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Northern Germany like the Netherlands consists entirely of flat land, so there are no hills to pump water up. Further more such solutions require a river relati
by DasIch 14y ago
Northern Germany like the Netherlands consists entirely of flat land, so there are no hills to pump water up. Further more such solutions require a river relatively close to the hill that runs with enough water that the pumps have enough work to do and that can easily handle the water when you drain it.
Even so such plants are used in the Middle and South of Germany where hills and mountains exists but you have to get the energy there and Poland is closer.
- redwood 14y agoGermany has a unified grid, I'm sure. We need to remember how small Germany is: smaller than California, for example and California relies on everything hydro from the Pacific Northwest all the way down to mountain western state coal. In anticipation of hot days the Pacific Northwest actually stops water flow on river dams to allow them to peak at high price points. There is probably a middle point here tho: Europe may have proportionally less hydro available. In fact it looks like Germany now has more wind capacity than hydro (something no where near achieved in California) so you're right: they might not be able to make it up that way.
- pcl 14y ago> Germany has a unified grid, I'm sure. The article seemed to indicate that this is not the case, and that until the south and north parts of the grid are well-connected domestically, excess power from the north gets routed south via Poland and the Czech Republic.
- Gravityloss 14y agoone more problem is that mainland Denmark is well connected to Germany and not to Jylland, which is connected to Scandinavia. Scandinavia has mountains and operates th Nordpool market. A HVDC network going from north african deserts to norwegian n mountains could solve some problems.
- marbu 14y agoExactly, you can see the up-to date numbers here: http://www.ceps.cz/ENG/Data/Vsechna-data/Pages/Preshranicni-toky.aspx http://www.ceps.cz/ENG/Data/Vsechna-data/Pages/Preshranicni-...
- Someone 14y agoHills can be made: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A//nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Lievense http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&... Also, about the German grid: http://lehre.umweltpruefung.tu-berlin.de/mw/index.php?title=Power_grid http://lehre.umweltpruefung.tu-berlin.de/mw/index.php?title=.... Germany has less need to distribute power east-west because, if there is wind in the Northwest, there will likely be wind in the northeast, too, but there, statistically, will be less sun in the south. Similarly, having sun in the south correlates with less wind in the north.