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I'll concede it's not a typical country since the weather is pretty unique, but Scotland is ~97% renewable and ~75% wind. It's well suited for some parts of the

I'll concede it's not a typical country since the weather is pretty unique, but Scotland is ~97% renewable and ~75% wind. It's well suited for some parts of the world at least.

macspoofing 5y ago
>but Scotland is ~97% renewable ... They aren't. The 97% renewable claim is misleading. Scotland can generate huge amount of wind/solar energy at certain times of day that they cannot use, and therefore they have to rely on fossil fuels for evenings and nights and any time sun isn't shining and wind isn't blowing. Their actual renewable *consumption* is on the order of 30%.
- cronin101 5y ago
  Do you have a source? I would love to read more about that. FWIW I currently live in Norway which is ~100% renewable but that's mainly hydro and a very different situation with the amount of potential energy that hydro gives the 5M population.
  - aembleton 5y ago
    I just tried to find some more information on Scotlands consumption but couldn't find it. Most interesting piece I found was this: 51.7% of electricity generated in Scotland was generated by renewable technologies, compared to just 29.3% for the UK as a whole (or 25.6% for the rest of the UK, excluding Scotland). [1] The 97% figure quoted earlier is a gross figure [2] that is worked out on the basis of total renewable generation compared to total consumption. The problem is that the two don't always line up and we don't have large scale gird storage to handle it so it doesn't get used. Instead more polluting electricity is imported from England. 1. https://www.gov.scot/publications/annual-energy-statement-2019/pages/3/ https://www.gov.scot/publications/annual-energy-statement-20... 2. https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/statistics/2018/10/quarterly-energy-statistics-bulletins/documents/energy-statistics-summary---march-2021/energy-statistics-summary---march-2021/govscot%3Adocument/Scotland%2BEnergy%2BStatistics%2BQ4%2B2020.pdf https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publ...
    - macspoofing 5y ago
      This is the one you want: https://scotland.shinyapps.io/sg-energy/_w_8738d4b2/?Section=RenLowCarbon&Subsection=RenElec&Chart=ElecConsumptionFuel https://scotland.shinyapps.io/sg-energy/_w_8738d4b2/?Section... 42% of electricity consumption derives from wind power. The rest of carbon-free energy derives from Nuclear and Hydro. And then you have natural gas as back-up.
  - macspoofing 5y ago
    I hope this is the right one: https://scotland.shinyapps.io/sg-energy/_w_8738d4b2/?Section=RenLowCarbon&Subsection=RenElec&Chart=ElecConsumptionFuel https://scotland.shinyapps.io/sg-energy/_w_8738d4b2/?Section... Wind accounts for 42%. Solar does nothing. The 97% is from charts like this: https://scotland.shinyapps.io/sg-energy/_w_8738d4b2/?Section=RenLowCarbon&Subsection=RenElec&Chart=RenElecTarget https://scotland.shinyapps.io/sg-energy/_w_8738d4b2/?Section... And they define 'Gross electricity consumption' as referring to total electricity generation minus net exports. Here's my home province of Ontario: https://live.gridwatch.ca/home-page.html https://live.gridwatch.ca/home-page.html At the time of this posting, Hydro and Nuclear account for 85% of total energy consumption. 10% from Wind, so 95% of our energy is carbon-free. Wind for us is a vanity play since we can just buy more hydro power from Quebec.

I'll concede it's not a typical country since the weather is pretty unique, but Scotland is ~97% renewable and ~75% wind. It's well suited for some parts of the world at least.

macspoofing 5y ago

>but Scotland is ~97% renewable ... They aren't. The 97% renewable claim is misleading. Scotland can generate huge amount of wind/solar energy at certain times of day that they cannot use, and therefore they have to rely on fossil fuels for evenings and nights and any time sun isn't shining and wind isn't blowing. Their actual renewable *consumption* is on the order of 30%.

cronin101 5y ago
Do you have a source? I would love to read more about that. FWIW I currently live in Norway which is ~100% renewable but that's mainly hydro and a very different situation with the amount of potential energy that hydro gives the 5M population.
- aembleton 5y ago
  I just tried to find some more information on Scotlands consumption but couldn't find it. Most interesting piece I found was this: 51.7% of electricity generated in Scotland was generated by renewable technologies, compared to just 29.3% for the UK as a whole (or 25.6% for the rest of the UK, excluding Scotland). [1] The 97% figure quoted earlier is a gross figure [2] that is worked out on the basis of total renewable generation compared to total consumption. The problem is that the two don't always line up and we don't have large scale gird storage to handle it so it doesn't get used. Instead more polluting electricity is imported from England. 1. https://www.gov.scot/publications/annual-energy-statement-2019/pages/3/ https://www.gov.scot/publications/annual-energy-statement-20... 2. https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/statistics/2018/10/quarterly-energy-statistics-bulletins/documents/energy-statistics-summary---march-2021/energy-statistics-summary---march-2021/govscot%3Adocument/Scotland%2BEnergy%2BStatistics%2BQ4%2B2020.pdf https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publ...
  - macspoofing 5y ago
    This is the one you want: https://scotland.shinyapps.io/sg-energy/_w_8738d4b2/?Section=RenLowCarbon&Subsection=RenElec&Chart=ElecConsumptionFuel https://scotland.shinyapps.io/sg-energy/_w_8738d4b2/?Section... 42% of electricity consumption derives from wind power. The rest of carbon-free energy derives from Nuclear and Hydro. And then you have natural gas as back-up.
- macspoofing 5y ago
  I hope this is the right one: https://scotland.shinyapps.io/sg-energy/_w_8738d4b2/?Section=RenLowCarbon&Subsection=RenElec&Chart=ElecConsumptionFuel https://scotland.shinyapps.io/sg-energy/_w_8738d4b2/?Section... Wind accounts for 42%. Solar does nothing. The 97% is from charts like this: https://scotland.shinyapps.io/sg-energy/_w_8738d4b2/?Section=RenLowCarbon&Subsection=RenElec&Chart=RenElecTarget https://scotland.shinyapps.io/sg-energy/_w_8738d4b2/?Section... And they define 'Gross electricity consumption' as referring to total electricity generation minus net exports. Here's my home province of Ontario: https://live.gridwatch.ca/home-page.html https://live.gridwatch.ca/home-page.html At the time of this posting, Hydro and Nuclear account for 85% of total energy consumption. 10% from Wind, so 95% of our energy is carbon-free. Wind for us is a vanity play since we can just buy more hydro power from Quebec.