4 ms·
Energy created in unequal bursts is highly inefficient to transport long distances - those sparsely populated places are not necessarily where you need to be ge
by cbcoutinho 9y ago
Energy created in unequal bursts is highly inefficient to transport long distances - those sparsely populated places are not necessarily where you need to be getting _to_. Getting those bursts of electricity intermittently is not ideal and utility companies wouldn't be running towards the opportunity
- angstrom 9y agoTrue, but to be fair, it's possible to clean it up by running the power through storage first and have the consistent energy on the other side of the storage. No different than using a UPS to clean up electricity with a lot of spikes in it (something that will kill most pc power supplies over time).
- dx034 9y agoIs it, though? China built some high capacity long-distance transmission lines for wind with relatively low losses. Obviously costs are higher if the line is only used for 6h a day but that doesn't mean that transmission isn't efficient.
- cbcoutinho 9y agoI should have specified that I meant economically inefficient. It may be technically efficient, but the low load factor (I would be surprised if wind is more than around 20-25% operational) would make transmission line that much more expensive to install than a similarly sized facility with a higher load factor
- 7952 9y agoLarger wind farms can be directly connected to the high voltage tranmission network which is designed to transport energy efficiently over long distances.