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It's worth keeping in mind that 'low cost' PV comes from China (which makes 80% of the global supply of PV cells) which is run predominantly on coal (60% of the
by gravitywave 2y ago
It's worth keeping in mind that 'low cost' PV comes from China (which makes 80% of the global supply of PV cells) which is run predominantly on coal (60% of their electrical energy) and China continues to build a GW coal plant approximately weekly, and incidentally, a new GW nuclear plant about monthly.
- bryanlarsen 2y agoThe coal plants China are building are peaker plants run at a fairly low duty cycle, most of their new power comes from solar. IOW they're building solar+coal instead of solar+batteries.
- mnau 2y agoNumber of coal plants is irrelevant. It's a misinformation. What matters is how much coal they do burn. Their coal plants have capacity factor under 50%. Chinese consumption of coal is roughly as ~10 years ago (82EJ vs 88EJ). That is what matters. Coal plants are going to balance the grid, just like in Germany.