4 ms·
> The problem with this 90% solution is that the more renewables are added, the more natural gas capacity is required to cover the capacity. That can be the ca
by cesarb 3y ago
> The problem with this 90% solution is that the more renewables are added, the more natural gas capacity is required to cover the capacity.
That can be the case only if the demand also increases. If the demand stays the same, adding more wind and solar can only decrease how much the natural gas power plants are used, and the required capacity (that is, how much they can produce at full power) either stays the same or decreases (if the newly added wind and solar are non-correlated enough to reduce the chance of all of them "going dark" at the same time).
- kragen 3y agoor if existing plants shut down, for example coal and nuclear plants they are in fact shutting down in many cases because they can't compete with renewables, and the result is that more grid-scale storage or peaker capacity (or demand response!) is needed but this is a good kind of problem to have, if you replace 900 megawatts (produced) of coal with 400 megawatts (produced, not nameplate) of solar and 500 megawatts of gas, you've still cut carbon emissions by two thirds, and lowered electricity prices at the same time