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If you have enough installed capacity that the production averaged over a year is sufficient, you can store excess energy as hydrogen or methane and turn it bac
by adrianN 5y ago
If you have enough installed capacity that the production averaged over a year is sufficient, you can store excess energy as hydrogen or methane and turn it back into electricity while renewable production is insufficient. The amount of storage you need is a function of how much capacity you install, how large the grid is, and how smart e.g. electric car chargers are. Some clever economists probably can figure out the cheapest configuration.
Currently it's much cheaper to just burn fossil fuels or import power from your neighbors than to build hydrolyzers, which is why you don't see many, but pilot facilities in the multiple-MW range exist, so the technology is available.
- EricE 5y agoconversion has losses - if it was remotely economically viable people would be doing it ALL OVER the place. Energy storage is the magic bullet to make renewables truly feasible for base load support and if this was remotely viable AT ALL someone would have implemented it already. Just because a tech is available doesn't mean it's practical for every day use.
- adrianN 5y agoConversion has losses, true. For electricity to gas and back the losses are around 50%. That's perfectly fine for a technology you need for maybe a couple of weeks per year. The real question is how expensive the equipment is. Power is essentially free for renewables, all costs are depreciation of equipment. And as I said above, people _have_ implemented it already. There are dozens of MW of hydrolyzers installed in Germany alone.