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...and batteries are unsuitable for seasonal storage.
by red75prime 7mo ago
...and batteries are unsuitable for seasonal storage.
- cubefox 7mo agoUnfortunately Germany closed down its nuclear power plants.
- __d 7mo agoThey would find it hard to compete with negative prices too.
- cubefox 7mo agoNot at all. The prices aren't negative during the night or on overcast days.
- adrianN 7mo agoEvery hour you don't run your nuclear power plant at full capacity you lose money. Nuclear power is mostly capex. You need to maximize utilization if you want to be profitable.
- cubefox 7mo agoIt's far worse not to have sufficient electricity during the night or on overcast days. You can just increase nuclear electricity prices during that time to make up for the lost revenue from sunny days.
- adrianN 7mo agoOr you can burn some hydrogen or synthetic methane and get your energy for less money.
- brazzy 7mo agoNuclear power plants can store energy?
- cubefox 7mo agoNo but they can operate during the night and on overcast days.
- Sankozi 7mo agoFirst lets handle single summer day using renewables + storage (California is slowly getting there). Then we can talk about seasonal problems.
- jbrnh 7mo agoHow is seasonal storage relevant here? This is the usual few-hours-fluctuations, I assume? (can't read the article)
- red75prime 7mo agoIt will be more relevant in the future, but it's still worth thinking about. Right now intermittent energy sources cover around 15-18% of the total energy consumption in Germany[1]. And seasonal variability is covered by other methods (natural gas and others). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany#/media/File:Energy_mix_in_Germany.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany#/media/File:...
- jbrnh 7mo agoAnd Germany right now have battery storage equivalent of fully powering Germany for about 30 minute sand raising up every month, which is quite wild.. https://battery-charts.de/ https://battery-charts.de/ With those feeding on negative-priced electricity, intermittent sources will only get more economical to the detriment of gas and nuclear.
- leonidasrup 7mo agohttps://openenergytracker.org/en/docs/germany/storage/#total https://openenergytracker.org/en/docs/germany/storage/#total Total installed capacity 2026: Pumped hydro Germany 35 GWh Battery storage 26 GWh Average daily German electricity production is 1300 GWh.
- ZeroGravitas 7mo agoBut since 2/3rd of the fossil energy is wasted, it's more like 40% of the useful energy. Some people don't know about the primary energy fallacy, others know about it and try to exploit it, so you should be suspicious of the opinions of anyone trying to use it suggest lack of progress and futility.
- 7mo ago