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One big factor is that many renewables are "many smaller instead of one huge construction". E.g. many wind turbines instead of one huge power plant. This mean
by dathinab 5y ago
One big factor is that many renewables are "many smaller instead of one huge construction".
E.g. many wind turbines instead of one huge power plant.
This means that adaption over time can happen much faster and can potentially happen during the implementations of larger long term projects (e.g. huge off shore wind farms).
It also means prototyping cost tends to be cheaper and it can be easier adopted by smaller groups instead of needing larger consensus.
While I used wind turbines as an example it's also true for many other aspects like Geo-termal power, solar energy, solar powered water heating, etc.
Even some classically "huge" projects like dams have smaller (micro) versions by now which as far as I can tell advance much faster in technology (often technology about micro-dams having less negative effects on the small-river they are build into, wrt. to fish but also sediment movement).
Add to this that research on many of the renewable energies is ongoing since quite a long time and that increasingly more people and countries realize the importance it's not too surprising I think.
- bin_bash 5y agoYou can really see this in the wind farms east of LA. You see the initial, less aerodynamic tiny wind turbines and like Russian nesting dolls they get bigger and bigger.
- hardolaf 5y agoAnother big factor is that we lie about capacity when making up the numbers. We assume summer numbers under ideal conditions and not actual daily average capacity or minimum daily capacity. Just going from summer to winter greatly reduces energy production per day not even including weather events.
- 7952 5y agoLower cost per MW of capacity correlates with lower cost per MWh.