh, in Spain we also have those "it's cold in winter, it's hot in summer" 5-minute long news every week, with the apparently mandatory interview with some locals...
- aembleton 10y agoWe get that in the UK, complete with the use of Fahrenheit in the summer and Celsius in the winter just so that they can use as big or a small a number as they want to.
- sergiosgc 10y agoIt was. On publico.pt and on observador.pt, at least. On a slightly related note: What our media totally skipped were the SpaceX landings. They were busy discussing the resignation of the minister of Culture because of some FB insults. Humph. Politics: a reality show that is, unfortunately, real.
- jventura 10y agoOn their internet websites. I was mainly referring to printed or TV media, for which each cm^2 of paper or 1 second of audio/video costs "something" and therefore is a measure of how much "importance" something has for everyone. I can only assume that trying to get away from petroleum-based products is not important for most of us (portuguese people)..
- klean92 10y agoSoon enough, I will know if it is a windy or sunny day by looking at the AWS EC2 spot price.
- ccozan 10y agoWe used to have the petro-dollar, now it's the solar-dollar :)
- mipapage 10y ago"The Iberian peninsula is a great resource for renewables and wind energy, not just for the region but for the whole of Europe." Sure, but the inept Spanish non-government will never do the right thing with this amazing opportunity.
- fasteo 10y ago>>> Sure, but the inept Spanish non-government will never do the right thing with this amazing opportunity How come ? Spain has lots of both solar and wind plants that have been heavily subsidized by the government in the last 15 years.
- jkot 10y agoWe should probably add that coal plants were still running on hot standby, in case wind stops blowing.
- jon_smark 10y agoThe article lacks a crucial bit of context: particularly in the North and Center of Portugal, the last 8 months have been even rainier than usual (many areas already over 2000mm of rain in this period, instead of the 1000-1500mm that would be normal), favouring of course hydroelectric power generation, which accounts for a huge percentage of the renewable total. Not to dismiss this great news, but the country is still a long way from being 100% renewable on a continuing basis. There's however a huge untapped potential in solar, so that goal is reachable if the investment happens (and grid storage becomes cheaper).
- toyg 10y agoPortugal, Spain, Italy, France, Greece -- all these countries are advantaged on the renewable front, since they can use both hydro (lots of mountains and streams) and solar, two sources that complement each other very well: droughts generate solar, rains generate hydro.
- bubuga 10y agoI would also add that the energy cost in Portugal is one of the highest in europe, and one of the main reasons for its high cost was the investment in PPPs in renewable energy.
- davedx 10y agoSource? I believe in EUR its the same as NL and cheaper than DE. The problem is salaries/min wage in PT are very low.
- paulojreis 10y agoTake a look at http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Electricity_price_statistics#Electricity_prices_for_household_consumers http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/... Eventually perusing the Eurostat database itself would give a better picture of the evolution.
- ruipgil 10y ago
- fasteo 10y agoI'm all in for renewable energy, but it bothers me the lack of critical thinking about it. The words "renewable" and "green" are always viewed as something positive for humanity, but as everything in life, nothing is black or white. Here is [1] and interesting article about how efficient energy could actually speed up the end of civilization. [1] http://www.inscc.utah.edu/~tgarrett/Economics/Jevons_Paradox.html http://www.inscc.utah.edu/~tgarrett/Economics/Jevons_Paradox...
- garethrees 10y agoThis is an encouraging story but the headline is very misleading. It would be more accurate to say, "Portugal's ELECTRICITY GENERATION runs for four days straight on renewable energy alone." In Portugal (as in most Western European countries), electricity accounts for about 20% of energy consumption (source: Eurostat). Transport and heating are still almost totally dependant on non-renewable fossil fuels. So there's a long way to go.
- knodi123 10y agoliving near the equator, it's hard for me to remember the great amount of energy that more northerly areas use just to keep their home environments liveable. heating is literally a negligible blip in my overall energy equation.
- xufi 10y agoYeah I'm in the Mid Atlantic and have been to the Northeast and it is definitely a massive amount of money+power that you need just to keep warm.
- jobigoud 10y agoIn France we use electricity for heating a lot. Something like a quarter to a third of all homes are heated using electricity.
- garethrees 10y agoFrance is above average in this respect — electricity accounts for about 25% of energy consumption.
- Chos89 10y agoIf a country spends i.e. 100MW of electricity, how much does it need to be able to produce to be safe when the circumstances aren't favorable for max production? Or will we always need non-renewable sources for this issue?
- sandworm101 10y ago>>Zero emission milestone reached as country is powered by just wind, solar and hydro-generated electricity for 107 hours. Hydroelectric power isn't the clean renewable it is often made out to be. Its impact is very location-specific. Some dams need constant dredging. Some decimate downriver ecosystems. And the flooding of green forests, carbon sinks, isn't carbon-neutral. Each is different, but imho hydroelectric shouldn't be listed as "zero emission" alongside solar and wind.
- astrodust 10y agoThere's emissions but they're not always proportional to power generation like you might see with coal. Do they have any estimates on the carbon footprint? Nuclear is the same as the cost of extracting fuel is non-zero.
- sandworm101 10y agoI've seen lots of different numbers. If you are in a dry dessert, then the numbers are probably low. But if you are in something like the pacific coastal rain forest and you are looking to flood a few km2 of trees, then net emissions can be monstrous. I did read of one theory linking emissions to production. It goes that production is proportional to the amount and pressure of water flowing through the dam, which is related to the size of the flooded area behind the dam. When the reservoir is low, as a result of production during non-rainy seasons, the flooded/dead forests are exposed to the air where they rot, releasing methane and other nasties.