4 ms·

How much would it cost to build out batteries which cover entire continent's electricy needs for say three weeks (as there can be 2-3 week lulls of no wind and

by badpun 5mo ago

How much would it cost to build out batteries which cover entire continent's electricy needs for say three weeks (as there can be 2-3 week lulls of no wind and no sun in Europe in the winter)? Cause that sounds like a lot of batteries. Not to mention, if a freak 4 week lull occurs, we'll go back to Middle Ages for a week.

gpm 5mo ago
> (as there can be 2-3 week lulls of no wind and no sun in Europe in the winter) This is simply entirely untrue. Europe's a big place, there's not a single day ever where there is no sun in it.
energy123 5mo ago
Australia's CSIRO studied this for Australia, renewables were half the cost of nuclear, factoring in storage and transmission for both renewables and nuclear (yes, nuclear also needs storage because energy demand varies with time). Australia is uniquely endowed with sun and land, so other countries/regions may arrive at different results.
- blitzar 5mo ago
  If you live in Australia, have a house and roof, you're a bloody idiot if you didnt install solar.
  - bot403 5mo ago
    You don't even need a roof. If you have enough land then a ground mount system is more convenient and easier to maintain.
    - pibaker 5mo ago
      I think by having a roof GP meant lives in a house instead of an apartment. If you don't have your own roof you probably don't have land either.
- leonidasrup 5mo ago
  Australia is also well endowed with coal and no carbon pricing, so for Australia the cheapest form of electricity production is a mix of solar + battery + coal.
pydry 5mo ago
You would likely get to 97% green energy first with 5-8 hours of storage: https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-near-100-per-cent-renewables-grid-is-well-within-reach-and-with-little-storage/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-near-100-per-cent-renewables-g... (for Australia it is 5, for other countries it might be 8) Once you get to that "nice to have" problem of what to do about the remaining 3% of power needs it would probably make most sense to synthesize and store gas (methane/hydrogen) from electricity when solar and wind is overproducing. Gas can be stored cheaply for long durations. The roundtrip efficiency is poor but it's still cheaper than nuclear power on the windiest sunniest day. The nuclear + carbon lobbies would of course prefer to model green energy transitions by pretending that the wind and sun simultaneously turn off for 2 weeks at a time every year and that electricity can only be stored in very expensive batteries. This is not realistic.
- laurencerowe 5mo ago
  It might not be quite that good in less sunny countries. Similar modest overbuilding of wind and solar in Denmark is simulated to get to about 90% with 12h of storage. This is still good enough though. https://xcancel.com/enn_nafnlaus/status/1565923581246091264 https://xcancel.com/enn_nafnlaus/status/1565923581246091264
ricardobayes 5mo ago
Solar still produces even in overcast conditions, during the day. If it's light/medium overcast, most of which Germany usually is it still produces 50-80% of nominal. It only really doesn't produce anything at night or when it snows.
- bot403 5mo ago
  Yes this is one thing that surprised me owning solar. Some days its pretty cloudy and I can still get 2kw or so from my 7kw max.
crote 5mo ago
"But what if thing thing that never happens were to happen?" We'd probably go deep into hydro, fire up every gas peaker plant, and through skyrocketing prices incentivize everyone to switch to emergency diesel generators where possible. You're talking about a once-in-100+-years event. We'll deal with it the same way we dealt with the various oil crises.
- XorNot 5mo ago
  You can't fire up capacity you don't have. Your scenario implies a massive idle stock of power plants. Who's going to build and run them? They'd be enormously expensive because they'd almost never sell power. (Of course the answer is if you build 3 weeks of battery storage you can pretty obviously build 4).
- leonidasrup 5mo ago
  Those once-in-100+-years events are called crises because they have large impact on economy and loss of human life. For example a short event in US with duration 2 hours–4 days, depending on location, affecting 55 million people. Deaths: Almost 100 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003 The Economic Impacts of the August 2003 Blackout "Based on the much-studied 1977 New York City blackout. ICF Consulting estimated the total economic cost of the August 2003 blackout to be between $7 and $10 billion" https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ml1113/ml111300584.pdf https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ml1113/ml111300584.pdf Short blackout: 2025 Iberian Peninsula blackout "The employers' organization CEOE estimated that the outage resulted in economic losses valued at €1.6 billion." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Iberian_Peninsula_blackout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Iberian_Peninsula_blackou...
oezi 5mo ago
But what do we do when the sun isn't shining? Well what are we doing if the straight of hormuz isn't hormuzing? Demand will adapt via price signals. Same story as in every market.

by badpun 5mo ago

gpm 5mo ago

> (as there can be 2-3 week lulls of no wind and no sun in Europe in the winter) This is simply entirely untrue. Europe's a big place, there's not a single day ever where there is no sun in it.

energy123 5mo ago

Australia's CSIRO studied this for Australia, renewables were half the cost of nuclear, factoring in storage and transmission for both renewables and nuclear (yes, nuclear also needs storage because energy demand varies with time). Australia is uniquely endowed with sun and land, so other countries/regions may arrive at different results.

blitzar 5mo ago
If you live in Australia, have a house and roof, you're a bloody idiot if you didnt install solar.
- bot403 5mo ago
  You don't even need a roof. If you have enough land then a ground mount system is more convenient and easier to maintain.
  - pibaker 5mo ago
    I think by having a roof GP meant lives in a house instead of an apartment. If you don't have your own roof you probably don't have land either.
leonidasrup 5mo ago
Australia is also well endowed with coal and no carbon pricing, so for Australia the cheapest form of electricity production is a mix of solar + battery + coal.

pydry 5mo ago

You would likely get to 97% green energy first with 5-8 hours of storage: https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-near-100-per-cent-renewables-grid-is-well-within-reach-and-with-little-storage/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-near-100-per-cent-renewables-g... (for Australia it is 5, for other countries it might be 8) Once you get to that "nice to have" problem of what to do about the remaining 3% of power needs it would probably make most sense to synthesize and store gas (methane/hydrogen) from electricity when solar and wind is overproducing. Gas can be stored cheaply for long durations. The roundtrip efficiency is poor but it's still cheaper than nuclear power on the windiest sunniest day. The nuclear + carbon lobbies would of course prefer to model green energy transitions by pretending that the wind and sun simultaneously turn off for 2 weeks at a time every year and that electricity can only be stored in very expensive batteries. This is not realistic.

laurencerowe 5mo ago
It might not be quite that good in less sunny countries. Similar modest overbuilding of wind and solar in Denmark is simulated to get to about 90% with 12h of storage. This is still good enough though. https://xcancel.com/enn_nafnlaus/status/1565923581246091264 https://xcancel.com/enn_nafnlaus/status/1565923581246091264

ricardobayes 5mo ago

Solar still produces even in overcast conditions, during the day. If it's light/medium overcast, most of which Germany usually is it still produces 50-80% of nominal. It only really doesn't produce anything at night or when it snows.

bot403 5mo ago
Yes this is one thing that surprised me owning solar. Some days its pretty cloudy and I can still get 2kw or so from my 7kw max.

crote 5mo ago

"But what if thing thing that never happens were to happen?" We'd probably go deep into hydro, fire up every gas peaker plant, and through skyrocketing prices incentivize everyone to switch to emergency diesel generators where possible. You're talking about a once-in-100+-years event. We'll deal with it the same way we dealt with the various oil crises.

XorNot 5mo ago
You can't fire up capacity you don't have. Your scenario implies a massive idle stock of power plants. Who's going to build and run them? They'd be enormously expensive because they'd almost never sell power. (Of course the answer is if you build 3 weeks of battery storage you can pretty obviously build 4).
leonidasrup 5mo ago
Those once-in-100+-years events are called crises because they have large impact on economy and loss of human life. For example a short event in US with duration 2 hours–4 days, depending on location, affecting 55 million people. Deaths: Almost 100 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003 The Economic Impacts of the August 2003 Blackout "Based on the much-studied 1977 New York City blackout. ICF Consulting estimated the total economic cost of the August 2003 blackout to be between $7 and $10 billion" https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ml1113/ml111300584.pdf https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ml1113/ml111300584.pdf Short blackout: 2025 Iberian Peninsula blackout "The employers' organization CEOE estimated that the outage resulted in economic losses valued at €1.6 billion." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Iberian_Peninsula_blackout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Iberian_Peninsula_blackou...

oezi 5mo ago

But what do we do when the sun isn't shining? Well what are we doing if the straight of hormuz isn't hormuzing? Demand will adapt via price signals. Same story as in every market.