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Why aren't power outages in California and Europe partly due to the adoption of solar and wind?

by 99_00 6y ago

dadzilla 6y ago
That would be politically inconvenient.
- MayeulC 6y ago
  No, that would be using solar as a scapegoat for bad planning.
  - Proven 6y ago
    central planning = bad planning If central planners didn't subsidize renewables there wouldn't be as many problems.
  - 99_00 6y ago
    What do you mean by bad planning. Are you talking about planning that is flexible and responsive to pick up the slack. For example, a high demand day that is cloudy and not windy?
    - MayeulC 6y ago
      I am talking about designing a grid to be robust, and has enough spare capacity to handle difficulties without failing catastrophically. For critical infrastructure, you design for worst-case scenarios, inflate the safety margins, and make backup plans (like a plan to gracefully degrade service). Failing this and cutting corners is what I would call bad planning.
- bob1029 6y ago
  It is unfortunately true that intermittent sources of power generation subtract from grid stability. Texas (ERCOT region) had a huge incident back in 2019 with rates skyrocketing to $9/KWh for over 90 minutes. Many attributed this to an over-reliance on wind generation.
formerly_proven 6y ago
Which outages?
fsh 6y ago
The average duration of power outages in Germany has been on a steady decline over the last 15 years [1]. The fraction of electricity generated from renewable sources has increased from around 10% to over 40% in the same period of time [2]. [1] https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/DE/Sachgebiete/ElektrizitaetundGas/Unternehmen_Institutionen/Versorgungssicherheit/Versorgungsunterbrechungen/Auswertung_Strom/Versorgungsunterbrech_Strom_node.html https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/DE/Sachgebiete/Elektrizitae... [2] https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/themen/klima-energie/erneuerbare-energien/erneuerbare-energien-in-zahlen https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/themen/klima-energie/erneuerb...

Why aren't power outages in California and Europe partly due to the adoption of solar and wind?

by 99_00 6y ago

Why aren't power outages in California and Europe partly due to the adoption of solar and wind?

dadzilla 6y ago

That would be politically inconvenient.

MayeulC 6y ago
No, that would be using solar as a scapegoat for bad planning.
- Proven 6y ago
  central planning = bad planning If central planners didn't subsidize renewables there wouldn't be as many problems.
- 99_00 6y ago
  What do you mean by bad planning. Are you talking about planning that is flexible and responsive to pick up the slack. For example, a high demand day that is cloudy and not windy?
  - MayeulC 6y ago
    I am talking about designing a grid to be robust, and has enough spare capacity to handle difficulties without failing catastrophically. For critical infrastructure, you design for worst-case scenarios, inflate the safety margins, and make backup plans (like a plan to gracefully degrade service). Failing this and cutting corners is what I would call bad planning.
bob1029 6y ago
It is unfortunately true that intermittent sources of power generation subtract from grid stability. Texas (ERCOT region) had a huge incident back in 2019 with rates skyrocketing to $9/KWh for over 90 minutes. Many attributed this to an over-reliance on wind generation.

formerly_proven 6y ago

Which outages?

fsh 6y ago

The average duration of power outages in Germany has been on a steady decline over the last 15 years [1]. The fraction of electricity generated from renewable sources has increased from around 10% to over 40% in the same period of time [2]. [1] https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/DE/Sachgebiete/ElektrizitaetundGas/Unternehmen_Institutionen/Versorgungssicherheit/Versorgungsunterbrechungen/Auswertung_Strom/Versorgungsunterbrech_Strom_node.html https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/DE/Sachgebiete/Elektrizitae... [2] https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/themen/klima-energie/erneuerbare-energien/erneuerbare-energien-in-zahlen https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/themen/klima-energie/erneuerb...