7 ms·

Record Set as India Produces 100 Billionth Unit of Renewable Energy in a Year

81 points by dsr12 9y ago

tzahola 9y ago
* Assuming the "Unit of Renewable Energy" is watt-hours. In SI units (Joules) they have long passed this "milestone".
- baking 9y ago
  100,000 GWh per fiscal year (2017-18) Edit: Wikipedia has them at 195,242 GWh in 2015 but that includes large-scale hydroelectric.
- lovelearning 9y ago
  I think the author of the article has got either his numbers or the metric units quite wrong. 100,000 GWh = 100,000,000,000,000 (giga => x 10^9) which means it's actually the 100 trillionth unit. And he repeats the mistake when saying "...and one hundred thousand million units of electricity has eleven zeros" - indeed it does but then 100000 million units is not 100000 G units. EDIT: Actually I'm the one who got it wrong. Apparently, electrical "unit" here is kWh not Wh, TIL.
  - baking 9y ago
    Well, kWh are the traditional unit for electrical power. (And yes, I know it is actually a unit of energy.)
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- taneq 9y ago
  If you have to assume the units of a claim, that certainly makes it a pretty meaningful claim.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- jcranmer 9y ago
  Clearly, the unit here should be British thermal unit. :-)
Proven 9y ago
Record in what? Taxpayer handouts to the monied elite?
CalRobert 9y ago
Could've reported this as 2.09431e+27 if they used electron-volts...
- cornholio 9y ago
  I find a renewable energy production of barely 3.4 Gthm (Giga therms) completely insufficient.
littlestymaar 9y ago
That's always sad to see people focused on Energy when talking about electricty : the grid needs Power not Energy. And since you can't realistically store electricity, these two are really different beasts. Renewable is OK at producing Energy, which we don't really care about after a certain point, but it's terrible at producing a reliable amount of Power which is what we need. More on that here : https://bourrasque.info/articles/20180116-moulins-%C3%A0-vent https://bourrasque.info/articles/20180116-moulins-%C3%A0-ven... (in French though)
- ukulele 9y ago
  This is essentially incorrect. Renewables have predictable generation when deployed on a large scale, and gas peaker plants can respond to changes as needed. With the simplistic model of the article (nuclear + wind), it is easy to reach the wrong conclusion.
  - layoric 9y ago
    Really? In Australia we still see large wind and solar ramp events that are hard to forecast and predict even with some of the most modern weather forecasting approaches, these are solvable problems but I think calling renewables predictable is a bit hand-wavy IMO.
    - ukulele 9y ago
      It's not about forecasting the weather: good gas peakers can respond in under 10 minutes. I meant predictable in the sense of day/night/season.
      - layoric 9y ago
        Gas is a good backup due to it’s response rate yes but regarding renewable power generation, they are all about weather. http://www.hellogrid.com.au/energy-exchange/1117/ http://www.hellogrid.com.au/energy-exchange/1117/ As solar utility scale sites become more common (and they are), a cloud growth can wipe 100s of MW off the grid very quickly and the problem is it is very hard to tell how much will get wiped off and when (measured in minutes). Gas will be in the mix for longer than other fossil fuels due to its reaction time but as storage becomes cheaper and gas more expensive, it will be used less and less IMO.
ggm 9y ago
Why would the absolute amount of wind energy in India decline so steeply? I can understand a rapid decline in relative share of renewables but it looked like in absolute terms it fell off a cliff. That surely has to mean wind systems got decommissioned. The decline in dam efficiency is not a new thing. Is it possible to remediate?
- eigenvector 9y ago
  Wind generation is increasing year-over-year, you're just seeing a seasonal difference because the chart cuts off at February. Wind resource availability has a significant seasonal variation. Try comparing it to the same month a year earlier.
  - ggm 9y ago
    Thanks. I misread axes scaling and assumed multi year. Must look harder at charts.

81 points by dsr12 9y ago

tzahola 9y ago

* Assuming the "Unit of Renewable Energy" is watt-hours. In SI units (Joules) they have long passed this "milestone".

baking 9y ago
100,000 GWh per fiscal year (2017-18) Edit: Wikipedia has them at 195,242 GWh in 2015 but that includes large-scale hydroelectric.
lovelearning 9y ago
I think the author of the article has got either his numbers or the metric units quite wrong. 100,000 GWh = 100,000,000,000,000 (giga => x 10^9) which means it's actually the 100 trillionth unit. And he repeats the mistake when saying "...and one hundred thousand million units of electricity has eleven zeros" - indeed it does but then 100000 million units is not 100000 G units. EDIT: Actually I'm the one who got it wrong. Apparently, electrical "unit" here is kWh not Wh, TIL.
- baking 9y ago
  Well, kWh are the traditional unit for electrical power. (And yes, I know it is actually a unit of energy.)
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
taneq 9y ago
If you have to assume the units of a claim, that certainly makes it a pretty meaningful claim.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
jcranmer 9y ago
Clearly, the unit here should be British thermal unit. :-)

Proven 9y ago

Record in what? Taxpayer handouts to the monied elite?

CalRobert 9y ago

Could've reported this as 2.09431e+27 if they used electron-volts...

cornholio 9y ago
I find a renewable energy production of barely 3.4 Gthm (Giga therms) completely insufficient.

littlestymaar 9y ago

That's always sad to see people focused on Energy when talking about electricty : the grid needs Power not Energy. And since you can't realistically store electricity, these two are really different beasts. Renewable is OK at producing Energy, which we don't really care about after a certain point, but it's terrible at producing a reliable amount of Power which is what we need. More on that here : https://bourrasque.info/articles/20180116-moulins-%C3%A0-vent https://bourrasque.info/articles/20180116-moulins-%C3%A0-ven... (in French though)

ukulele 9y ago
This is essentially incorrect. Renewables have predictable generation when deployed on a large scale, and gas peaker plants can respond to changes as needed. With the simplistic model of the article (nuclear + wind), it is easy to reach the wrong conclusion.
- layoric 9y ago
  Really? In Australia we still see large wind and solar ramp events that are hard to forecast and predict even with some of the most modern weather forecasting approaches, these are solvable problems but I think calling renewables predictable is a bit hand-wavy IMO.
  - ukulele 9y ago
    It's not about forecasting the weather: good gas peakers can respond in under 10 minutes. I meant predictable in the sense of day/night/season.
    - layoric 9y ago
      Gas is a good backup due to it’s response rate yes but regarding renewable power generation, they are all about weather. http://www.hellogrid.com.au/energy-exchange/1117/ http://www.hellogrid.com.au/energy-exchange/1117/ As solar utility scale sites become more common (and they are), a cloud growth can wipe 100s of MW off the grid very quickly and the problem is it is very hard to tell how much will get wiped off and when (measured in minutes). Gas will be in the mix for longer than other fossil fuels due to its reaction time but as storage becomes cheaper and gas more expensive, it will be used less and less IMO.

ggm 9y ago

Why would the absolute amount of wind energy in India decline so steeply? I can understand a rapid decline in relative share of renewables but it looked like in absolute terms it fell off a cliff. That surely has to mean wind systems got decommissioned. The decline in dam efficiency is not a new thing. Is it possible to remediate?

eigenvector 9y ago
Wind generation is increasing year-over-year, you're just seeing a seasonal difference because the chart cuts off at February. Wind resource availability has a significant seasonal variation. Try comparing it to the same month a year earlier.
- ggm 9y ago
  Thanks. I misread axes scaling and assumed multi year. Must look harder at charts.