8 ms·
Germany solar power output jumps to record highs
- lnsru 2y agoWhen I see these charts I definitely don’t want to be that sweating guy in grid operator’s control room desperately trying to turn off some solar parks to stabilize the grid. Solar generation goes from nothing at night to 80+% during daytime. Ouch.
- Kuinox 2y agoIt's regulated by algorithms.
- aredox 2y agoStill better than being a nuclear reactor operator.
- fp64 2y agoWhy? I would expect it to be comparatively chill, as it should be running mostly constant and reliable?
- jackirtl 2y ago[dead]
- knallfrosch 2y agoUnless, of course, you have to shut down your nuclear plant because your cooling water is too warm during the summer months: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/warming-rivers-threaten-frances-already-tight-power-supply-2022-07-15/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/warming-rivers-threa...
- fp64 2y agoThe articles says the hot water _threatened_ a shut down. Did it actually happen to shut down because of the water temperature in the summer month in 2022, or was this FUD?
- aredox 2y ago"Long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror"
- aktenlage 2y agoIt doesn't seem to be that badly aligned with the consumption (green line in the linked chart). https://www.energieheld.de/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/energiewende-strompreis-stromverbrauch-tagesverlauf.png https://www.energieheld.de/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/e...
- jeffreygoesto 2y agoReminds me of the video of somebody synchronizing a small hydro power plant to the grid. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xGQxSJmadm0 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xGQxSJmadm0
- dailykoder 2y agoEver heard of computers? I heard they'd be pretty good at mundane tasks with numbers
- perihelions 2y ago- "During the week to May 13, Germany's solar farms produced 17,531 megawatt hours (MWh) of electricity, according to data from LSEG," This is an obviously wrong number, and I'm not even sure how they accomplished such a specifically weird mistake. "Mean of 17,351 MW" would be plausible. That's different by a factor of 168.
- fesc 2y agoWhy is it obviously wrong? During a duration of time it is okay so say an amount of energy (MWh) was produced, right?
- perihelions 2y agoBecause it's a nonsensically small number; and it's contradicted with the graph immediately below it, that shows larger amounts of energy (MWh) generated in individual hours, than the supposed figure for the entire week. The peaks on the graph are ~40,000 MWh/hour sustained over multiple hours (eyeballing it). The amount generated in the entire week can't be 17,000 MWh, a number smaller than that. (For anyone unclear about units: the y-axis of the graph is GWh/h, the same as 10^3 MWh/h, or simply just 10^3 MW. The unit [MWh] = 10^6 [Watt]*[hour]).
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- v4vvdq 2y agoYes, the units are correct. But currently Germany is generating 33 GW of solar power (according to electricity maps). Therefore the 17GWh is generated after 0.5 hrs. For a whole week this value is way too low, even if it was a cloudy week (which it wasn't).
- ljf 2y agoForgive me as I am one of those illiterate people - but if it is right to say: "By 2011, solar PV provided 18 TWh of Germany's electricity, or about 3% of the total" why is it not right to say the above? source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Germany#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Germany#History (Or is the wikipedia article wrong too?)
- Kuinox 2y agoIt's currently 13:20 and sunny, Germany is at 183g/gCO2eq, not good.
- j-pb 2y agoBut on the right track. We're building the solar equivalent of the total cumulative nuclear capacity germany has ever build every 3 years. If we manage to hold off regressive forces that are trying to derail the current trajectory with whataboutism of nuclear and fusion, we might actually make it to CO2 neutrality in a reasonable timeframe.
- kgabis 2y agoShutting off nuclear power while commissioning new coal and gas plants is anything but being on the right track.
- martin_a 2y agoNuclear reactors were EOL and not even their owners wanted to run them any longer. So please stop spreading your misleading take.
- Kuinox 2y agoYou ask to not spread misleading then immediatly spreading a politician lies. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/04/26/german-greens-lying-nuclear-power-safety-plant-shutdown/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/04/26/german-green...
- pwagland 2y agoThe same is happening in The Netherlands as well: https://ned.nl/nl/dataportaal/energie-productie/elektriciteit/totale-elektriciteitsproductie https://ned.nl/nl/dataportaal/energie-productie/elektricitei... For April: https://ned.nl/nl/dataportaal/energie-productie/elektriciteit/totale-elektriciteitsproductie https://ned.nl/nl/dataportaal/energie-productie/elektricitei... Solar was 27% of total energy production, and wind was 37%, which when you consider nights, means that you _must_ have peaks well over 50%. Today, at midday, solar is 69% of total production.
- rapsey 2y agoRight now when it is sunny PV panels produce at their peak. May is optimal time for solar energy for the northern hemisphere. Summer reduces efficiency due to heat.
- DoctorOetker 2y agoSummer temepratures reduces efficiency of all thermal power plants, including nuclear and coal, since heat engines are more efficient when their cold bath side is held at a lower temperature.
- DataDaemon 2y ago[flagged]
- OKRainbowKid 2y agoPrices have been going down for about a year, and are now lower than before the war, despite massive shocks and transformations. Also, if you care about low prices, nuclear is among the worst options.
- dindobre 2y agoWould love to understand more about your last statement.
- piva00 2y agoNuclear reactors take a long, long time to recoup the investments. During that time the cost of electricity generated by them is quite high compared to renewable sources like wind and solar. This compounds when cheaper sources are being added to the grid, pushing prices down and making nuclear even less viable economically. For nukes to work, economically speaking, electricity prices need to be stable over a long period of time or they become perpetually in the red. For this to work you can't have liberalised electricity markets, you need the government take the brunt of the risk of new nukes when it's economically not viable and have a design that spans a lifetime of 50-70 years so future generations can benefit from the lower cost after the capital costs are paid off.
- dindobre 2y agoI see, makes sense.
- j-pb 2y agoGermany build the equivalent solar-capacity to the sum of every nuclear reactor it ever operated in the last 3 years. Our _green_ minister of the economy and energy continued running the reactors even past their agreed run-time because the Ukraine war happened, but they simply reached end-of-life. So we've replaced the small amount of nuclear we had with renewables already. Now you might ask why we don't build new ones to move away from fossil fuels faster. But why should you? It's impossible to argue that it would be economical given this chart:[1] 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#/media/File:3-Learning-curves-for-electricity-prices.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#...
- demondemidi 2y agoWhy is it so hard to get a clear story on nuclear power on Havker News? The threads below devolve to: “you’re lying!”, “no, you’re lying!!” Yall pretend to be geniuses and turn into raving flame wars at the slightest mention of nuclear.
- KingOfCoders 2y agoThe numbers are too low. We have seen a surge in solar panels on balconies (~10% in this higher income neighborhood), which isn't taken into account. Also several people in my family have their roof full for their own consumtion + EV, this also not taken into account. We recently went on the Autobahn for a 1000km journey, and you can see some solar farms, but very few. There is still a huge potential. Solar will also kick into second gear as soon as batteries get cheaper or EV batteries are recycled into house batteries.
- _Microft 2y agoSmall scale systems (Balkonkraftwerke („balcony power plant“) as we call them) that feed directly into the circuit of a house will appear as reduced load in these numbers (i.e. measured load isn‘t as high as it would be otherwise).
- KingOfCoders 2y agoYes, but not as solar power.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- matthewfelgate 2y agoGermany shouldn't have closed the nuclear plants.
- roenxi 2y agoThe trade-offs here don't seem favourable. Gemany's per-capita energy production has been dropping [0] and I'm going to be waiting to see what their industrial manufacturing does but I doubt we're going to see China-style explosive growth out of them any time soon. We've got a very persistent trend across all these ideology-before-prosperity western countries where their energy policy is proving to be a disaster. We're getting literal de-growth of energy and a lot of the political fireworks are probably related to that. Hopefully we see some long-term improvements, but the last decade has not been pretty. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/energy/country/germany https://ourworldindata.org/energy/country/germany
- dailykoder 2y ago>We're getting literal de-growth of energy What do you mean by that and why is it bad? Do you mean that we save energy and need less? That doesn't sound bad tbh.
- roenxi 2y agoI mean the amount of energy they can tap into is going down. It means a substantial segment of the population are worse off, because they can't afford stuff/can't afford transport/can't afford to live comfortably. Energy is a general good for achieving a high quality of life.
- dailykoder 2y agoI don't know. I can only speak of germany and my subjective feeling and I don't think it's as bad as people want it to be. Yes we have hard times, but come on, we still live in luxury.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- dailykoder 2y agoWhy are there so many nuclear fans on here? I am no expert and yes it sounds like nuclear energy is "clean and easy", but we still don't know what to do with the waste and if it'd be cheaper is apparently a heavy debate. So what's bad about removing the risk of nuclear powerplants and producing less nuclear waste?