4 ms·

Renewable energy is great, but sun and wind are intermittent. Grids cannot base themselves on renewable energy without some sort of impractical battery storage

by dron57 4y ago

Renewable energy is great, but sun and wind are intermittent. Grids cannot base themselves on renewable energy without some sort of impractical battery storage scheme or major advancements in creating renewable Green Hydrogen for fuel cells.

cycomanic 4y ago
This argument has been debunked many times. A large enough grid can be based on wind and solar alone, this has been shown for the US in several studies. Storage however is advantageous because it enables to reduce the amount of overcapacity. The good thing is that the way the electricity market works, is that it provides direct economic incentives to develop storage or basing high electricity demand production industry on currently available electricity. I'm always amazed that many free market proponents who strongly support market solutions, are so in favour of pushing nuclear which by its nature is very monopolised reliant on subsidies, while good market solutions exist. And I say that as someone who is often sceptical of market solutions.
- HyperSane 4y ago
- tomp 4y ago
  Can you share some of these studies? I just don’t understand how you can power a grid at night with just wind and solar (no batteries). Even the US isn’t large enough that sun would always be shining somewhere.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Think for a moment.
  - cycomanic 4y ago
    Here is one from 2015 [1] (I recall some older and more recent ones, but can't find them right now). IIRC they rely on a number of strategies (not necessarily all in the same story) : 1. A much better interconnected frid 2. Overcapacity in both wind and solar, but particularly wind. 3. Operate e.g. heatpumps during times with lots of energy available to heat or cool coolant. 4. Adjust energy intensive industries to primarily work during times of oversupply. [1] https://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2015/EE/C5EE01283J#!divAbstract https://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2015/EE/C5EE0...
    - tomp 4y ago
      Thanks! I’ve still to read the article (hopefully I can find the full text somewhere) but looks like instead of batteries they’re proposing heat-based energy storage (and radical energy use reduction). Edit: The study you linked to actually just summarises another study (in about as many words as I did above): Jacobson, M.Z., M.A. Delucchi, M.A. Cameron, and B.A. Frew, 2015. A low-cost solution to the grid reliability problem with 100% penetration of intermittent wind, water, and solar for all purposes, Science, in review.
      - pfdietz 4y ago
        Also look at this web site, which I often reference, that enables you to construct cost-minimized 100% renewable systems to supply baseload power. Some places it's cheaper than in others. Sorry, Eastern Europe and the Baltic. https://model.energy/ https://model.energy/
joak 4y ago
Solar and wind have these economic properties: - the marginal cost of energy is zero (once the investment made producing a kWh is free) - fix costs are almost zero For the nuclear energy we have the following: - the marginal cost of energy is low (the cost of the uranium mostly) - the fix costs are incredibly high (wether the reactor produce or not, the payroll is the same, the maintenance cost are the same, etc...) So what happens: on sunny or windy days the regulation imposes solar and wind producers to curtail their production. They are forbade to distribute their free kWh, because otherwise the "baseline" producers (nuclear and coal mostly) will have to stop their facilities or sell their kWh at market price. In both cases they would lose money. Solar and wind intermittency means the following: you cannot switch them on at will. Nuclear plants have the opposite problem: you cannot switch them off without bleeding money. The solution for solar and wind is: install enough capacity so the worst day of the year (in winter with little wind) you produce enough to cover the needs. If you add storage and/or long distance distribution you can lower the requirement for total installed capacity. In this context the only solution for nuclear is the following: you lobby the government to make regulations in your favor and cover your losses. Otherwise you bankrupt. On the long run I bet on bankruptcy.
- stjohnswarts 4y ago
  No one is going to build 10x as many wind turbines as they need to make sure the grid is still up. It's not going to happen unless someone comes up with grid scale storage that can power the entire electric grid for at least 12 hours and in a lot of places 16 hours when the sun/wind isn't available. Nuclear is the only reasonable option we have.
  - idlehand 4y ago
    On a continent-wide grid, there will likely be some wind somewhere, and some pumped hydro ready to take advantage of the low prices. We'll also see micro-storage developing to take advantage of electricity price variability. EVs will charge when electricity is cheapest, household water might be warmed during the day when solar energy is available, etc. Unfortunately losing nuclear means that we lose the potential for a self-sufficient regional grid. But since the costs of losing base load power are largely offloaded from national budgets, instead showing up as new costs for consumers and companies, it's a lot easier for a politician to advocate for renewables. No need to spend taxpayer money on a project that won't be finished in the 4 years that matter to your government.

by dron57 4y ago

cycomanic 4y ago

This argument has been debunked many times. A large enough grid can be based on wind and solar alone, this has been shown for the US in several studies. Storage however is advantageous because it enables to reduce the amount of overcapacity. The good thing is that the way the electricity market works, is that it provides direct economic incentives to develop storage or basing high electricity demand production industry on currently available electricity. I'm always amazed that many free market proponents who strongly support market solutions, are so in favour of pushing nuclear which by its nature is very monopolised reliant on subsidies, while good market solutions exist. And I say that as someone who is often sceptical of market solutions.

HyperSane 4y ago
tomp 4y ago
Can you share some of these studies? I just don’t understand how you can power a grid at night with just wind and solar (no batteries). Even the US isn’t large enough that sun would always be shining somewhere.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Think for a moment.
- cycomanic 4y ago
  Here is one from 2015 [1] (I recall some older and more recent ones, but can't find them right now). IIRC they rely on a number of strategies (not necessarily all in the same story) : 1. A much better interconnected frid 2. Overcapacity in both wind and solar, but particularly wind. 3. Operate e.g. heatpumps during times with lots of energy available to heat or cool coolant. 4. Adjust energy intensive industries to primarily work during times of oversupply. [1] https://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2015/EE/C5EE01283J#!divAbstract https://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2015/EE/C5EE0...
  - tomp 4y ago
    Thanks! I’ve still to read the article (hopefully I can find the full text somewhere) but looks like instead of batteries they’re proposing heat-based energy storage (and radical energy use reduction). Edit: The study you linked to actually just summarises another study (in about as many words as I did above): Jacobson, M.Z., M.A. Delucchi, M.A. Cameron, and B.A. Frew, 2015. A low-cost solution to the grid reliability problem with 100% penetration of intermittent wind, water, and solar for all purposes, Science, in review.
    - pfdietz 4y ago
      Also look at this web site, which I often reference, that enables you to construct cost-minimized 100% renewable systems to supply baseload power. Some places it's cheaper than in others. Sorry, Eastern Europe and the Baltic. https://model.energy/ https://model.energy/

joak 4y ago

Solar and wind have these economic properties: - the marginal cost of energy is zero (once the investment made producing a kWh is free) - fix costs are almost zero For the nuclear energy we have the following: - the marginal cost of energy is low (the cost of the uranium mostly) - the fix costs are incredibly high (wether the reactor produce or not, the payroll is the same, the maintenance cost are the same, etc...) So what happens: on sunny or windy days the regulation imposes solar and wind producers to curtail their production. They are forbade to distribute their free kWh, because otherwise the "baseline" producers (nuclear and coal mostly) will have to stop their facilities or sell their kWh at market price. In both cases they would lose money. Solar and wind intermittency means the following: you cannot switch them on at will. Nuclear plants have the opposite problem: you cannot switch them off without bleeding money. The solution for solar and wind is: install enough capacity so the worst day of the year (in winter with little wind) you produce enough to cover the needs. If you add storage and/or long distance distribution you can lower the requirement for total installed capacity. In this context the only solution for nuclear is the following: you lobby the government to make regulations in your favor and cover your losses. Otherwise you bankrupt. On the long run I bet on bankruptcy.

stjohnswarts 4y ago
No one is going to build 10x as many wind turbines as they need to make sure the grid is still up. It's not going to happen unless someone comes up with grid scale storage that can power the entire electric grid for at least 12 hours and in a lot of places 16 hours when the sun/wind isn't available. Nuclear is the only reasonable option we have.
- idlehand 4y ago
  On a continent-wide grid, there will likely be some wind somewhere, and some pumped hydro ready to take advantage of the low prices. We'll also see micro-storage developing to take advantage of electricity price variability. EVs will charge when electricity is cheapest, household water might be warmed during the day when solar energy is available, etc. Unfortunately losing nuclear means that we lose the potential for a self-sufficient regional grid. But since the costs of losing base load power are largely offloaded from national budgets, instead showing up as new costs for consumers and companies, it's a lot easier for a politician to advocate for renewables. No need to spend taxpayer money on a project that won't be finished in the 4 years that matter to your government.