3 ms·
One solution: build enough nuclear to cover your nighttime load and run that 24/7, add enough solar to cover just the extra load during the day, and for remaini
by DennisP 5y ago
One solution: build enough nuclear to cover your nighttime load and run that 24/7, add enough solar to cover just the extra load during the day, and for remaining discrepancies with demand use either batteries or load-following by the nuclear plants, whichever is cheaper.
A while back MIT had an electric grid cost simulator online, and that was the cheapest fossil-free combination I could find.
- pfdietz 5y agoDid the simulator include hydrogen? In many places, hydrogen reduces the cost of a 100% renewable grid, vs. just using batteries for storage.
- DennisP 5y agoDon't remember. Is anyone doing that in production? If so, what does it cost?
- pfdietz 5y agoThere is some underground hydrogen storage (used to smooth output to ammonia synthesis, for example), and some hydrogen pipelines (about 1000 miles in the US), and combustion turbines have been available for 30 or more years that will burn hydrogen. So all the parts are available. Electrolyzers need to be sufficiently cheap to work well with intermittent renewables, but their cost is dropping rapidly. Integrating preexisting technologies is the easiest and surest kind of innovation, even if they haven't all been brought together yet. There are cost estimates at the reference link at https://model.energy/ https://model.energy/ , along with projections of future costs.