3 ms·

What surplus? 48% is less than half, isn't it? So, another way of looking at it is - Germany is still producing most of its electricity from non-renewable sour

What surplus? 48% is less than half, isn't it? So, another way of looking at it is - Germany is still producing most of its electricity from non-renewable sources. Adding nuclear, it's still ~40% from coal and gas [0]. So again, what surplus? In contrast, France is producing ~70% of its electricity just from nuclear, with another ~19% from renewables. Note that either way, the major energy expenditure that ties all of these countries to Russian gas is not electricity, it is heating. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/energy/country/romania?country=DEU~FRA https://ourworldindata.org/energy/country/romania?country=DE...

Brometheus 4y ago
The surplus will be available soon. If you look at the trajectories of the installed capacity, it's obvious. Germany is in the process to switch over to electricity for heating, too. There are a lot of incentitives to install new heatpumps for example.
- simiones 4y ago
  Let's first have that surplus, and then we can discuss how to use it. Edit: Having a mostly renewable grid with backup coal/gas/nuclear is much much easier than having an entirely renewable grid.
  - Brometheus 4y ago
    A surplus is already generated on specific days. At the moment the extra energy is thrown away, in case you didn't know.
the_duke 4y ago
There often is a renewable energy surplus at night (wind /hydro) and more recently even around noon, thanks to solar. And renewables are constantly expanding. The whole problem with renewables is the temporal variation and lack of large scale storage. Producing hydrogen (and potentially converting that into more traditional gasses) is a perfectly viable solution, but of course such infrastructure can only be stood up over years and decades. It's not relevant for this winter.
- westurner 4y ago
  TIL that apparently Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) has the lowest cost of any method of energy storage? "Techno-economic analysis of bulk-scale compressed air energy storage in power system decarbonisation" (2021) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261920315208 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030626192... https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/07/21/compressed-air-storage-vs-lead-acid-batteries/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/07/21/compressed-air-storag... : > They found the former has a considerably lower Capex and a payback time of only two years. [compared with Lead Acid batteries] I wouldn't thought that a Gravity Battery would've been more efficient than compressed air: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_battery Also TIL about geothermal heat pump energy storage: https://techxplore.com/news/2022-09-geothermal-ideal-energy-storage-technology.html https://techxplore.com/news/2022-09-geothermal-ideal-energy-... :

Brometheus 4y ago

The surplus will be available soon. If you look at the trajectories of the installed capacity, it's obvious. Germany is in the process to switch over to electricity for heating, too. There are a lot of incentitives to install new heatpumps for example.

simiones 4y ago
Let's first have that surplus, and then we can discuss how to use it. Edit: Having a mostly renewable grid with backup coal/gas/nuclear is much much easier than having an entirely renewable grid.
- Brometheus 4y ago
  A surplus is already generated on specific days. At the moment the extra energy is thrown away, in case you didn't know.

the_duke 4y ago

There often is a renewable energy surplus at night (wind /hydro) and more recently even around noon, thanks to solar. And renewables are constantly expanding. The whole problem with renewables is the temporal variation and lack of large scale storage. Producing hydrogen (and potentially converting that into more traditional gasses) is a perfectly viable solution, but of course such infrastructure can only be stood up over years and decades. It's not relevant for this winter.

westurner 4y ago
TIL that apparently Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) has the lowest cost of any method of energy storage? "Techno-economic analysis of bulk-scale compressed air energy storage in power system decarbonisation" (2021) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261920315208 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030626192... https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/07/21/compressed-air-storage-vs-lead-acid-batteries/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/07/21/compressed-air-storag... : > They found the former has a considerably lower Capex and a payback time of only two years. [compared with Lead Acid batteries] I wouldn't thought that a Gravity Battery would've been more efficient than compressed air: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_battery Also TIL about geothermal heat pump energy storage: https://techxplore.com/news/2022-09-geothermal-ideal-energy-storage-technology.html https://techxplore.com/news/2022-09-geothermal-ideal-energy-... :