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Nighttime in US is daytime in China. Countries could simply sell their excess energy to eachother.
by mavdi 8y ago
Nighttime in US is daytime in China. Countries could simply sell their excess energy to eachother.
- JoeAltmaier 8y agoTransmission losses are significant
- _Microft 8y agoHigh-voltage direct current has losses of less than 3% per 1000km according to the Wikipedia article. That's not China-to-US stuff but definitely low enough to move energy around in Europe.
- tialaramex 8y agoAnd they do. Up to 3-4GW of the power (maybe 10% of typical power demand) in the UK is imported from its neighbours - some Ireland and the Netherlands, lots of France - at the moment. The French have a LOT of Nuclear power, and idling a nuclear power station, though possible, is economic insanity, so it makes sense to sell it at a discount to the British.
- rsynnott 8y agoIt's worth noting that this is a two-way street; GB sometimes exports electricity, particularly to Ireland when there's not much wind, but also sometimes to France.
- ben_w 8y agoLosses have to exceed 65% (i.e. 350 watts at the socket from 1,000 watts at source) for that to make worldwide solar load balancing a bad idea with current technology.