4 ms·

It sounds basically like paying someone to be "on call" in case you need them in a hurry. That does seem like more of a bandage over the existing system rather

• belorn 6y ago
  It is but there are not many alternatives. Government are investing into more power lines at the border in order to import energy from nearby countries fossil fueled energy plants. If we look at the region as a whole however, the fossil fueled energy capacity still need to match the whole grid and the owners of those plants will need to be paid. Hydro power is a great alternative, but we are already at peak utilization. We actually need to tear down some in order to save red listed species and restore the environment for animals that need to have unobstructed rivers to reproduce. As the capacity has been increasing, hydro power has been mostly static in term of growth. There is nuclear and the political situation of that. The government and the green party (who is part of the current government constellation) are promoting the "on call" as a favorable strategy over nuclear. Their main political argument is that everything is good as long we produce more green energy over the whole year than we consume coal energy during the winter. Historically the political right has been pro-fossil fuels, but given the current situation there has been some movement now where some parties is looking to move into opposition. And last we got battery technology. So far the only installations that I know globally that operate by generating solar energy and putting them into battery is Tesla. I don't know how economical that system has been. There exist to my knowledge no wind park operating through Tesla batteries, and I do not know why that is.