3 ms·

Again, look at the data. As nuclear power is decreased, wind + solar is pretty much equally increased. You can’t dispute this fact. How it was done is another

Again, look at the data. As nuclear power is decreased, wind + solar is pretty much equally increased. You can’t dispute this fact. How it was done is another question, different from whether it was done—because it was indeed indisputably done—coal did never at any point replace nuclear power, solar + wind did. This is not a myth. You have to ask somebody knowledgeable in German energy policy on how they replaced an intermittent energy source with a dispatchable one. I can think of a few possibilities, perhaps they enacted policies and pricing scheme based on the time of usage. Perhaps they patched up inefficiencies where load was greatest, perhaps they increased storage somehow. I don’t know, but all I know is that it was done, the data tells us that much.

belorn 4y ago
There are many ways to do it, and all of those are being deployed in Europe. A common strategy is to use export intermittent energy while importing dispatchable one. This how a country like Denmark can produce wind power that is over 100% of yearly demand, while at the same time only consuming about 50% of that energy. The rest is imports. Selling wind and solar when supply is high and importing energy when supply is low is naturally quite expensive, but statistically they are produce more wind than they are consuming. From a production perspective they are clean. From a consumption perspective, they are not. An other popular method, deployed in germany, is to keep as much capacity of fossil fuel energy as possible. Fossil fuel subsidies are great to keep the power plant in a operational mode until the weather changes from optimal to suboptimal. This also has the big drawback of being very expensive, but in terms of production it promotes large numbers of wind and solar while keeping the fossil fuel production down to periods when the weather is suboptimal. Sadly there is a lot of periods of suboptimal weather so its not very clean strategy, but its better than operating the coal and gas plants 24/7.

belorn 4y ago

There are many ways to do it, and all of those are being deployed in Europe. A common strategy is to use export intermittent energy while importing dispatchable one. This how a country like Denmark can produce wind power that is over 100% of yearly demand, while at the same time only consuming about 50% of that energy. The rest is imports. Selling wind and solar when supply is high and importing energy when supply is low is naturally quite expensive, but statistically they are produce more wind than they are consuming. From a production perspective they are clean. From a consumption perspective, they are not. An other popular method, deployed in germany, is to keep as much capacity of fossil fuel energy as possible. Fossil fuel subsidies are great to keep the power plant in a operational mode until the weather changes from optimal to suboptimal. This also has the big drawback of being very expensive, but in terms of production it promotes large numbers of wind and solar while keeping the fossil fuel production down to periods when the weather is suboptimal. Sadly there is a lot of periods of suboptimal weather so its not very clean strategy, but its better than operating the coal and gas plants 24/7.