4 ms·

But with mini grids you'll just end up with over supply during sunshine/wind with nobody at all to sell the excess to

by shawabawa3 2y ago

rssoconnor 2y ago
Can you use the spare electricity to stockpile some sodium hydroxide or something?
adrianN 2y ago
In the near future most cars could be happy to accept a charge
SideburnsOfDoom 2y ago
> you'll just end up with over supply during sunshine/wind You will only need enough storage to cover 12-24 hours to reduce that a lot: Much of the surplus power can be put into vehicles when they're resting at home overnight, or for evening and next morning peak. For the rest, well, so what? Temporary "oversupply" on days when there's lots of sun and no vehicle to charge up is not the worst problem to have - it won't kill anyone. The worst that you can say about it is that it's a misallocation of resources to sometimes have the power supply that you can't use or sell. But solar panels and batteries are becoming cheap. So the upside of having occasional surplus remains, the downside diminishes.
- bpfrh 2y ago
  The problem is not necessarily day/night but summer with solar+and possible wind and winter with less solar and possible no wind. So you need to store energy for more than a few hours or generate it from something else. You then have the choice to use batteries(costly for megwatts as of now), things like hydrostorage, fossil fuels(gas/coal/oil) or hydrogen generated from renewable sources. If you need big energy storages anyway, it makes more sense that communities pool their money together and invest in something like hydrostorage, but then you need a grid to connect the communities and if you do that, you might as well connect everything in the country so the grid is better at balancing.
  - marcosdumay 2y ago
    > The problem is not necessarily day/night but summer with solar+and possible wind and winter with less solar and possible no wind. So they have to buy some 30% more panels.
    - SideburnsOfDoom 2y ago
      Yes, that's exactly why you would over-provision. So the upside of having occasional surplus is that in other times such as winter with less solar, you are more likely to still have enough capacity.
      - hgomersall 2y ago
        And you'll be churning out hydrogen all summer.
      - bpfrh 2y ago
        sorry my bad for formulating it badly: less solar and now wind means days or even weeks with no solar and no wind aka "dunkelflaute" In germany a week long dukelflaute occurs every 2 years.
        SideburnsOfDoom 2y ago
        Sure, power on for 24/7/365 from Solar + Wind + Battery alone is hard; and 99% uptime is more expensive than 95% because of the batteries needed. However when talking about rural communities that might not have power at all, or run a diesel generator in the evenings, that 95% from clean sources is a good start.
        bpfrh 2y ago
        The problem of rural communities having no power is, I think mostly a non issue across most of europe. Having most of the electrical grid already it makes no sense to scale it back or not connect the few not connected communities I'm not arguing against renewable I'm arguing against the idea that in most of europe it would be better to use small grids instead of an european wide big grid. Hydrostorage is cheap if it provides enough energy for more than one small community, having the ability to balance energy production and needs across europe is easier than being at the mercy of local weather. A good example for that is austria, where the grid has a problem where a better connection between east and west is not finished/buid because of discussions about environmental impact. This leads to overproduction in one place which can't be transferred to places that need electricity. https://kommunal.at/wir-haben-ein-strom-problem https://kommunal.at/wir-haben-ein-strom-problem
manmal 2y ago
That’s a problem big grids also share. It‘s probably easier to buffer power for a small neighborhood, than for a city.
- 7952 2y ago
  Perhaps easier but less versatile. A large storage site connected to a national high voltage grid can take electricity from a much wider variety of sources and send it to a wider variety of consumers.

But with mini grids you'll just end up with over supply during sunshine/wind with nobody at all to sell the excess to

rssoconnor 2y ago

Can you use the spare electricity to stockpile some sodium hydroxide or something?

adrianN 2y ago

In the near future most cars could be happy to accept a charge

SideburnsOfDoom 2y ago

> you'll just end up with over supply during sunshine/wind You will only need enough storage to cover 12-24 hours to reduce that a lot: Much of the surplus power can be put into vehicles when they're resting at home overnight, or for evening and next morning peak. For the rest, well, so what? Temporary "oversupply" on days when there's lots of sun and no vehicle to charge up is not the worst problem to have - it won't kill anyone. The worst that you can say about it is that it's a misallocation of resources to sometimes have the power supply that you can't use or sell. But solar panels and batteries are becoming cheap. So the upside of having occasional surplus remains, the downside diminishes.

bpfrh 2y ago
The problem is not necessarily day/night but summer with solar+and possible wind and winter with less solar and possible no wind. So you need to store energy for more than a few hours or generate it from something else. You then have the choice to use batteries(costly for megwatts as of now), things like hydrostorage, fossil fuels(gas/coal/oil) or hydrogen generated from renewable sources. If you need big energy storages anyway, it makes more sense that communities pool their money together and invest in something like hydrostorage, but then you need a grid to connect the communities and if you do that, you might as well connect everything in the country so the grid is better at balancing.
- marcosdumay 2y ago
  > The problem is not necessarily day/night but summer with solar+and possible wind and winter with less solar and possible no wind. So they have to buy some 30% more panels.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 2y ago
    Yes, that's exactly why you would over-provision. So the upside of having occasional surplus is that in other times such as winter with less solar, you are more likely to still have enough capacity.
    - hgomersall 2y ago
      And you'll be churning out hydrogen all summer.
    - bpfrh 2y ago
      sorry my bad for formulating it badly: less solar and now wind means days or even weeks with no solar and no wind aka "dunkelflaute" In germany a week long dukelflaute occurs every 2 years.
      - SideburnsOfDoom 2y ago
        Sure, power on for 24/7/365 from Solar + Wind + Battery alone is hard; and 99% uptime is more expensive than 95% because of the batteries needed. However when talking about rural communities that might not have power at all, or run a diesel generator in the evenings, that 95% from clean sources is a good start.
        bpfrh 2y ago
        The problem of rural communities having no power is, I think mostly a non issue across most of europe. Having most of the electrical grid already it makes no sense to scale it back or not connect the few not connected communities I'm not arguing against renewable I'm arguing against the idea that in most of europe it would be better to use small grids instead of an european wide big grid. Hydrostorage is cheap if it provides enough energy for more than one small community, having the ability to balance energy production and needs across europe is easier than being at the mercy of local weather. A good example for that is austria, where the grid has a problem where a better connection between east and west is not finished/buid because of discussions about environmental impact. This leads to overproduction in one place which can't be transferred to places that need electricity. https://kommunal.at/wir-haben-ein-strom-problem https://kommunal.at/wir-haben-ein-strom-problem

manmal 2y ago

That’s a problem big grids also share. It‘s probably easier to buffer power for a small neighborhood, than for a city.

7952 2y ago
Perhaps easier but less versatile. A large storage site connected to a national high voltage grid can take electricity from a much wider variety of sources and send it to a wider variety of consumers.