6 ms·

Or rather, as is the case in any transition, as you move to the new you still continue to rely on the old, so the entire system continues to fail if the old fai

Or rather, as is the case in any transition, as you move to the new you still continue to rely on the old, so the entire system continues to fail if the old fails. This stops being a problem once the transition is complete. But that’s to a great extent the definition of a transition.

StreamBright 5y ago
No, absolutely not. We are never going to rely purely on wind, since it is uncontrollable.
littlestymaar 5y ago
You cannot go full renewable though, at least not if you power supply comes from wind. Even offshore fields have big periods without productions (because there is not enough wind, but also because there is too much). I did the calculation for France a few years ago: if you wanted to run on wind + battery, on a typical year you'd need two weeks of storage! Nobody considers this realistic, and gas is expected to cover this part in the end. Edit: I forgot the link to my model: https://bourrasque.info/images/20180116-moulins-%C3%A0-vent/donn%C3%A9es%20RTE%20+%20stats.ods https://bourrasque.info/images/20180116-moulins-%C3%A0-vent/...
- pydry 5y ago
  Did you include solar energy, energy imports or demand shaping in your model?
  - littlestymaar 5y ago
    Oops I forgot to put the link to my model. For your specific questions: - Solar energy: sort of, I did three variants (100% solar, 100% wind, an the current Wind/solar ration) - energy import: I kept the same energy import profile as of today. It would have made the model much bigger (I would have needed to simulate the entire European grid instead of just the French one, making me deal with tons of different data sources, which I didn't want to). By the way, the power connection between countries are currently pretty tiny compared to the consumption of a big country (granted, that could probably be changed if needed, but I don't know by which margin). - demand shaping not at all, and it would definitely have an impact for short periods. But for the longer wind-deprived periods (in weeks) which I was trying to measure, I don't think it would make a significant difference.
    - bjourne 5y ago
      But the whole point of 100% renewables is that you rely on imports when there little domestic production. It's not true that international power connections are tiny. In the Nord Pool market which integrates the Scandinavian and Baltic countries electricity markets over 5 GW is at this moment being exported/imported.
      - littlestymaar 5y ago
        If you rely on import for renewable, you better hope that you neighbors are not too much into the same kind of renewable… For instance, there are not that many independent wind cells in Europe so entire regions are deprived from wind at the same time. In a 100% wind scenario, you'd need to transport electricity from say Portugal, Spain and France to supply Germany, Denmark and Sweden. And we're talking about >100GW here, 5GW is tiny. Making such electricity transfer possible would require a huge overhaul of the European links.
        bjourne 5y ago
        France regularly exports 10 GW+ to its neighbouring countries. Transnational HVDC lines is not a difficult problem.
        littlestymaar 5y ago
        That one order of magnitude off though… There's no technical issue, the grid just isn't designed in such way and you'd need enormous investments to get there. It's nothing money can't buy, but it's a hell lot of money: extrapolating from existing submarine HVDC project in Europe[1], connecting great Britain to mainland Europe alone would cost a few dozen billions. Want to connect the whole Europe like this, you'd have to pay a few hundred billions. [1]: http://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JRC97720/ld-na-27527-en-n.pdf http://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JR...
    - pydry 5y ago
      >I did three variants (100% solar, 100% wind, an the current Wind/solar ration The first two seem pointless and the third I dont really get (it'll be much higher for both). >I kept the same energy import profile as of today. Also a weird assumption. It should be much higher in the future. Grid interconnects are a whole lot cheaper than batteries. Switzerland is likely to import more excess power when theres a lot of wind/sun, use less of its own hydropower and release that pent up hydropower back across the border later, for instance. >demand shaping not at all, and it would definitely have an impact for short periods This is probably where the biggest bang for the buck will come as the demand side reacts to electricity prices that vary a lot over the day with smarter consumption. It's already happening in the UK and Germany.
  - Ekaros 5y ago
    Are energy imports realistic solution if we don't go intercontinental scale?

StreamBright 5y ago

No, absolutely not. We are never going to rely purely on wind, since it is uncontrollable.

littlestymaar 5y ago

You cannot go full renewable though, at least not if you power supply comes from wind. Even offshore fields have big periods without productions (because there is not enough wind, but also because there is too much). I did the calculation for France a few years ago: if you wanted to run on wind + battery, on a typical year you'd need two weeks of storage! Nobody considers this realistic, and gas is expected to cover this part in the end. Edit: I forgot the link to my model: https://bourrasque.info/images/20180116-moulins-%C3%A0-vent/donn%C3%A9es%20RTE%20+%20stats.ods https://bourrasque.info/images/20180116-moulins-%C3%A0-vent/...

pydry 5y ago
Did you include solar energy, energy imports or demand shaping in your model?
- littlestymaar 5y ago
  Oops I forgot to put the link to my model. For your specific questions: - Solar energy: sort of, I did three variants (100% solar, 100% wind, an the current Wind/solar ration) - energy import: I kept the same energy import profile as of today. It would have made the model much bigger (I would have needed to simulate the entire European grid instead of just the French one, making me deal with tons of different data sources, which I didn't want to). By the way, the power connection between countries are currently pretty tiny compared to the consumption of a big country (granted, that could probably be changed if needed, but I don't know by which margin). - demand shaping not at all, and it would definitely have an impact for short periods. But for the longer wind-deprived periods (in weeks) which I was trying to measure, I don't think it would make a significant difference.
  - bjourne 5y ago
    But the whole point of 100% renewables is that you rely on imports when there little domestic production. It's not true that international power connections are tiny. In the Nord Pool market which integrates the Scandinavian and Baltic countries electricity markets over 5 GW is at this moment being exported/imported.
    - littlestymaar 5y ago
      If you rely on import for renewable, you better hope that you neighbors are not too much into the same kind of renewable… For instance, there are not that many independent wind cells in Europe so entire regions are deprived from wind at the same time. In a 100% wind scenario, you'd need to transport electricity from say Portugal, Spain and France to supply Germany, Denmark and Sweden. And we're talking about >100GW here, 5GW is tiny. Making such electricity transfer possible would require a huge overhaul of the European links.
      - bjourne 5y ago
        France regularly exports 10 GW+ to its neighbouring countries. Transnational HVDC lines is not a difficult problem.
        littlestymaar 5y ago
        That one order of magnitude off though… There's no technical issue, the grid just isn't designed in such way and you'd need enormous investments to get there. It's nothing money can't buy, but it's a hell lot of money: extrapolating from existing submarine HVDC project in Europe[1], connecting great Britain to mainland Europe alone would cost a few dozen billions. Want to connect the whole Europe like this, you'd have to pay a few hundred billions. [1]: http://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JRC97720/ld-na-27527-en-n.pdf http://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JR...
  - pydry 5y ago
    >I did three variants (100% solar, 100% wind, an the current Wind/solar ration The first two seem pointless and the third I dont really get (it'll be much higher for both). >I kept the same energy import profile as of today. Also a weird assumption. It should be much higher in the future. Grid interconnects are a whole lot cheaper than batteries. Switzerland is likely to import more excess power when theres a lot of wind/sun, use less of its own hydropower and release that pent up hydropower back across the border later, for instance. >demand shaping not at all, and it would definitely have an impact for short periods This is probably where the biggest bang for the buck will come as the demand side reacts to electricity prices that vary a lot over the day with smarter consumption. It's already happening in the UK and Germany.
- Ekaros 5y ago
  Are energy imports realistic solution if we don't go intercontinental scale?