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Portugal electricity generation temporarily reaches 100% renewable

235 points by mgdo 9y ago

freedomben 9y ago
This is great news. I'm especially happy to see fossil fuel subsidies disappear as well. Energy sources should compete based on efficiency, and efficiency gets mangled by interference on cost of goods. Renewables will dominate soon as cost of production beats out fossils, and this is a great thing for our wallets and our planet.
Kazzok 9y ago
Let’s hope more EU countries follow the path
- skocznymroczny 9y ago
  Unfortunately the problem with renewables is that they work well only in countries with a specific climate. For example in Poland, none of the renewables are really worth it as much as it is in other countries. We don't have enough sunny days to make solar great, we don't have enough strong winds to make wind farms great and we don't have enough rivers to make hydro plants great :(
  - ginko 9y ago
    Seems like there's plenty of wind activity in the baltic. Couldn't you create off-shore wind farms like Denmark does?
  - tom_mellior 9y ago
    > We don't have enough sunny days to make solar great That's what people say about Germany too, but they keep breaking surprising solar records. Looking at the maps at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Germany#/media/File:SolarGIS-Solar-map-Germany-en.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Germany#/media/... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Poland#/media/File:SolarGIS-Solar-map-Poland-en.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Poland#/media/F... it looks like the potential is not that different, though Southern Germany does have some areas with more peak sun. But those are not the only areas where they have solar installations in Germany. EDIT: Let me qualify this a bit, the colors are somewhat misleading in direct comparison. Looking at the numbers, most of Poland seems to be roughly comparable to the northern half of Germany in terms of solar potential. And that potential is used in Germany, even in the north. > we don't have enough strong winds I'm really just guessing here, but my impression was that having access to the sea basically guarantees offshore wind power potential. Also, all of Eastern Europe is basically a single flat pancake, you should get strong wind straight from Russia, I think. That was the case when I was living in Eastern Austria, at least (where there is a bunch of wind power).
    - gaius 9y ago
      all of Eastern Europe is basically a single flat pancake The steppe, it’s called. But don’t forget the Urals.
      - spdionis 9y ago
        Which are in Russia
        gaius 9y ago
        ... so will affect winds coming from Russia
    - neoberg 9y ago
      > Also, all of Eastern Europe is basically a single flat pancake... Only after the north of the Danube.
    - Tade0 9y ago
      There has been a lot of misinformation about this unfortunately(which ultimately enabled the current legislation). GP appears to have fallen prey to this as well. The facts are as follows: - We have an adequate amount of sunny days as shown by this system: http://www.tinyurl.com/Chotomow-dom http://www.tinyurl.com/Chotomow-dom (annual yield above 1MWh per peak kW). - The conditions for wind power are favorable https://www.gmina-izbica.pl/images/articles/wiatr-predkosci.jpg https://www.gmina-izbica.pl/images/articles/wiatr-predkosci.... (shown on the map: 10-minute average wind speed at 10 meters above ground level).
  - tobylane 9y ago
    Good thing there's a multi-country grid. It could be windy in one country, tidal in another, sunny in another, water stocks high for hydro elsewhere.
  - pjc50 9y ago
    I think it's more a combination of very real cost problems and unstable Polish politics of the moment. The wind is there, but the government has started reneging on its agreements. https://www.ft.com/content/a26dda50-af3b-11e7-aab9-abaa44b1e130 https://www.ft.com/content/a26dda50-af3b-11e7-aab9-abaa44b1e...
  - tomcooks 9y ago
    Isn't that the point of being in an Union, each one participating with what they do best and within their possibilities? You begin to take some refugees without complaining and sunny southern european countries give you some of their solar power - deal? /s
  - jopsen 9y ago
    Sea access should do... But really, why would you only invest in renewable energy at home. We should be building a solid grid and just hook up sun farms and wind turbines where we get the best return on investment. Relying my hydro from Norway to cover days with little wind should work fine. Note: you won't want to have wind turbines close by regardless, put them at sea :)
geezerjay 9y ago
The article omits the fact that as a consequence Portugal has one of the highest energy prices in europe and that fact played a significant role in the portuguese economic crisis that started back in 2008 and culminated in the 2011 banktuptcy and subsequent bailout program.
- JetSpiegel 9y ago
  The energy prices are not completely tied to this investment. Most of it came from EU funding. Most of the price is taxes of various kinds and monopolistic behaviour by EDP. After the privatization, but increasingly so after being sold to the Chinese state. The market is only nominally free, and since REN who owns the network is ALSO owned by the Chinese state (who the hell thought that was a good idea? Oh, he is the Chairman of EDP now), that won't change.
  - sergiosgc 9y ago
    > The energy prices are not completely tied to this investment. Most of it came from EU funding. Minor nitpick: Most of it predates the EU. It came from national effort first, and the Marshall Plan next, from the 1930s to the late 60s. That's when most dams were built.
- mapleoin 9y ago
  As a consequence of what? Of them subsidising fossil fuel?
  - sergiosgc 9y ago
    Mostly as a consequence of a mismanaged monopoly held by EDP. Regulation didn't work, and we made it worse during the crisis by selling all of EDP (including REN, the electricity transport company) to private foreign entities. I don't see any hope of a more efficient market in the near future. Not everything is poor management, though. The current infrastructure, which allows these records, is the result of a huge hydro-dam program in the 1950s and a very strong incentive for wind power in the noughties.
- 9y ago
JetSpiegel 9y ago
> ends fossil fuel subsidies With much teeth grinding from companies that sold all its production to the network, and then bought the energy they needed at lower price. The subsidies did their job, the installed capacity is now large enough.
- icebraining 9y ago
  From what I can tell, they weren't ended, just suspended pending the reply of the EU about whether they don't break the rules regarding public financing of the energy sector. Source (Portuguese): https://dre.pt/web/guest/home/-/dre/114949214/details/maximized https://dre.pt/web/guest/home/-/dre/114949214/details/maximi...
HugoDaniel 9y ago
Currently we are passing through an atypical wind and rain period. Our dams are full and pouring out water as we are producing more energy than we consume. Despite all of this energy prices don't drop as they are bound to one of the few legal monopolies in Europe: the grid operation cartel (REN in the article, there is only one allowed for each EU country). Also this feels as fake news since we have a few very old (and historically insecure, like sines power plant and carregado power plant) fossil fuel power plants that are still operating with no signs of slowing down while making profits through several scams in chemical engineering their way into the 0 emissions lot.
- sergiosgc 9y ago
  Sines is the only coal plant in the country. Carregado has been converted to a combined cycle natural gas plant. The remaining thermal power plants all burn natural gas/biomass.
  - HugoDaniel 9y ago
    Thanks, i edited my comment accordingly :)
  - Thisisdense 9y ago
    What about Pego and Tapada do Outeiro?
- hobolord 9y ago
  are batteries (or some sort of storage) in the infrastructure plan for the future?
  - westurner 9y ago
    Hemp supercapacitors might be a good solution to the energy grid storage problem. Hemp absorbs carbon, doesn't leave unplowable roots in the fields, returns up to 70% of nutrients to the soil, and grows quickly just about anywhere. Hemp bast fiber is normally waste. Hemp anodes for supercapacitors are made from the bast fiber that is normally waste. Graphene is very useful; but industrial production of graphene is dangerous because lungs and blood-brain barrier. Hemp is an alternative to graphene for modern supercapacitors (which now have much greater power density in wH/kg) "Hemp Carbon Makes Supercapacitors Superfast” https://www.asme.org/engineering-topics/articles/energy/hemp-carbon-makes-supercapacitors-superfast https://www.asme.org/engineering-topics/articles/energy/hemp... > “Our device’s electrochemical performance is on par with or better than graphene-based devices,” Mitlin says. “The key advantage is that our electrodes are made from biowaste using a simple process, and therefore, are much cheaper than graphene.” > Graphene is, however, expensive to manufacture, costing as much as $2,000 per gram. [...] developed a process for converting fibrous hemp waste into a unique graphene-like nanomaterial that outperforms graphene. What’s more, it can be manufactured for less than $500 per ton. > Hemp fiber waste was pressure-cooked (hydrothermal synthesis) at 180 °C for 24 hours. The resulting carbonized material was treated with potassium hydroxide and then heated to temperatures as high as 800 °C, resulting in the formation of uniquely structured nanosheets. Testing of this material revealed that it discharged 49 kW of power per kg of material—nearly triple what standard commercial electrodes supply, 17 kW/kg. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=hemp+supercapacitor https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=hemp+supercapacit... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercapacitor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercapacitor I feel like a broken record mentioning this again and again.
asymmetric 9y ago
On the one hand this is great news. On the other, (hydroelectric) dams appear to me to be very invasive, with high costs for the environments and the populations around them.
- TomK32 9y ago
  They are but a lot of the old dams, fallen into disuse long ago are being removed. A few new big ones are a nuisance but there's thousands upon thousands that hinder small rivers Here's a map, though nothing on Portugal, the Spanish map is quite impressive https://damremoval.eu https://damremoval.eu
  - asymmetric 9y ago
    Amazing resource, thank you. To quote[0] on the environmental impacts alone: - Dams impact every aspect of healthy rivers. - Dams lead to loss of river habitat as the river is transferred into impoundments, (impoundments or reservoirs are not lakes). - Dams lead to loss of river habitat as the hydro and sediments dynamics in the river are severely modified. This impact can reach hundreds of kilometres down the river and affect deltas. - Dams seriously impede the migrations of fish and this leads directly to the decline and even local extinction of many species. If we want to keep certain fish species in Europe, like eel, sturgeon, salmon, it is of great importance to restore connectivity from sea to source. However, we tend to focus on fish in relation to dam impacts; but many other species living in the water and on land depend on natural rivers and would benefit from free- flowing rivers. - Modification of water dynamics do also alter habitats and thereby favouring different, often invasive species [0]: https://damremoval.eu/about/ https://damremoval.eu/about/
    - icebraining 9y ago
      Yes. In fact, the biggest dam in Portugal (Alqueva) has probably had a negative impact on multiple species of land carnivores, including endangered species like the Iberian lynx, due to its large extension of flooded land.
    - mping 9y ago
giocampa 9y ago
"That shows how ridiculous a 27% target for 2030 is" Yeah well, if your country has plenty of wind coming from the ocean and you are not a big industrial nation with a lot of energy demand, then 27% seems to be a low goal...
- masklinn 9y ago
  These statements are utterly infuriating. Yeah Iceland has been 100% RE for years, guess what when your country can do 40MWh/person/year on hydro alone and isn't even at 100% hydro capacity yet it kinda fucking helps.
  - zaroth 9y ago
    > 40MWh/person/year of hydro That can’t be right.... <Google...google...google> Well shit.
- tom_mellior 9y ago
  Having an overall, average goal for the whole EU kind of implies that some countries that can will contribute more than those that can't. What's the problem?
  - BjoernKW 9y ago
    The problem with that average probably is that the countries for which it's more difficult to reach these goals usually are also those countries that account for most of the energy consumption. If Portugal reaches 27% of energy consumption from renewable sources that's not nearly as significant in terms of absolute energy consumption than when say France or Germany reaches that goal. Both of these countries don't have a lot of naturally occurring phenomena or places that lend themselves to hydroelectric or geothermal energy production. So, they have to resort to ways that work everywhere but are comparatively more expensive or difficult to implement. So, while countries like Portugal or Iceland reaching such goals certainly is commendable the 'battle' will be won elsewhere.
    - 9y ago
xxxdarrenxxx 9y ago
While I don't want to take anything away from Portugal, we should maintain objectivity. The Netherlands for example have a poor rating in regards to renewable energy source. Looking back at Portugal, their main source is a hydroelectric dam and their second is wind. The netherlands have basically no elevation, so they literally can't make an (efficient) dam. The Netherlands also have extremely bad ratio between landmass/population, so there's quite literally little space for mass Wind turbines. Portugal also has the luxury of not sharing their coast, while the netherlands have to share the (small) northern sea with multiple countries (England for one) so they literally can't build wind turbines randomly in the sea without breaking a treaty. Netherlands and England as well are not exactly sunny countries thus solar is also inherently more inefficient than countries closer to the equator. Then there's general climate arguments (annual wind amounts and speeds) I think these are very important factors because the variable for a coal plant is the same, so a direct comparison between Portugal and The Netherlands and potentially other eu countries is somewhat apples and oranges.
mtgx 9y ago
It's sad that they could only end the fossil fuel subsidies when they had already reached 100% renewable power. Hopefully other countries will end fossil fuel subsidies much sooner than that.
- icebraining 9y ago
  Actually, the subsidies weren't ended, just suspended while the government waits for EU decision about whether they are in accordance to the EU directives. If the EU says they are, they will be resumed. The government does say they plan to review them, but hasn't yet. Still, the subsidies are just to ensure that the plants are kept ready to assist if there's a need.
aembleton 9y ago
That is brilliant. Right now, Portugal is getting 14% of its electricity from gas and 8% from coal. But then it is also exporting 19% to Spain so it is very close to being completely renewable. https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&solar=false&remote=true&wind=false&countryCode=PT https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&solar=false&rem...
garethrees 9y ago
This is a great achievement, but the headline is misleading because it's only Portugal's ELECTRICITY GENERATION that (temporarily) reached 100% renewable, and electricity constitutes only about 25% of Portugal's energy consumption (source: Eurostat). A further 15% or so of Portgual's energy consumption is renewable in other forms (wood burning, biodiesel), but that leaves a large majority of fossil fuels (about 50% petroleum for transport and 10% natural gas for heating).
- lucideer 9y ago
  You're absolutely right that the article title is incorrect, but reaching 100% renewables including heating and transport would be a sci-fi feat at this stage so it's not really that misleading. The fact it's electrical generation is almost implied by logic. Almost. Still, it should be corrected for clarity. But it seems a remarkable achievement. On the fact that it's temporary, I'm curious to see how long any country or even region takes to reach 100% permanent renewable generation. That could be similarly sci-fi-ish, even if there's some recent hope in battery-related news stories.
  - IgorPartola 9y ago
    If you have mountains, you have batteries. Pump water up the mountain when you have extra juice, pump it down when you need extra. I was also curious about a sort of spinning mass energy storage. Get a big cylinder of concrete or lead spinning with the extra juice, then generate the energy back.
    - lucideer 9y ago
      You're thinking of flywheel storage. There are a few of these running. One pretty big one in Ontario for example.
      - bluesroo 9y ago
        Tangentially, some car manufacturers have done prototypes of this as well. Look up the Porsche GT3R Hybrid or the Volvo S60 prototype for an example... Unfortunately it appears that for one reason or another no one has decided to move forward with these into actual consumer cars.
SCHiM 9y ago
I see a number of people in this thread include biodiesel and wood burning with other renewable energy sources. While in theory biodiesel and wood burning are carbon neutral, the way they are used in Europe is anything but! I wanted to warn you all that many countries in the EU currently enforce renewable resource quotas. This is what you want, however the incentives are incorrect, and the quotas are met by importing the wood/diesel from somewhere else. The EU does not oversee the reforestation/replanting of the combustible matter that is burned. So there's no guarantee that the wood/biodiesel consumed is actually carbon neutral. For all I know we're burning forests down but not planting them back. Not to mention that the biodiesel is competing with human food...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- lawlessone 9y ago
  You should read about the Ash-for-Cash scandal in Northern Ireland. It was a scheme to get people using renewables for heat but the end result was some people wasting vast amounts of energy heating empty sheds to make a profit... a little like crypto-mining in a way.. https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/farmer-gets-1m-of-public-cash-to-heat-empty-shed-catastrophic-blunder-threatening-to-drain-hundreds-of-millions-from-northern-irelands-block-grant-34856610.html https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/far... edit: If they just had proper checks and balances and worked out the reward correctly it could have worked.
- jabl 9y ago
  Seems to me that the more the topic is researched, the worse it looks for large-scale usage of biomass for energy. Biodiversity loss, nutrient loss from intensive cultivation, long timescales often involved in "carbon neutrality", massive emissions due to land use changes (e.g. draining a swamp to plant a forest), etc. etc. Add in the fact that biomass is probably the worst form of energy we have in terms of W/m^2. Basically, AFAICT calls for large-scale biomass energy usage tend to be greenwashing scams where the real motivation is rural politicians who want short-term $$$ for their constituents, damn the long-term consequences.
- 9y ago
dgarceran 9y ago
I wish I could say the same about Spain... https://www.quora.com/Has-Spain-really-banned-private-solar-panels https://www.quora.com/Has-Spain-really-banned-private-solar-...
pipio21 9y ago
The complete history is that we had a drought in the Iberian Peninsula that made electricity cost skyrocket last year. Now last two months we had an abnormal rain season with lots of snow and rain, so dams and water reservoirs are getting more water, and rivers Tagus and Duero-Douro could carry more water to Portugal as the dams upstream are getting full, like it should for this time of the year. The complete history is that in the Iberian Peninsula there are three months with almost no rain: June-July and August because of the Azores high and you can not depend on hydro generation there.
- icebraining 9y ago
  Hydro generation can happen even without rain, that's what reservoirs are for. The problem is if this drought extends beyond that, as it did last year.
Proven 9y ago
Haha
elmar 9y ago
Portugal’s gas and electricity the most expensive in Europe https://algarvedailynews.com/news/8958-portugal-s-gas-and-electricity-the-most-expensive-in-europe https://algarvedailynews.com/news/8958-portugal-s-gas-and-el... Portuguese with highest standardized energy bills in the EU http://www.theportugalnews.com/news/portuguese-with-highest-standardised-energy-bills-in-the-eu/38360 http://www.theportugalnews.com/news/portuguese-with-highest-...
scottishfiction 9y ago
Scotland managed it from wind alone. "On one day in particular, 15 May, output from turbines generated enough electricity to power 190% of homes or 99% of Scotland's total electricity demand." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-40149604 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-40149604
dwighttk 9y ago
>The group noted that while fossil fuel plants still worked for short periods to complement the electricity supply, those were fully compensated by other periods of greater renewable production. Portugal produced enough renewable energy in a month to cover their electrical demand for that month if the demand had been at convenient times. They also produced energy in non-renewable ways to meet short-term electrical demand within that month.
tasubotadas 9y ago
>temporarily reaches And that's a problem. You don't want "temporarily". If it is temporarily then it is if it doesn't exist at all - there has to be a prepared reserve (read power plants operating) for the cases when renewable doesn't reach 100%. AFAIK, energy distributors have to have the equal amount of production capacity in regular power plants as there is renewable energy (well, not renewable but wind+solar - the ones that variate the most). Until battery packs become widely available, I would say that solar+wind is quite a poor choice to reduce CO2 (assuming that it is the reason why we do renewable at all).
- lukeschlather 9y ago
  If you read the article, you will see that 55% of the power in question was hydro, so your comment seems a little beside the point, since we are not talking about wind+solar, but wind+solar+hydro. Though obviously it's spring so this isn't a year-round possibility.

235 points by mgdo 9y ago

This is great news. I'm especially happy to see fossil fuel subsidies disappear as well. Energy sources should compete based on efficiency, and efficiency gets mangled by interference on cost of goods. Renewables will dominate soon as cost of production beats out fossils, and this is a great thing for our wallets and our planet.

Kazzok 9y ago

Let’s hope more EU countries follow the path

skocznymroczny 9y ago
Unfortunately the problem with renewables is that they work well only in countries with a specific climate. For example in Poland, none of the renewables are really worth it as much as it is in other countries. We don't have enough sunny days to make solar great, we don't have enough strong winds to make wind farms great and we don't have enough rivers to make hydro plants great :(
- ginko 9y ago
  Seems like there's plenty of wind activity in the baltic. Couldn't you create off-shore wind farms like Denmark does?
- tom_mellior 9y ago
  > We don't have enough sunny days to make solar great That's what people say about Germany too, but they keep breaking surprising solar records. Looking at the maps at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Germany#/media/File:SolarGIS-Solar-map-Germany-en.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Germany#/media/... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Poland#/media/File:SolarGIS-Solar-map-Poland-en.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Poland#/media/F... it looks like the potential is not that different, though Southern Germany does have some areas with more peak sun. But those are not the only areas where they have solar installations in Germany. EDIT: Let me qualify this a bit, the colors are somewhat misleading in direct comparison. Looking at the numbers, most of Poland seems to be roughly comparable to the northern half of Germany in terms of solar potential. And that potential is used in Germany, even in the north. > we don't have enough strong winds I'm really just guessing here, but my impression was that having access to the sea basically guarantees offshore wind power potential. Also, all of Eastern Europe is basically a single flat pancake, you should get strong wind straight from Russia, I think. That was the case when I was living in Eastern Austria, at least (where there is a bunch of wind power).
  - gaius 9y ago
    all of Eastern Europe is basically a single flat pancake The steppe, it’s called. But don’t forget the Urals.
    - spdionis 9y ago
      Which are in Russia
      - gaius 9y ago
        ... so will affect winds coming from Russia
  - neoberg 9y ago
    > Also, all of Eastern Europe is basically a single flat pancake... Only after the north of the Danube.
  - Tade0 9y ago
    There has been a lot of misinformation about this unfortunately(which ultimately enabled the current legislation). GP appears to have fallen prey to this as well. The facts are as follows: - We have an adequate amount of sunny days as shown by this system: http://www.tinyurl.com/Chotomow-dom http://www.tinyurl.com/Chotomow-dom (annual yield above 1MWh per peak kW). - The conditions for wind power are favorable https://www.gmina-izbica.pl/images/articles/wiatr-predkosci.jpg https://www.gmina-izbica.pl/images/articles/wiatr-predkosci.... (shown on the map: 10-minute average wind speed at 10 meters above ground level).
- tobylane 9y ago
  Good thing there's a multi-country grid. It could be windy in one country, tidal in another, sunny in another, water stocks high for hydro elsewhere.
- pjc50 9y ago
  I think it's more a combination of very real cost problems and unstable Polish politics of the moment. The wind is there, but the government has started reneging on its agreements. https://www.ft.com/content/a26dda50-af3b-11e7-aab9-abaa44b1e130 https://www.ft.com/content/a26dda50-af3b-11e7-aab9-abaa44b1e...
- tomcooks 9y ago
  Isn't that the point of being in an Union, each one participating with what they do best and within their possibilities? You begin to take some refugees without complaining and sunny southern european countries give you some of their solar power - deal? /s
- jopsen 9y ago
  Sea access should do... But really, why would you only invest in renewable energy at home. We should be building a solid grid and just hook up sun farms and wind turbines where we get the best return on investment. Relying my hydro from Norway to cover days with little wind should work fine. Note: you won't want to have wind turbines close by regardless, put them at sea :)

geezerjay 9y ago

The article omits the fact that as a consequence Portugal has one of the highest energy prices in europe and that fact played a significant role in the portuguese economic crisis that started back in 2008 and culminated in the 2011 banktuptcy and subsequent bailout program.

JetSpiegel 9y ago
The energy prices are not completely tied to this investment. Most of it came from EU funding. Most of the price is taxes of various kinds and monopolistic behaviour by EDP. After the privatization, but increasingly so after being sold to the Chinese state. The market is only nominally free, and since REN who owns the network is ALSO owned by the Chinese state (who the hell thought that was a good idea? Oh, he is the Chairman of EDP now), that won't change.
- sergiosgc 9y ago
  > The energy prices are not completely tied to this investment. Most of it came from EU funding. Minor nitpick: Most of it predates the EU. It came from national effort first, and the Marshall Plan next, from the 1930s to the late 60s. That's when most dams were built.
mapleoin 9y ago
As a consequence of what? Of them subsidising fossil fuel?
- sergiosgc 9y ago
  Mostly as a consequence of a mismanaged monopoly held by EDP. Regulation didn't work, and we made it worse during the crisis by selling all of EDP (including REN, the electricity transport company) to private foreign entities. I don't see any hope of a more efficient market in the near future. Not everything is poor management, though. The current infrastructure, which allows these records, is the result of a huge hydro-dam program in the 1950s and a very strong incentive for wind power in the noughties.
9y ago

JetSpiegel 9y ago

> ends fossil fuel subsidies With much teeth grinding from companies that sold all its production to the network, and then bought the energy they needed at lower price. The subsidies did their job, the installed capacity is now large enough.

icebraining 9y ago
From what I can tell, they weren't ended, just suspended pending the reply of the EU about whether they don't break the rules regarding public financing of the energy sector. Source (Portuguese): https://dre.pt/web/guest/home/-/dre/114949214/details/maximized https://dre.pt/web/guest/home/-/dre/114949214/details/maximi...

HugoDaniel 9y ago

Currently we are passing through an atypical wind and rain period. Our dams are full and pouring out water as we are producing more energy than we consume. Despite all of this energy prices don't drop as they are bound to one of the few legal monopolies in Europe: the grid operation cartel (REN in the article, there is only one allowed for each EU country). Also this feels as fake news since we have a few very old (and historically insecure, like sines power plant and carregado power plant) fossil fuel power plants that are still operating with no signs of slowing down while making profits through several scams in chemical engineering their way into the 0 emissions lot.

sergiosgc 9y ago
Sines is the only coal plant in the country. Carregado has been converted to a combined cycle natural gas plant. The remaining thermal power plants all burn natural gas/biomass.
- HugoDaniel 9y ago
  Thanks, i edited my comment accordingly :)
- Thisisdense 9y ago
  What about Pego and Tapada do Outeiro?
hobolord 9y ago
are batteries (or some sort of storage) in the infrastructure plan for the future?
- westurner 9y ago
  Hemp supercapacitors might be a good solution to the energy grid storage problem. Hemp absorbs carbon, doesn't leave unplowable roots in the fields, returns up to 70% of nutrients to the soil, and grows quickly just about anywhere. Hemp bast fiber is normally waste. Hemp anodes for supercapacitors are made from the bast fiber that is normally waste. Graphene is very useful; but industrial production of graphene is dangerous because lungs and blood-brain barrier. Hemp is an alternative to graphene for modern supercapacitors (which now have much greater power density in wH/kg) "Hemp Carbon Makes Supercapacitors Superfast” https://www.asme.org/engineering-topics/articles/energy/hemp-carbon-makes-supercapacitors-superfast https://www.asme.org/engineering-topics/articles/energy/hemp... > “Our device’s electrochemical performance is on par with or better than graphene-based devices,” Mitlin says. “The key advantage is that our electrodes are made from biowaste using a simple process, and therefore, are much cheaper than graphene.” > Graphene is, however, expensive to manufacture, costing as much as $2,000 per gram. [...] developed a process for converting fibrous hemp waste into a unique graphene-like nanomaterial that outperforms graphene. What’s more, it can be manufactured for less than $500 per ton. > Hemp fiber waste was pressure-cooked (hydrothermal synthesis) at 180 °C for 24 hours. The resulting carbonized material was treated with potassium hydroxide and then heated to temperatures as high as 800 °C, resulting in the formation of uniquely structured nanosheets. Testing of this material revealed that it discharged 49 kW of power per kg of material—nearly triple what standard commercial electrodes supply, 17 kW/kg. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=hemp+supercapacitor https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=hemp+supercapacit... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercapacitor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercapacitor I feel like a broken record mentioning this again and again.

asymmetric 9y ago

On the one hand this is great news. On the other, (hydroelectric) dams appear to me to be very invasive, with high costs for the environments and the populations around them.

TomK32 9y ago
They are but a lot of the old dams, fallen into disuse long ago are being removed. A few new big ones are a nuisance but there's thousands upon thousands that hinder small rivers Here's a map, though nothing on Portugal, the Spanish map is quite impressive https://damremoval.eu https://damremoval.eu
- asymmetric 9y ago
  Amazing resource, thank you. To quote[0] on the environmental impacts alone: - Dams impact every aspect of healthy rivers. - Dams lead to loss of river habitat as the river is transferred into impoundments, (impoundments or reservoirs are not lakes). - Dams lead to loss of river habitat as the hydro and sediments dynamics in the river are severely modified. This impact can reach hundreds of kilometres down the river and affect deltas. - Dams seriously impede the migrations of fish and this leads directly to the decline and even local extinction of many species. If we want to keep certain fish species in Europe, like eel, sturgeon, salmon, it is of great importance to restore connectivity from sea to source. However, we tend to focus on fish in relation to dam impacts; but many other species living in the water and on land depend on natural rivers and would benefit from free- flowing rivers. - Modification of water dynamics do also alter habitats and thereby favouring different, often invasive species [0]: https://damremoval.eu/about/ https://damremoval.eu/about/
  - icebraining 9y ago
    Yes. In fact, the biggest dam in Portugal (Alqueva) has probably had a negative impact on multiple species of land carnivores, including endangered species like the Iberian lynx, due to its large extension of flooded land.
  - mping 9y ago

giocampa 9y ago

"That shows how ridiculous a 27% target for 2030 is" Yeah well, if your country has plenty of wind coming from the ocean and you are not a big industrial nation with a lot of energy demand, then 27% seems to be a low goal...

masklinn 9y ago
These statements are utterly infuriating. Yeah Iceland has been 100% RE for years, guess what when your country can do 40MWh/person/year on hydro alone and isn't even at 100% hydro capacity yet it kinda fucking helps.
- zaroth 9y ago
  > 40MWh/person/year of hydro That can’t be right.... <Google...google...google> Well shit.
tom_mellior 9y ago
Having an overall, average goal for the whole EU kind of implies that some countries that can will contribute more than those that can't. What's the problem?
- BjoernKW 9y ago
  The problem with that average probably is that the countries for which it's more difficult to reach these goals usually are also those countries that account for most of the energy consumption. If Portugal reaches 27% of energy consumption from renewable sources that's not nearly as significant in terms of absolute energy consumption than when say France or Germany reaches that goal. Both of these countries don't have a lot of naturally occurring phenomena or places that lend themselves to hydroelectric or geothermal energy production. So, they have to resort to ways that work everywhere but are comparatively more expensive or difficult to implement. So, while countries like Portugal or Iceland reaching such goals certainly is commendable the 'battle' will be won elsewhere.
  - 9y ago

xxxdarrenxxx 9y ago

While I don't want to take anything away from Portugal, we should maintain objectivity. The Netherlands for example have a poor rating in regards to renewable energy source. Looking back at Portugal, their main source is a hydroelectric dam and their second is wind. The netherlands have basically no elevation, so they literally can't make an (efficient) dam. The Netherlands also have extremely bad ratio between landmass/population, so there's quite literally little space for mass Wind turbines. Portugal also has the luxury of not sharing their coast, while the netherlands have to share the (small) northern sea with multiple countries (England for one) so they literally can't build wind turbines randomly in the sea without breaking a treaty. Netherlands and England as well are not exactly sunny countries thus solar is also inherently more inefficient than countries closer to the equator. Then there's general climate arguments (annual wind amounts and speeds) I think these are very important factors because the variable for a coal plant is the same, so a direct comparison between Portugal and The Netherlands and potentially other eu countries is somewhat apples and oranges.

mtgx 9y ago

It's sad that they could only end the fossil fuel subsidies when they had already reached 100% renewable power. Hopefully other countries will end fossil fuel subsidies much sooner than that.

icebraining 9y ago
Actually, the subsidies weren't ended, just suspended while the government waits for EU decision about whether they are in accordance to the EU directives. If the EU says they are, they will be resumed. The government does say they plan to review them, but hasn't yet. Still, the subsidies are just to ensure that the plants are kept ready to assist if there's a need.

aembleton 9y ago

That is brilliant. Right now, Portugal is getting 14% of its electricity from gas and 8% from coal. But then it is also exporting 19% to Spain so it is very close to being completely renewable. https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&solar=false&remote=true&wind=false&countryCode=PT https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&solar=false&rem...

garethrees 9y ago

This is a great achievement, but the headline is misleading because it's only Portugal's ELECTRICITY GENERATION that (temporarily) reached 100% renewable, and electricity constitutes only about 25% of Portugal's energy consumption (source: Eurostat). A further 15% or so of Portgual's energy consumption is renewable in other forms (wood burning, biodiesel), but that leaves a large majority of fossil fuels (about 50% petroleum for transport and 10% natural gas for heating).

lucideer 9y ago
You're absolutely right that the article title is incorrect, but reaching 100% renewables including heating and transport would be a sci-fi feat at this stage so it's not really that misleading. The fact it's electrical generation is almost implied by logic. Almost. Still, it should be corrected for clarity. But it seems a remarkable achievement. On the fact that it's temporary, I'm curious to see how long any country or even region takes to reach 100% permanent renewable generation. That could be similarly sci-fi-ish, even if there's some recent hope in battery-related news stories.
- IgorPartola 9y ago
  If you have mountains, you have batteries. Pump water up the mountain when you have extra juice, pump it down when you need extra. I was also curious about a sort of spinning mass energy storage. Get a big cylinder of concrete or lead spinning with the extra juice, then generate the energy back.
  - lucideer 9y ago
    You're thinking of flywheel storage. There are a few of these running. One pretty big one in Ontario for example.
    - bluesroo 9y ago
      Tangentially, some car manufacturers have done prototypes of this as well. Look up the Porsche GT3R Hybrid or the Volvo S60 prototype for an example... Unfortunately it appears that for one reason or another no one has decided to move forward with these into actual consumer cars.

SCHiM 9y ago

I see a number of people in this thread include biodiesel and wood burning with other renewable energy sources. While in theory biodiesel and wood burning are carbon neutral, the way they are used in Europe is anything but! I wanted to warn you all that many countries in the EU currently enforce renewable resource quotas. This is what you want, however the incentives are incorrect, and the quotas are met by importing the wood/diesel from somewhere else. The EU does not oversee the reforestation/replanting of the combustible matter that is burned. So there's no guarantee that the wood/biodiesel consumed is actually carbon neutral. For all I know we're burning forests down but not planting them back. Not to mention that the biodiesel is competing with human food...

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lawlessone 9y ago
You should read about the Ash-for-Cash scandal in Northern Ireland. It was a scheme to get people using renewables for heat but the end result was some people wasting vast amounts of energy heating empty sheds to make a profit... a little like crypto-mining in a way.. https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/farmer-gets-1m-of-public-cash-to-heat-empty-shed-catastrophic-blunder-threatening-to-drain-hundreds-of-millions-from-northern-irelands-block-grant-34856610.html https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/far... edit: If they just had proper checks and balances and worked out the reward correctly it could have worked.
jabl 9y ago
Seems to me that the more the topic is researched, the worse it looks for large-scale usage of biomass for energy. Biodiversity loss, nutrient loss from intensive cultivation, long timescales often involved in "carbon neutrality", massive emissions due to land use changes (e.g. draining a swamp to plant a forest), etc. etc. Add in the fact that biomass is probably the worst form of energy we have in terms of W/m^2. Basically, AFAICT calls for large-scale biomass energy usage tend to be greenwashing scams where the real motivation is rural politicians who want short-term $$$ for their constituents, damn the long-term consequences.
9y ago

dgarceran 9y ago

I wish I could say the same about Spain... https://www.quora.com/Has-Spain-really-banned-private-solar-panels https://www.quora.com/Has-Spain-really-banned-private-solar-...

pipio21 9y ago

The complete history is that we had a drought in the Iberian Peninsula that made electricity cost skyrocket last year. Now last two months we had an abnormal rain season with lots of snow and rain, so dams and water reservoirs are getting more water, and rivers Tagus and Duero-Douro could carry more water to Portugal as the dams upstream are getting full, like it should for this time of the year. The complete history is that in the Iberian Peninsula there are three months with almost no rain: June-July and August because of the Azores high and you can not depend on hydro generation there.

icebraining 9y ago
Hydro generation can happen even without rain, that's what reservoirs are for. The problem is if this drought extends beyond that, as it did last year.

Proven 9y ago

Haha

elmar 9y ago

Portugal’s gas and electricity the most expensive in Europe https://algarvedailynews.com/news/8958-portugal-s-gas-and-electricity-the-most-expensive-in-europe https://algarvedailynews.com/news/8958-portugal-s-gas-and-el... Portuguese with highest standardized energy bills in the EU http://www.theportugalnews.com/news/portuguese-with-highest-standardised-energy-bills-in-the-eu/38360 http://www.theportugalnews.com/news/portuguese-with-highest-...

scottishfiction 9y ago

Scotland managed it from wind alone. "On one day in particular, 15 May, output from turbines generated enough electricity to power 190% of homes or 99% of Scotland's total electricity demand." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-40149604 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-40149604

dwighttk 9y ago

>The group noted that while fossil fuel plants still worked for short periods to complement the electricity supply, those were fully compensated by other periods of greater renewable production. Portugal produced enough renewable energy in a month to cover their electrical demand for that month if the demand had been at convenient times. They also produced energy in non-renewable ways to meet short-term electrical demand within that month.

tasubotadas 9y ago

>temporarily reaches And that's a problem. You don't want "temporarily". If it is temporarily then it is if it doesn't exist at all - there has to be a prepared reserve (read power plants operating) for the cases when renewable doesn't reach 100%. AFAIK, energy distributors have to have the equal amount of production capacity in regular power plants as there is renewable energy (well, not renewable but wind+solar - the ones that variate the most). Until battery packs become widely available, I would say that solar+wind is quite a poor choice to reduce CO2 (assuming that it is the reason why we do renewable at all).

lukeschlather 9y ago
If you read the article, you will see that 55% of the power in question was hydro, so your comment seems a little beside the point, since we are not talking about wind+solar, but wind+solar+hydro. Though obviously it's spring so this isn't a year-round possibility.