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>Inevitably, some hot July week will come when a high-pressure system stalls over Europe, stilling turbines just when sunburned Germans reach for their air cond
by toemetoch 14y ago
>Inevitably, some hot July week will come when a high-pressure system stalls over Europe, stilling turbines just when sunburned Germans reach for their air conditioners
The summer in Germany isn't that hot. Middle europe, not california. Accordingly, we don#t have air conditioners (in general)
These scenarios do happen. They're not always as straight-forward as the one suggested (low production/high demand). A few weeks ago there was a sunny/windy holiday in Belgium (May 28th). Due to overproduction and low demand they had to avert a national blackout by paying France to sink the surplus energy. In Belgium, renewables account for 7% of energy. That weekend it was 3 times as much.
- onli 14y agoI don't know about Belgium. Maybe air conditioners there are more common? In Germany, it is said that cold winters are more dangerous for the energy balance, as the cold also increases energy demand and the photovoltaik-cells aren't as useful as in a hot (and sunny) summer.
- toemetoch 14y agoPlease read again. Energy demand was lower because it was a holiday, nothing to do with air conditioners.
- onli 14y agoThanks. I didnt get that fully, because i saw that reply as phrased as a critic to my statement, whereas it supports my point (which was, that high demand/low availabality because of the summer is unlikely in that scenario). Or not, but it is not a real critic on my statement. Of course such scenarios happen, especially the situation you described.
- toemetoch 14y agoIt was an addendum, not a rebuttal ;)
- khuey 14y agoPV cells are actually more efficient at lower temperatures. The lost production comes entirely from decreases in the amount of sunlight.
- adam-a 14y agoI had no idea too much electricity could be a problem? I was trying to read more about this effect but google has no answers for me. Also, surely the obvious thing to do would be turn off some of the turbines in that situation?
- toemetoch 14y ago- It's not just wind (turbines) but also solar. - You don't have centralized access to all the facilities. E.g. small and medium-scale solar falls under the control of the owner AFAIK. Large scale wind also has other parties involved that don't want to miss out on income. - Control of energy production on a national or regional scale follows prediction models, not only for demand but also price of resources such as gas and weather forecasts for renewables. So for a holiday they would shutdown a number of "classic" facilities to follow a day-ahead schedule. This probably increased the dependency on renewables for that day. The big question "why didn't they shutdown wind farms": I don't know but I plan to find out.
- LiamMcCalloway 14y agoAs per the 2003 E.U. directive on renewable energy, renewables have priority access to the rid to offload their production. This is makes sense because it ensures full utilization of the assets and helps reduce their costs. EDIT: grammar
- toemetoch 14y agoBoth the 2003 directive [0] and the 2009 directive [1] state that member states may give priority - with notion of exceptions for security. Maybe priority was indeed the factor, but it's not mandated on a European level. [0] http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2003:123:0042:0042:EN:PDF http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2... [1] http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2009:140:0016:0062:EN:PDF http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2...
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