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You both raise good points. Yes solar is getting cheaper but economical and environmentally friendly long term storage (order of several days or even a month wo
by Gare 3y ago
You both raise good points. Yes solar is getting cheaper but economical and environmentally friendly long term storage (order of several days or even a month worth of energy for a hundred million people) is far from a solved problem.
> In sunny California solar has as capacity factor of around 25%. In Germany, which is prone to many cloudy days this drops to around 10%. So yes cloudy days have an impact but do not entirely eliminate solar from contention and certainly don't require enough battery capacity to last all winter.
In Croatia yearly capacity factor is around 15%, but the problem is it varies wildly throughout the year. In summer we get up to 300 hours of sunlight per month, in winter less than 50. So yes, on paper the capacity might be enough, but one needs to have the ability to store the massive amount of energy inter-seasonally.
- loeg 3y ago> In summer we get up to 300 hours of sunlight per month, in winter less than 50. So yes, on paper the capacity might be enough, but one needs to have the ability to store the massive amount of energy inter-seasonally. Or overbuild by a factor of 6x or whatever relative to summer loads, which is probably less expensive than long term battery storage.
- Gare 3y agoThere can still be periods of several weeks with very little sunlight. And energy demands will be massive if we switch all heating to heat pumps instead of natural gas which we mostly now use. What actually helps us during winter is hydro and wind power. And Krško nuclear power plant.
- loeg 3y agoYeah, that factor may be significantly higher than 6x depending on locale.