4 ms·
> Solar and wind are fairly predictable, you can find graphs of predicted versus actual production at various times ahead. Usage is not flat, it has peaks and t
by tarsinge 7y ago
> Solar and wind are fairly predictable, you can find graphs of predicted versus actual production at various times ahead.
Usage is not flat, it has peaks and troughs on daily and seasonal cycles.
I didn't want to say that, and should have used 'controllable' instead of predictable. Because when you have a week without wind or sun in the middle of winter you are not going to tell people to shut down their heather. There are advance in storage but nowhere the order of magnitude needed for dense cities.
Have a look at how nuclear power can be rapidly adjusted to compensate for changing production in renewables (in french sorry): https://twitter.com/tristankamin/status/1102620969808658432 https://twitter.com/tristankamin/status/1102620969808658432. There is no way we'll achieve that kind of adjustment with renewables alone in the short term, whereas nuclear + renewables is proved and working at the moment for very low C02 emission electricity production in France[1]. There are interesting things going on like pumping water up into dams with excess peak power from renewables, but that'll cover a few days, not a full winter.
[1] https://www.electricitymap.org https://www.electricitymap.org
- ZeroGravitas 7y agoYou get that flexibility from renewables the same way you get it from nuclear. You build too much and when you don't need it you just throw it away. Then you can magically increase or decrease production to match demand. No storage needed. Though we already have some storage and more on the way. But it'll always be cheaper to overbuild and "waste" some unless some radically cheaper storage is invented.