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> What if it’s not windy or sunny? Sweden is 528 000 km² and there is part a geographical spread even into sea which use to have weather patterns not followin
by jug 3y ago
> What if it’s not windy or sunny?
Sweden is 528 000 km² and there is part a geographical spread even into sea which use to have weather patterns not following those at land, part complemented heavily by hydro, and part large battery parks already in use to complement wind.
What kind of issues still remain after all these countermeasures? Still requiring countermeasures on the extremely costly scale of a massive nuclear expansion?
- jen729w 3y agoSee my post, which I may have updated since you wrote this. Renewables, without massive grid storage to dampen their unreliability can not be the base load upon which your grid depends. This storage could exist, but we haven’t built it and it isn’t proven.
- jug 3y agoIt is absolutely built and proven in numerous countries and more are planned / under construction by Vattenfall alone. https://group.vattenfall.com/what-we-do/roadmap-to-fossil-freedom/battery-storage-systems https://group.vattenfall.com/what-we-do/roadmap-to-fossil-fr...
- kube-system 3y agoAfter doing all of that, your wind and solar are no longer cheap. The cheap numbers per kwh for wind/solar currently are under the assumption that you take the power when you get it.
- jug 3y agoIt doesn't matter if it's more expensive. The question if it eventually gets more expensive than nuclear, an energy form Sweden/Vattenfall recently turned away from because it was not financially feasible anymore.
- kube-system 3y agoI've seen cited that the cheapest chemical battery storage is similar to the price of gas generation. If we're considering LCOE numbers, yes, that would be more expensive than nuclear then. Your local regulatory environment notwithstanding.
- samuell 3y agoSweden has often very long transport routes for the energy, meaning that it is still a big challenge to supply the big cities, especially in the very south, with stable power, as the long transport routes don't have capacity enough for the increasing demand from an increasingly electrified society (charging electric cars etc). As other comments are on to, you can't rely on wind for base energy due to the extreme fluctuations in output. It isn't uncommon with a few days of basically no wind at all in the whole country, typically when it is at its coldest, with temperatures sometimes around -30 - -40 C in the north, and perhaps -10 - -20 C in the south. Then you gotta have stable energy, or people's lives might be at risk.