3 ms·

It only pencils out when you don't have to worry where your power is coming from at night or on a cloudy day.

walrus01 3y ago
Obviously you do need other base load generation as well. Air conditioner demand is also lower when there's no direct sunlight, and at night.
- illiarian 3y ago
  Air conditioning is not the only power consumer. If your production goes from 100% to 0%, it's not just air conditioning that will be affected.
  - AstralStorm 3y ago
    In particular, one can calculate minimum base load and amortized base load. Critical infrastructure informs minimum base load. For example parts of defense grid, AC when disabling it would kill people, medical systems, certain lighting, running and monitoring the power plants, certain kind of industrial cooling, mining safety equipment like air and gas pumps, certain sluices in regions with flooding. More or less anything that if turned off would or could immediately cause a catastrophe. Amortized base load adds some other things that just cannot be off for long or you incur huge restart or lack of function costs. Examples would be microchip manufacturing, water treatment, key mass transportation, oil pumping and drilling. A lot of amortized base loads are on week scale rather than day, so they tend to be reasonably solar friendly, but less wind friendly.
    - illiarian 3y ago
      What you're saying is: rolling blackouts are totally fine because no one will die if they sit in the dark for a few hours. BTW, turning a lot stuff off and then turning it back on strains the grid immensely.
pydry 3y ago
It's 20% of the cost not 20% less. Matching solar and wind power with storage or peakers is still cheaper.
- illiarian 3y ago
  You're assuming this much storage exists. And I'd love to see all the calculations that include the need to overbuild, the need for storage etc.
  - pydry 3y ago
    No, I'm assuming it can be built because the unit economics work better. Back in 2013 I remember people used to constantly trash solar and wind because it was 1-2% of the grid anywhere, max, while nuclear power was often 10-30% (or 70% in France). We're at that same point with storage. Since then we've had a decline in nuclear power due to the high cost and enormous growth in renewables due to it being 5x cheaper. Unit economics prevailed with solar and wind and theyll prevail with storage. solar + wind + 8 hours storage is not just the cheapest way to get to a 98% carbon free grid it's also the fastest. Gas is still the cheapest "battery" by far though, which is why so many countries use it as baseload and peaking. Pumped storage, batteries and syngas combined only make renewables a cheaper baseload/peaker than nuclear power.
    - illiarian 3y ago
      > Since then we've had a decline in nuclear power and enormous growth in renewables. The only reason we've had decline in nuclear is politics. That's why now Germany is busy burning coal and importing electricity. > Unit economics prevailed before and theyll prevail again. Wishful thinking is no substitute for reality. Where are the calculations? That include both the need to ridiculously overbuild renewables and the need for the so-far-nonexistent grid scale storage?
      - pydry 3y ago
        Germany is burning less coal than it used to 10 years ago. Somehow this fact is not only relatively unknown, most people seem to have been led to believe that the exact opposite is true. Nuclear propaganda has always had a bit of a reality problem.

Obviously you do need other base load generation as well. Air conditioner demand is also lower when there's no direct sunlight, and at night.

illiarian 3y ago
Air conditioning is not the only power consumer. If your production goes from 100% to 0%, it's not just air conditioning that will be affected.
- AstralStorm 3y ago
  In particular, one can calculate minimum base load and amortized base load. Critical infrastructure informs minimum base load. For example parts of defense grid, AC when disabling it would kill people, medical systems, certain lighting, running and monitoring the power plants, certain kind of industrial cooling, mining safety equipment like air and gas pumps, certain sluices in regions with flooding. More or less anything that if turned off would or could immediately cause a catastrophe. Amortized base load adds some other things that just cannot be off for long or you incur huge restart or lack of function costs. Examples would be microchip manufacturing, water treatment, key mass transportation, oil pumping and drilling. A lot of amortized base loads are on week scale rather than day, so they tend to be reasonably solar friendly, but less wind friendly.
  - illiarian 3y ago
    What you're saying is: rolling blackouts are totally fine because no one will die if they sit in the dark for a few hours. BTW, turning a lot stuff off and then turning it back on strains the grid immensely.

pydry 3y ago

It's 20% of the cost not 20% less. Matching solar and wind power with storage or peakers is still cheaper.

illiarian 3y ago
You're assuming this much storage exists. And I'd love to see all the calculations that include the need to overbuild, the need for storage etc.
- pydry 3y ago
  No, I'm assuming it can be built because the unit economics work better. Back in 2013 I remember people used to constantly trash solar and wind because it was 1-2% of the grid anywhere, max, while nuclear power was often 10-30% (or 70% in France). We're at that same point with storage. Since then we've had a decline in nuclear power due to the high cost and enormous growth in renewables due to it being 5x cheaper. Unit economics prevailed with solar and wind and theyll prevail with storage. solar + wind + 8 hours storage is not just the cheapest way to get to a 98% carbon free grid it's also the fastest. Gas is still the cheapest "battery" by far though, which is why so many countries use it as baseload and peaking. Pumped storage, batteries and syngas combined only make renewables a cheaper baseload/peaker than nuclear power.
  - illiarian 3y ago
    > Since then we've had a decline in nuclear power and enormous growth in renewables. The only reason we've had decline in nuclear is politics. That's why now Germany is busy burning coal and importing electricity. > Unit economics prevailed before and theyll prevail again. Wishful thinking is no substitute for reality. Where are the calculations? That include both the need to ridiculously overbuild renewables and the need for the so-far-nonexistent grid scale storage?
    - pydry 3y ago
      Germany is burning less coal than it used to 10 years ago. Somehow this fact is not only relatively unknown, most people seem to have been led to believe that the exact opposite is true. Nuclear propaganda has always had a bit of a reality problem.