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There has been ~ 180GW of NEW solar power installed in 2021. It's got a capacity factor of 10-25% but even that newly installed usable power is already a sizabl

There has been ~ 180GW of NEW solar power installed in 2021. It's got a capacity factor of 10-25% but even that newly installed usable power is already a sizable portion of ALL nuclear power in current use (~400 GW with ~50GW of additional nuclear power capacity being built (how long does that take? 5-10 years per power plant? That'd make an extra ~ 5-10GW/yr then)). Photovoltaics are also still on the exponential part of their trajectory installation-wise and also on an exponentially decaying trajectory cost-wise. I'd not bet against solar power with all these things considered. If anything, I'd start building additional HVDC power lines to geographically smooth out local variation of available power.

Kuinox 4y ago
Solar output is ridiculously low in Europe winter, Germany take exactly the path you describe, fully renewable. Except it don't provide a base load, so they must use gas. You list installed capacity, solar available capacity rarely ever reach installed capacity in Europe.
- _Microft 4y ago
  > You list installed capacity, solar available capacity rarely ever reach installed capacity That ratio is called "capacity factor" which I actually mentioned to be around 10-25%. There's a Wikipedia article on it if you want to know more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor
  - Raydovsky 4y ago
    CF for Solar in Germany is 11.6%.
  - Kuinox 4y ago
    Yes, 12% at winter noon, it's 0% at night, average in winter is way below your numbers: https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE
- pfdietz 4y ago
  Europe could use hydrogen for seasonal load leveling (as well as wind). The capacity for hydrogen storage in salt formations in Europe is many millions of GWh. This would still be cheaper than nuclear.
  - Kuinox 4y ago
    > This would still be cheaper than nuclear. Source needed. Germany electricity price is one of the highest price in europe while having invested heavily in renewables. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/infographs/energy_prices/enprices.html https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/infographs/energy_prices... > Europe could use hydrogen for seasonal load leveling You propose to use an unproven tech, never made at scale, instead of an existing, working one ? Germany already have industrial scale Power2Gaz, which is a way to store energy, but they are still relying heavily on coal, and have one of the highest electricity price.
    - pfdietz 4y ago
      All the elements of hydrogen for grid leveling are demonstrated: electrolysers (now available at $300/kW in China), underground storage, combustion in turbines. It's really just a matter of integrating existing components. This is the easiest and surest kind of innovation. All that's left to be done is the regulatory background to push fossil fuels out of the way (sufficient CO2 taxes) and perhaps running some of these parts further down experience curves. The biggest uncertainty is whether there's an even cheaper way to deal with the problem of leveling renewables, which wouldn't help nuclear in the slightest. Germany's residental rates are irrelevant; what matters is the cost at the wholesale level of providing the input energy to the grid. Germany soaks its citizens to subsidize power for its industry.
      - Kuinox 4y ago
        > All the elements of hydrogen for grid leveling are demonstrated: It's not, the ultimate demonstration being it deployed at scale. > sufficient CO2 taxes Which will reduce solar competitiveness to nuclear, since solar have 4x the CO2 per kwh of nuclear electricity. It also doesn't solve the big problem solar have in Europe, since it produce less than 10% of it's installed capacity right now (last 30 days average for Germany), it's not even winter yet. & > Germany's residental rates are irrelevant Except being directly tied to energy production price. > Germany soaks its citizens to subsidize power for its industry. Which should make household price cheaper, not costlier.

Kuinox 4y ago

Solar output is ridiculously low in Europe winter, Germany take exactly the path you describe, fully renewable. Except it don't provide a base load, so they must use gas. You list installed capacity, solar available capacity rarely ever reach installed capacity in Europe.

_Microft 4y ago
> You list installed capacity, solar available capacity rarely ever reach installed capacity That ratio is called "capacity factor" which I actually mentioned to be around 10-25%. There's a Wikipedia article on it if you want to know more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor
- Raydovsky 4y ago
  CF for Solar in Germany is 11.6%.
- Kuinox 4y ago
  Yes, 12% at winter noon, it's 0% at night, average in winter is way below your numbers: https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE
pfdietz 4y ago
Europe could use hydrogen for seasonal load leveling (as well as wind). The capacity for hydrogen storage in salt formations in Europe is many millions of GWh. This would still be cheaper than nuclear.
- Kuinox 4y ago
  > This would still be cheaper than nuclear. Source needed. Germany electricity price is one of the highest price in europe while having invested heavily in renewables. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/infographs/energy_prices/enprices.html https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/infographs/energy_prices... > Europe could use hydrogen for seasonal load leveling You propose to use an unproven tech, never made at scale, instead of an existing, working one ? Germany already have industrial scale Power2Gaz, which is a way to store energy, but they are still relying heavily on coal, and have one of the highest electricity price.
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    All the elements of hydrogen for grid leveling are demonstrated: electrolysers (now available at $300/kW in China), underground storage, combustion in turbines. It's really just a matter of integrating existing components. This is the easiest and surest kind of innovation. All that's left to be done is the regulatory background to push fossil fuels out of the way (sufficient CO2 taxes) and perhaps running some of these parts further down experience curves. The biggest uncertainty is whether there's an even cheaper way to deal with the problem of leveling renewables, which wouldn't help nuclear in the slightest. Germany's residental rates are irrelevant; what matters is the cost at the wholesale level of providing the input energy to the grid. Germany soaks its citizens to subsidize power for its industry.
    - Kuinox 4y ago
      > All the elements of hydrogen for grid leveling are demonstrated: It's not, the ultimate demonstration being it deployed at scale. > sufficient CO2 taxes Which will reduce solar competitiveness to nuclear, since solar have 4x the CO2 per kwh of nuclear electricity. It also doesn't solve the big problem solar have in Europe, since it produce less than 10% of it's installed capacity right now (last 30 days average for Germany), it's not even winter yet. & > Germany's residental rates are irrelevant Except being directly tied to energy production price. > Germany soaks its citizens to subsidize power for its industry. Which should make household price cheaper, not costlier.