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The “ElectricityMaps” app is a great place to see it all in a live, visual form: https://app.electricitymaps.com/map https://app.electricitymaps.com/map
by Reason077 4y ago
The “ElectricityMaps” app is a great place to see it all in a live, visual form:
https://app.electricitymaps.com/map https://app.electricitymaps.com/map
- neuronic 4y agoJust saw that OPs linked website is the source for (some of) the data displayed there. Really cool.
- moffkalast 4y agoInteresting that even on the yearly chart almost all green and greenish areas get their 'green' power from hydro and nuclear by large. If only wind and solar produced as much power as they do talk.
- pjc50 4y agoThe renewables buildout is still ongoing, while the nuclear and hydro areas were built decades ago. The hydro areas are also mostly former glaciated areas, which is a great advantage in terms of suitable sites. The post-first-oil-crash nuclear buildout might have continued if it hadn't been for the combination of fossil fuel becoming cheap again and Chernobyl fallout covering the entirety of northern Europe. The symbolism of Reagan taking Carter's solar panels off the White House made it clear that wasn't going to be the path.
- moffkalast 4y agoJust a correction, those weren't solar panels on the White House, they were solar water heaters.
- andrepd 4y agoEven that was too much for ol Ronnie x)
- pencilguin 4y agoApparently they were not taken down just because Reagan didn't want them. The roof needed work and they were in the way. They were just not put back up. Notably, GHWBush's mansion in Texas, shortly after, had solar water heating.
- kergonath 4y agoThe correction is incorrect. Thermal solar panels are still solar panels, even though they are not PV panels.
- moffkalast 4y agoDoes that make it an... incorrection?
- ZeroGravitas 4y agoAnd a chinese billionaire who started with solar water heaters and moved into PV has them on display in his solar power museum. Where did the Carter White House Solar Panels go? https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carter-white-house-solar-panel-array/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carter-white-hous...
- Retric 4y agoThe initial nuclear rollout ran into capacity factor issues. They barely broke even at 90+% capacity factors with subsidies and would have needed increasing subsidies to become as common as coal. Ultra cheap energy storage would have fixed the issue, but nothing was viable at the time. Unfortunately, renewables cause similar issues. If solar tanks wholesale prices for 8 hours a day nuclear needs to make that up on the other 16. Meanwhile Solar hits the same wall once it needs energy storage. Hydro ran out of ideal locations in most countries etc which is why we have so many different energy sources. The only way things hangs is if the underlying economics does. Nuclear with an 80% reduction in operating and decommissioned costs would largely take over the world.
- pydry 4y ago>They barely broke even at 90+% capacity factors It never broke even anywhere. It's the most subsidy addicted form of power. >Unfortunately, renewables cause similar issues. If solar tanks wholesale prices for 8 hours a day nuclear needs to make that up on the other 16. Wind can make a lot of that up. Solar and wind anti-correlate. Those dark, cold winters also tend to be the windiest and vice versa. Apparently we'd need 5 hours of storage to get to a 97% carbon free grid under current usage patterns: https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-near-100-per-cent-renewables-grid-is-well-within-reach-and-with-little-storage/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-near-100-per-cent-renewables-g... Australia is already on track to have half of that already with snowy 2 (350Gwh). This also doesn't take into account stuff like https://octopus.energy/agile/ https://octopus.energy/agile/ that can use pricing to adjust demand to supply. Heating, car battery charging, industrial processes like aluminum smelting - lots of demand can be time shifted easily.
- Retric 4y ago> nuclear needs to make that up on the other 16. I am specifically referring to a nuclear power plant’s income here. If they averaged 10c per kWh over a year that’s X$/year. To make that same X$/year when wholesale prices are 2c/kWh for 8 hours a day they would need to be average 14c/kWh for 16 hours to average 10c/kWh over a full day. Aka (8 * 2c + 16 * 14c)/24 = 10c The above is of course a simplification of a complex market, but illustrates a real effect related to the “duck curve.”
- andrepd 4y ago>Chernobyl fallout covering the entirety of northern Europe Of course, nothing of the sort happened.
- pjc50 4y agohttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-36112372 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-36112372
- Thlom 4y agoIt does, sometimes, causing electricity price to go negative. This summer our local Hydro dam was full. But instead of generating electricity at full capacity they had to open the overflow valves because it was windy and the local wind farm was producing at full capacity and the transmission lines does not have capacity to handle both wind and hydro at full capacity. Our price was hovering around 0 all summer.
- b4je7d7wb 4y agoIt would be an environmental disaster if someone mined bitcoin there.
- brnt 4y agoI clicked on two green countries at random and they both showed wind to be the top producer. Are we looking at the same map?
- beberlei 4y agoI find your statement is slightly misleading, when there are just barely two handful green countries over the whole year and half of them have wind energy with at least 30% share, a few even as primary source.
- maccard 4y agoAt least in the UK, wind right now is over 30% of our power generation [0]. I don't have links handy but wind regularly exceeds most other sources here. How much more do you want it to provide before you'd consider it not just talk? [0] https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/ https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
- braamble 4y agoThis is the best place to see a breakdown of UK generation. This information comes directly from National Grid. https://bmrs.elexon.co.uk/generation-by-fuel-type https://bmrs.elexon.co.uk/generation-by-fuel-type
- tialaramex 4y agoIf I need (for my small European country) 15 TWh of electricity per year, and my typical rainfall onto catchment area for hydro is enough to do maybe 10 TWh per year, I'm 5 TWh short. In the 1980s you'd have probably solved that with CCGT, but that means finding or importing methane (natural gas). If I also build 10 TWh of wind production, even though I can't tell you a year in advance which days it will blow hardest, it will blow, and now my total capacity is enough to run solid green, because when the wind blows the hydro schemes save water to use another day. Wind production varies year on year, but only maybe 10% where the variation day to day is almost 100%. So wind + hydro should pair nicely because the hydro plant can ramp up or down production as appropriate.
- Reason077 4y agoIn the 1980s they solved it they solved it with coal. Or, occasionally, oil or simple (open cycle) gas turbines. CCGTs didn't really become popular until the 1990s.
- ricardobayes 4y agoIt sounds good on paper, but sadly it's not trivial in those small European countries, Hungary tried that (in the 70s), but was blocked due to some political nonsense. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gab%C4%8D%C3%ADkovo%E2%80%93Nagymaros_Dams https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gab%C4%8D%C3%ADkovo%E2%80%93Na...
- kibwen 4y agoRenewable energy installation has broken records for newly-installed capacity every year, even during the pandemic-induced supply chain chaos and material price instability, and is projected to do so this year as well. However, we're still quite early into the curve, and even with the accelerating rate of growth it will be many years before most people are using mostly-renewable power.
- themitigating 4y agoWind and solar power production is based on how much of that infrastructure exists. You increase the infrastructure by "talking" about it.
- andrepd 4y agoHydro is >100yr old technology, nuclear is 75 years old. Wind and solar have been viable for what, 25 and 15 years respectively?
- Reason077 4y agoWind & solar are still in their infancy in much of the world, but are growing very quickly. In the UK, wind will overtake natural gas as the largest source of electricity in the next few years. It’s already producing more than 2.5x as much as all the UK’s nuclear plants combined. By 2025, more than half of all UK electricity will be renewable, and by 2030, 95% will be from low-carbon sources (including nuclear).
- IMSAI8080 4y agoThere's several places where you can see the UK's power generation live. Right this second we're running on 31% wind power. We're just rolling into peak power usage times so probably different when you click the link. https://grid.iamkate.com/ https://grid.iamkate.com/
- braamble 4y agoThis is the best place to see a breakdown of UK generation. This information comes directly from National Grid. https://bmrs.elexon.co.uk/generation-by-fuel-type https://bmrs.elexon.co.uk/generation-by-fuel-type
- Reason077 4y agoThis one is not the full picture of UK generation, however, as Elexon's data only includes generators that are connected to the National Grid. Many smaller generators, including all(?) UK solar farms, smaller wind farms, W2E plants, etc, are connected to the distribution networks (DSOs), not directly to the National Grid. These can account for a significant percentage of UK generation at times! Most of the other websites displaying UK generation include additional data sources so that things like solar are accounted for.
- sgu999 4y agoAustralia is so outrageous. So much land, sun, wind, and money but no, they'll just use coal thank you.
- pydry 4y agoPoland is nearly all coal too while Germany is right next door and 50% renewable.
- geertj 4y agoVery sad indeed. Curious if there’s any aussies here that can share the local perspective.
- thrown_22 4y agoWorked in energy as a quant a few years back: the current 'greening' of the grid is nothing of the sort. It's just a cash grab by creating extreme volatility in energy prices. On the right (wrong) days you had swings of $10,000 USD within 5 minutes of each other. The net result was the grid being taken over by the government after a series of rolling blackouts in a number of states and letting everything rip. All this is was directly attributed to _one_ coal station going offline unexpectedly and losing the baseload it generated. I can write a book on how fucked the market here is.
- noibl 4y agoIt's nighttime and there is no wind. That's the downside of extrapolating from real-time data. A couple of highlights from Australia's energy transition story in the last few days, which show some of the work being done at state level in spite of a largely renewables-hostile federal government over the last several years: > the Western Australia grid ... reached 82 per cent renewables for a half-hour period on October 30 ... and it is likely that new peak is the highest for any gigawatt-scale grid in the world. > South Australia ... has established the world’s highest share of renewables – as a percentage of demand – in any gigawatt scale grid in the world, when it reached 146 per cent on September 14. The excess is, of course, exported to the neighbouring state, in this case Victoria. -- https://reneweconomy.com.au/the-stunning-wind-and-solar-leaps-in-australias-most-advanced-renewable-grids/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/the-stunning-wind-and-solar-leap... [2022-11-04] > [NSW is seeking] solutions on replacing 10GW of coal capacity that is likely to leave the grid within the next decade. > Those plans are being accelerated by fast-tracked closures of the main coal generators, including Liddell early next year, Eraring in 2025, and Bayswater as early as 2030. Vales Point is expected to close by 2029, leaving Mt Piper with the only uncertain closure time. -- https://reneweconomy.com.au/nsw-formally-declares-its-third-renewable-zone-as-shift-from-coal-accelerates/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/nsw-formally-declares-its-third-... [2022-11-04]
- dudeinjapan 4y agoUS pacific northwest hydropower FTW. Roll on Columbia roll on
- pencilguin 4y agoGrand Coulee Dam is driving salmon species to extinction. The PNW is dismantling dams, most of which never produced anywhere near the value of the fishery they destroyed.
- dudeinjapan 4y ago"I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully." - George W. Bush
- parminya 4y agoWhy does Canada report information for so few provinces/territories? Are they unwilling or unable to collect the information?
- toomuchtodo 4y agoSome grids are more open than others. ElectricityMap scrapes public system operator websites (“ISOs”) or government data aggregators (US EIA balancing areas or ENTSOE in Europe) for their data. To my knowledge, outside of Europe, there is no data reporting requirement, so this is all best effort (but it’s pretty good for best effort imho).