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Maybe the Netherlands have excess solar power in some days/hours, but what about neighboring countries?

pixl97 4y ago
Building power transportation networks makes building out large solar arrays look cheap. Getting the right of way and environmental impact statements for these things that cross rivers and cities is a massive undertaking.
cinntaile 4y ago
Germany, Belgium and Denmark also have quite a bit of renewable energy and the sun is usually similar, so they usually don't really need it when the Netherlands has too much either.
Cthulhu_ 4y ago
In the end, I'm confident little power is wasted; instead, power is sold on the spot market at low and sometimes negative rates. Datacenters will gobble it up to lower their prices too, making "bottom feeders" like crypto miners hit their "I am willing to pay this much" prices. Then there's of course various energy storages; I believe one thing they want to implement is that any leftover electricity is put into generating hydrogen gas, which can be stored and later burned cleanly to generate power if needs be. But yeah, that's a bunch of rambling from an amateur who amortizes grid capacity; in NL we have a problem that the grid is full. It's not really affecting day to day things yet, but it means that new companies - power generating or consuming - are not being connected to the grid because it would cause overloads. I'm not sure if they bleed power off anywhere yet.
- henearkr 4y ago
  I'm sure that the solution is rather storage than cryptomining (to me it looks like the same as just burning the energy into waste heat). For example, molten salt storage.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  There are numerous options for super-cheap energy storage. They just aren't built out yet, because the money is better spent, still, on adding generating capacity. What is being built is factories to produce them. Excess renewable generation is not a problem; if there is too much sloshing on the grid, you turn them off.

Building power transportation networks makes building out large solar arrays look cheap. Getting the right of way and environmental impact statements for these things that cross rivers and cities is a massive undertaking.

cinntaile 4y ago

Germany, Belgium and Denmark also have quite a bit of renewable energy and the sun is usually similar, so they usually don't really need it when the Netherlands has too much either.

Cthulhu_ 4y ago

In the end, I'm confident little power is wasted; instead, power is sold on the spot market at low and sometimes negative rates. Datacenters will gobble it up to lower their prices too, making "bottom feeders" like crypto miners hit their "I am willing to pay this much" prices. Then there's of course various energy storages; I believe one thing they want to implement is that any leftover electricity is put into generating hydrogen gas, which can be stored and later burned cleanly to generate power if needs be. But yeah, that's a bunch of rambling from an amateur who amortizes grid capacity; in NL we have a problem that the grid is full. It's not really affecting day to day things yet, but it means that new companies - power generating or consuming - are not being connected to the grid because it would cause overloads. I'm not sure if they bleed power off anywhere yet.

henearkr 4y ago
I'm sure that the solution is rather storage than cryptomining (to me it looks like the same as just burning the energy into waste heat). For example, molten salt storage.
ncmncm 4y ago
There are numerous options for super-cheap energy storage. They just aren't built out yet, because the money is better spent, still, on adding generating capacity. What is being built is factories to produce them. Excess renewable generation is not a problem; if there is too much sloshing on the grid, you turn them off.