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Well, you gonna pay for building gas power plants that never run? Customers will need to pay for gas power plants that cover the entire electricity need (read u

Well, you gonna pay for building gas power plants that never run? Customers will need to pay for gas power plants that cover the entire electricity need (read up on Fraunhofer on the thinking: https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/de/documents/publications/studies/Fraunhofer-ISE-Studie-Wege-zu-einem-klimaneutralen-Energiesystem.pdf https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/de/documents/p... ) . But that infrastructure will sit there idle most of the time. That’s not driving down electricity prices. And you’ll still end up with higher carbon emissions than France.

adgjlsfhk1 1y ago
Solar panels are cheap enough that it pays to have gas plants that never run.
toast0 1y ago
> Well, you gonna pay for building gas power plants that never run? Customers will need to pay for gas power plants that cover the entire electricity need Paying for the plant but not having to pay for it to run most of the time is probably cheaper than having it running most of the time. Maybe there's opportunities for net metering for customers with backup generators. At the right price per kWH, I would run my generator and feed into the grid... personally, my fuel cost is likely too high for that to make sense very often, but I think there's likely some hidden capacity there with the right incentives.
- looping__lui 1y ago
  Take a look at this study: https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/de/documents/publications/studies/Fraunhofer-ISE-Studie-Wege-zu-einem-klimaneutralen-Energiesystem.pdf https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/de/documents/p... Germany will require 100-150 GW capacity which cost about 1000 EUR/kW and would require an investment of 100+B EUR. Electricity prices already skyrocketed in Germany and no end in sight. Listen: I invested in PV, in low energy houses, in heat pumps - but the PV/wind strategy doesn’t work the way people would like them to in their ideology and Germany has proven that.
  - toast0 1y ago
    I think I'm more or less agreeing with you. You've got to build the gas plants (or something), for the dark and windless days of winter, right? That's going to be expensive, but PV/wind won't solve it, so you have to build it. Now that you've built those plants, would you rather pay to operate them year round, or only when needed? PV/wind won't help you reduce capex for winter, but it should reduce opex on gas. And that's something. Spending capex on interconnections may reduce the total dispatchable capacity needed; if it's done carefully. Having more time zones in one grid helps because peaks correspond with time of day; having more latitude helps because day lengths and cloud cover varies. Having more of both helps because still air tends to be geographically bounded. But long distance transmission is expensive.
    - looping__lui 1y ago
      I’d rather build nuclear plants and not keep them entirely idle but forego the investment into additional PV and wind. Don’t get me wrong: when the sun shines and the wind blows we cover 100% of our need essentially. That’s great. But we can stop now. Because we produce too much on some days and put our grid at risk and we produce too little to often on others and put our grid at risk

adgjlsfhk1 1y ago

Solar panels are cheap enough that it pays to have gas plants that never run.

toast0 1y ago

> Well, you gonna pay for building gas power plants that never run? Customers will need to pay for gas power plants that cover the entire electricity need Paying for the plant but not having to pay for it to run most of the time is probably cheaper than having it running most of the time. Maybe there's opportunities for net metering for customers with backup generators. At the right price per kWH, I would run my generator and feed into the grid... personally, my fuel cost is likely too high for that to make sense very often, but I think there's likely some hidden capacity there with the right incentives.

looping__lui 1y ago
Take a look at this study: https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/de/documents/publications/studies/Fraunhofer-ISE-Studie-Wege-zu-einem-klimaneutralen-Energiesystem.pdf https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/de/documents/p... Germany will require 100-150 GW capacity which cost about 1000 EUR/kW and would require an investment of 100+B EUR. Electricity prices already skyrocketed in Germany and no end in sight. Listen: I invested in PV, in low energy houses, in heat pumps - but the PV/wind strategy doesn’t work the way people would like them to in their ideology and Germany has proven that.
- toast0 1y ago
  I think I'm more or less agreeing with you. You've got to build the gas plants (or something), for the dark and windless days of winter, right? That's going to be expensive, but PV/wind won't solve it, so you have to build it. Now that you've built those plants, would you rather pay to operate them year round, or only when needed? PV/wind won't help you reduce capex for winter, but it should reduce opex on gas. And that's something. Spending capex on interconnections may reduce the total dispatchable capacity needed; if it's done carefully. Having more time zones in one grid helps because peaks correspond with time of day; having more latitude helps because day lengths and cloud cover varies. Having more of both helps because still air tends to be geographically bounded. But long distance transmission is expensive.
  - looping__lui 1y ago
    I’d rather build nuclear plants and not keep them entirely idle but forego the investment into additional PV and wind. Don’t get me wrong: when the sun shines and the wind blows we cover 100% of our need essentially. That’s great. But we can stop now. Because we produce too much on some days and put our grid at risk and we produce too little to often on others and put our grid at risk