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I'm not saying that Solar PV isn't economically viable at all (I've invested in Solar PV projects for my day job in fact, and obviously wouldn't have done so if
by tomatocracy 3y ago
I'm not saying that Solar PV isn't economically viable at all (I've invested in Solar PV projects for my day job in fact, and obviously wouldn't have done so if I didn't think this).
My concern is the "end game", where all current baseload generation gets disconnected from the grid (including current nuclear when it reaches end of life). Solar PV's current low LCOE doesn't help you a lot in that case because in order to actually deliver the energy needed at the right time you will need to do some combination of (1) build a lot more PV than "needed" and routinely curtail it significantly in summer (ie significantly derate nameplate capacity) and (2) build a lot more storage to deal with seasonal and other variations.
This is when nuclear starts to look like it makes sense as part of the energy mix in my view.
- pydry 3y agoI already addressed why it doesnt help above: >Nuclear power doesnt store energy. It will pump out 2GW all the time whether you need 6GW or you need 0GW. It doesn't really help in that respect at all because it can't be scaled up and down. It's not a peaker. i.e. nuclear power needs peakers or storage too. not as much as solar and wind but it still needs to be paired with peakers or storage. >build a lot more storage to deal with seasonal and other variations. This is what makes the most economic sense currently because pumped storage + hydrogen storage + solar + wind <<< nuclear power costs. Even IF you assumed nuclear power plants could be peakers (they can't) or that Fukushima/Chernobyl events had a probability of 0% (they dont), it would still not make any economic sense to build thrm when those 4 technologies can handle everything together at a much cheaper cost and can be built in 1/2 - 1/20th the amount of time.