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Oh they absolutely do. "did you know you need to overbuild?" is well up there with "did you know the sun doesnt shine at night?" A solar farm with a nameplate

by pydry 4y ago

Oh they absolutely do. "did you know you need to overbuild?" is well up there with "did you know the sun doesnt shine at night?" A solar farm with a nameplate capacity of 1 GW is about 5% of the cost of a 1GW nuclear plant. The need for overbuilding pushes the price up to roughly 20% of the cost. Adding all the necessary storage to provide peaking can push it all the way up to ~80% of the cost of a nuclear power station. Storage is kind of a moot point anyway these days. Most grids don't even have enough nameplate capacity to supply 100% of demand for even 1 day a year. With a few exceptions every GWh produced at any time by any solar panel or turbine - is just a GWh of gas that can be burned some other day.

illiarian 4y ago
> "did you know you need to overbuild?" is well up there with "did you know the sun doesnt shine at night?" Of course it isn't. Almost none of the renewal proponents take those costs into account. > A solar farm with a nameplate capacity of 1 GW is about 5% of the cost of a 1GW nuclear plant. The need for overbuilding pushes the price up to roughly 20% of the cost. Are you sure you added all the requirements to the picture? E.g. Two weeks ago there was a quiet night in Germany. Solar was at 0%. Wind was at 5%. You'd need to overbuild wind 400% just to compensate for some of the power needed then. > Adding all the necessary storage to provide peaking can push it all the way up to ~80% of the cost of a nuclear power station. Ah yes. The magical non-existent storage. > Storage is kind of a moot point anyway these days. Most grids don't even have enough nameplate capacity to supply 100% of demand for even 1 day a year. Funny how storage is moot, so Germany is burning coal during the night to compensate for solar, and for wind on quite nights, because they shut down their nuclear power plants.

by pydry 4y ago

illiarian 4y ago

> "did you know you need to overbuild?" is well up there with "did you know the sun doesnt shine at night?" Of course it isn't. Almost none of the renewal proponents take those costs into account. > A solar farm with a nameplate capacity of 1 GW is about 5% of the cost of a 1GW nuclear plant. The need for overbuilding pushes the price up to roughly 20% of the cost. Are you sure you added all the requirements to the picture? E.g. Two weeks ago there was a quiet night in Germany. Solar was at 0%. Wind was at 5%. You'd need to overbuild wind 400% just to compensate for some of the power needed then. > Adding all the necessary storage to provide peaking can push it all the way up to ~80% of the cost of a nuclear power station. Ah yes. The magical non-existent storage. > Storage is kind of a moot point anyway these days. Most grids don't even have enough nameplate capacity to supply 100% of demand for even 1 day a year. Funny how storage is moot, so Germany is burning coal during the night to compensate for solar, and for wind on quite nights, because they shut down their nuclear power plants.