[HN Gopher] Solar leads EU electricity generation as renewables ...
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Solar leads EU electricity generation as renewables hit 54%
Author : toomuchtodo
Score : 227 points
Date : 2025-10-01 17:22 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (electrek.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (electrek.co)
| timmg wrote:
| Isn't there a sweet spot where solar is _too_ much of your energy
| mix -- due to its intermittency? I think I read that once you get
| to like 40%, you need to spend a lot more on storage.
|
| Is the EU also ramping up (battery?) storage? Or are they getting
| near the max of what they can do with solar? (Or do I have it all
| wrong :/ )
| pfdietz wrote:
| https://www.solarpowereurope.org/insights/outlooks/european-...
|
| Six-fold increase in battery capacity in Europe predicted by
| 2029.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| not really. At this point, solar is basically free, and having
| extra free energy has all sorts of benefits. For the EU, in
| particular, it greatly reduces their dependence on Russian oil
| and gas. if all you do with extra solar is replace 2 extra
| hours a day of natural gas consumption, you effectively make
| yourself have 12% more storage, which decreases Russian
| leverage.
| pzo wrote:
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-
| sou...
|
| in EU: gas, oil is still 60% of usage. You are not going to
| heat you home during winter with electricity anytime soon,
| same like we are not all gonna drive electric cars this
| decade.
| tpm wrote:
| Plenty of people are heating their homes with electricity
| already, that's what heat pumps are for.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| North of the Alps, using solar to heat your home in the
| winter is unrealistic.
|
| In Czechia, winter is already dark enough to make solar
| in the coldest months a rounding error.
|
| Further north, uh.
| tpm wrote:
| I'm sorry but this thread does not talk about using PV to
| heat your home in the winter. But it is absolutely
| possible to use electricity to heat homes, it's widely
| used in northern countries. And the nice thing about
| electricity is that it can be generated in one place and
| used in another.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| This thread is talking about reduction of dependence on
| oil&gas supplied by various nefarious regimes, though.
| Still quite a challenge in the winter, with barely any
| sun out there.
|
| "it can be generated in one place and used in another."
|
| It can, but we are far from having such a robust grid all
| across the continent. I am not even sure if we are
| getting closer. Both economic and political aspects come
| into play, which might be harder to address than the
| purely technical ones.
|
| For example, France really does not want cheap Spanish
| solar energy to flood the French market, hence the
| inadequate connection over the Pyrenees.
|
| Everyone knows that, including the European Commission,
| but France is one of the two really big continental
| players who can do anything they want and cannot be
| effectively punished. The "everyone is equal, but some
| are more equal" principle.
| tpm wrote:
| Yes, there are and will be issues. We should have started
| much sooner. But we absolutely have to do this.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| "But we absolutely have to do this."
|
| This = what precisely?
|
| If you mean getting rid of oil and gas on a short scale,
| there won't be majority for that. By 2040 or 2050 maybe,
| with some significant exceptions (I don't believe in
| large electric jets; small aircraft maybe).
| tpm wrote:
| 2055, if we manage to replace most of heating, transport
| and industrial use, the rest is manageable. But it's
| still lots of work for 30 years.
| uniqueuid wrote:
| Heat pumps account for 2/3 of new heating installations
| in Germany [1]. Modern buildings with effective
| insulation seem to make them quite viable, but that
| hinges on the availability of attractive electricity
| prices.
|
| The second factor is that carbon-based fuels may become
| more expensive over time, so perhaps electricity costs
| "just" needs to remain stable to become attractive.
|
| [1] https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/energiemonitor-
| strompreis-gas...
| ExpertAdvisor01 wrote:
| You forgot to mention the subsidies on Heat pumps
| crote wrote:
| Those are primarily needed for retrofitting existing
| poorly-insulated housing. They say nothing about the
| suitability of heat pumps in general.
| timerol wrote:
| I don't know of any specific thresholds, but it's worth
| mentioning that 54% of Q2 was renewable, and solar peaks in Q2.
| Solar was also only 36.8% of that renewable generation (just
| under 20% of Q2's total), so there's a long way to go before
| solar is 40% of the total energy mix.
|
| If there is an important threshold when solar reaches 40% of
| the full year's production, then solar will need to almost
| quadruple before that's a concern. For all of 2024, solar was
| 22.4% of renewables, and renewables were 47% of the total[1],
| meaning that solar was 10.5% of total electricity over the full
| year.
|
| [1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/en/web/products-eurostat-
| news/...
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| I hope not. More times when electricity prices go negative is
| hopefully going to open up new market opportunities (outside
| crypto mining).
|
| Generating chemical feedstocks from CO2, intermittent
| desalination, whatever process which is predicated on cheap
| energy.
| StopDisinfo910 wrote:
| The issue is not sorely about negative price. It's about
| keeping base capacity profitable so the grid doesn't
| collapse.
|
| The energy strategy of the EU was hopeless for a long time
| and is only marginally better now. It's not as braindead as
| the monetary union but close. Germany was actively sabotaging
| France for a long time while having to restart coal power
| plants and investing in gas fuelled capacity.
|
| Sadly the union is heavily unbalanced since the UK left.
| foobarian wrote:
| Pray tell, why is the monetary union braindead? Asking for
| a friend stockpiling lire for collection value
| StopDisinfo910 wrote:
| It's a monetary union with no common fiscal policies and
| no mechanism to correct disparity between members.
| Complete train wreck since it has been put in place.
|
| Germany has been abusing it from the start running huge
| trade surplus, compressing salaries, using its excess
| savings to buy foreign debts instead of investing and
| being shielded from monetary appreciation by the
| consumption and investments of other countries. The euro
| is basically Germany robbing blind the other members
| while pretending to be virtuous and blocking most of what
| could have improved the situation.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > and no mechanism to correct disparity between members
|
| AFAIK, they created some mechanisms after the 2008
| crisis. Every country there now effectively prints money
| in differing rates, and the EU only regulates some
| limits.
| lawlessone wrote:
| >Sadly the union is heavily unbalanced since the UK left
|
| Don't worry, you'll join again eventually.
| StopDisinfo910 wrote:
| I'm French. Unless something major changes, I hope we
| will be out before the UK comes back. I don't see how
| anyone can be in favour of the EU after the Greek debt
| crisis.
|
| I'm not too surprised about my original comment being
| downvoted while being entirely factually true. It was a
| bit much from me to expect people to understand the
| underside of running too much intermittent energy sources
| and how this is currently dealt with (the braindead
| part). I invite the champions of solar to explain to me
| the current plan of the EU for actually running the whole
| grid past 2050 while phasing out the coal and gas (hint:
| there is none).
|
| Anyway I invite everyone to take a look at what the EU
| used to do nuclear, how it was purposefully omitted from
| the definition of clean energy for years, how they used
| to fine France despite its energy being clean, how it
| forces the French energy operator to sell at a loss, how
| it impedes France properly managing its dams and then
| look at who actually pushed for these policies while
| buying Russian gas and burning coal. The whole thing is a
| complete joke. At least they apparently saw the light on
| nuclear. That's a start.
| lawlessone wrote:
| Wouldn't leaving the EU be far worse economically than
| any of these penalties you mentioned?
| StopDisinfo910 wrote:
| Hard to tell. We could devaluate. That would help with
| both the debt situation and our exports. The UK is not
| doing that bad at all.
|
| That's a risky bet but I personally prefer that to the
| current situation. I would honestly be ok with staying in
| the union if we could exit the euro while staying but I
| don't think it's possible.
| lawlessone wrote:
| >Better ruined than a colony.
|
| Not sure what you're referring to here?
| StopDisinfo910 wrote:
| It's me being dramatic for useless flair. I edited it out
| a minute after posting because it adds nothing to the
| discussion but you read it before I did.
| tpm wrote:
| Funny you would mention the Greek debt crisis, because
| the next debt crisis looks to be in France.
| StopDisinfo910 wrote:
| Different situation. France has only itself to blame for
| the current situation and has plenty of things it can
| still do to avoid a crisis. Plus the debt holders are
| very diversified.
|
| The Greek crisis is very different because the debt was
| mostly held by German banks - the German did to do
| something of all these excess savings and the Greek
| economy suffered a lot from the euro. Reforms were needed
| but the way the whole thing was handled is a disgrace.
| nicoburns wrote:
| > I don't see how anyone can be in favour of the EU after
| the Greek debt crisis.
|
| My understanding is that this was mostly a problem for
| eurozone countries and with the shared use of the Euro as
| a currency, rather than with the EU.
| Jyaif wrote:
| Some numbers:
|
| During winter, France uses ~50% more electricity per day than
| during summer. And during cloudy days in winter, solar produces
| 10%-15% what it produces during summer.
|
| If you don't have month-long battery storage, in order to be
| fully solar based France would need to produce 20 times more
| electricity than needed during summer.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Or you use a different technology optimized for long term
| storage. Batteries are not that technology. Hydrogen (or
| other e-fuels) or long term thermal storage.
|
| For the latter, see standard-thermal.com
| triceratops wrote:
| > Or you use a different technology optimized for long term
| storage. Batteries are not that technology
|
| I've heard this before but can you explain why? A cursory
| web search tells me batteries hold charge pretty well for 6
| months. And the new sodium batteries from CATL are
| certainly cheap enough.
| nicoburns wrote:
| The problem with batteries for long-term storage is the
| capacity. You would need an ENORMOUS amount of them to
| store months worth of energy.
| pfdietz wrote:
| For long term storage, capex is king, not round trip
| efficiency. The capex of batteries ($ per kWh of storage)
| is much too high. There aren't enough charge/discharge
| cycles to amortize that capex. This is unlike with
| diurnal storage, where there are many thousands of cycles
| over which to spread that cost.
| soperj wrote:
| France has 70% of their power provided by Nuclear.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > France would need to produce 20 times more electricity than
| needed during summer
|
| So, it's ~15 years away at current growth rates?
|
| But they'll probably just get months-long storage at some
| point.
| kleiba wrote:
| _> in order to be fully solar based_
|
| I don't think anyone is suggesting that.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| > And during cloudy days in winter, solar produces 10%-15%
| what it produces during summer.
|
| This doesn't matter. If you look at the monthly stats, solar
| panels in France produce ~3x more in the summer than the
| winter at a month by month view. As such, you only need 3x
| extra overall, and some day to day storage.
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| Or just balance the mix with some on-shore and off-shore
| wind which is anti-cyclical with solar.
| Qwertious wrote:
| Just solar without wind is a terrible idea. Which is why no
| one's doing it.
| pfdietz wrote:
| It's quite feasible in some places, like India.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| If you're in the Atacama Desert, I doubt it's 40%, but not
| really relevant.
|
| This is ALL renewables, not just Solar - the article states
| that Solar is ~20% now in the EU.
|
| Wind typically counts for ~15%, and Hydro (which may or may not
| be counted as renewable) counts as ~15%.
|
| So most places can pretty easily get to ~40% solar, ~15% wind,
| ~15% hydro = ~70% renewable.
|
| Throw in ~20% Nuclear (basically all of Europe before Germany
| sh*t the bed), and you're at ~90% - with limited need for
| storage - a large portion of which could come from infra that
| already exists for pumped hydro and regular overnight solar
| storage.
|
| We're quite a ways away from diminishing returns.
|
| We're ~8 years away from a global ~40% of electricity coming
| from solar EVEN IF it continues to grow at ~30% YoY.
| runarb wrote:
| > Hydro (which may or may not be counted as renewable) counts
| as ~15%.
|
| Why or when wouldn't one consider hydropower a renewable
| energy source?
| thecompilr wrote:
| Look at the Hoover dam
| black_puppydog wrote:
| Given the development of battery prices (and especially LFP and
| sodium ion) most new solar capacity will he solar+battery.
|
| With some software tweaks, these are not only base load
| compatible, but can even take on grid frequency stabilisation.
|
| Check out recent episodes of Tue Volts podcast. It's actually a
| bit crazy.
| buckle8017 wrote:
| The better way to think about the grids energy mix is some
| matrix of reliability, predictability, and rotational mass.
|
| Solar and wind have no rotational mass, are unreliable and
| unpredictable
| Havoc wrote:
| >I think I read that once you get to like 40%, you need to
| spend a lot more on storage.
|
| You can get pretty high before the economics get sketchy. Below
| analysis concluded that for many sunny places that point is in
| the 90%+. Most of EU will be lower than said sunny places, but
| point is it's not 40%. And the sprinkling of wind, nuclear,
| geo, hydro means there is a fair bit of room to still push.
|
| Plus both solar and storage tech is still moving rapidly
|
| https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2025/06/Ember-24-Hour-S...
| mrtksn wrote:
| The growth is still slow compared to China and the evolution of
| the international order though. Had EU already switched to
| renewables 4 years ago there wouldn't be any disruption by the
| war Russia started in Ukraine.
|
| I love exploring these graphs: https://ember-
| energy.org/data/electricity-data-explorer/?ent...
|
| EU is doing just slightly better than US. US has the advantage of
| its fossil fuels but it's actually China that is doing the
| revolution. They are accelerating and at some point not too far
| away will reach abundance and switch off all the fossils.
|
| It's unwise that the new US administration be pushing for the
| opposite of China. But what's actually beyond me is the existence
| of Europeans that demand more fossil fuels. It is double
| ridiculous because EU doesn't even have these fossil resources at
| any viable scale. It is largely imported, they must be on the
| payroll of US and Russia or very stupid.
|
| IMHO EU should just drop everything and do China level or even
| beyond transition to Solar and similar.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| > Had EU already switched to renewables 4 years ago there
| wouldn't be any disruption by the war Russia started in
| Ukraine.
|
| They might've just started the war 4 years earlier, then.
| tialaramex wrote:
| In 2014 Russia decided to attack Ukraine because its
| _political_ ambitions had been thwarted.
|
| A pro-Russian politician took existing EU integration plans
| and went "fuck that, we love Russia" instead and Ukrainians
| particularly in the West of the country turned out on the
| streets in a huge protest. In the aftermath, with Ukraine now
| definitively not in Russia's sphere of control, Putin ordered
| seizure of the eastern parts of Ukraine.
|
| Four years earlier doesn't make sense, Russia has plans that
| are expected to work out in their favour, and Putin is less
| secure in 2010 than he is today, invading a neighbour looks
| _very_ ambitious in 2010.
|
| Moving the more recent part of the invasion - which starts
| with trying to seize Kyiv - forward by four years maybe makes
| more sense, but that compresses a lot of timeline.
| gyudin wrote:
| There were not much disruption though, EU has payed Russia
| over EUR214 billions since the start of the war
| wongarsu wrote:
| Are we looking at the same numbers? Looking at the graph you
| linked it looks like the EU is generating slightly more solar
| energy than the US, while using slightly above half the total
| electricity. In my book that constitutes doing twice as good as
| the US, not just slightly better. And while China's growth in
| renewables is impressive, the same can be said about their coal
| plants. Their energy mix looks way worse than the EU
| mrtksn wrote:
| From the dropdowns you can filter by source and type. China's
| fossils increase linearly and clean energy geometrically,
| which mean the energy mix is quickly becoming renewable
| heavy.
|
| Also, due to the nature of solar this increase is actually
| sustainable for quite some time, these panels are
| manufactured goods and once you have the production lines in
| place it keeps going until the demand is saturated.
| akamaka wrote:
| That just means that China started later. Europe is already
| past 50% and are on the top half of the S-curve where
| adding additional renewables has diminishing returns.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Look at the absolute values, china added 4X the clean
| energy as EU. Once the manufacturing of panels is in
| place they can keep doing it without further investment.
| That's not diminishing returns, that's actual power every
| time. Cars don't run on percentages, they run on kWh.
| There's nothing diminishing
| akamaka wrote:
| The diminishing return happens when you have so many
| solar panels that on a sunny day you generate more than
| 100% of the electricity you can use. Maybe that situation
| is great if you want to subsidize solar panel factories,
| but you get less usable kWh for the same cost.
|
| It's completely expected for Europe's installation of
| solar panels to begin tapering off as they get more
| return on investment by installing battery storage and
| decarbonizing other parts of the economy.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Then you store that energy or find a way to use it. Melt
| ore when its abundant, then make metal when it is
| abundant, then dig holes when it is abundant, then use
| the metal to turn the hole into a reservoir when it is
| abundant and eventually use the reservoir to pump in and
| out water as a way to store the abundant energy for use
| when its not.
| akamaka wrote:
| We're working on it!
|
| https://www.ess-news.com/2025/09/10/new-alliance-aims-to-
| unl...
| ifwinterco wrote:
| All of these things are an order of magnitude more
| difficult and annoying than simply storing flammable gas
| or liquid in a tank and using it whenever you need it.
|
| Not saying we should continue using fossil fuels forever,
| but being unrealistic about how hard the transition to
| intermittent renewables will be isn't sensible
| nicoburns wrote:
| Having more generation capacity also makes renewables
| less intermittent though, becuase for example with enough
| solar capacity then even on a cloudy day they may produce
| enough energy to cover demand.
|
| It doesn't solve the problem completely, but it surely
| helps.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > All of these things are an order of magnitude more
| difficult and annoying than simply storing flammable gas
| or liquid in a tank and using it whenever you need it.
|
| There's quite a bit of complexity leading to the "simply
| storing in a tank" step.
| crote wrote:
| On the other hand, the additional solar capacity during
| overcast days might still be worth the additional
| investment.
|
| Electricity might become free on sunny days, but you'll
| still have to pay serious money for it during cloudy
| windless days. Even a solar panel operating at 10%
| capacity becomes worth the effort.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| It's a little easier to read if you translate different types
| of production to CO2 per kWh:
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/carbon-intensity-
| electric...
|
| But as you say, the US is more wasteful with energy, which
| can make it seem better if you look only at absolute levels
| of the clean energy, and really bad if you look at absolute
| levels of the dirtier energy.
| looping__lui wrote:
| You are aware that the EU must choose between nuclear or gas to
| produce electricity when the wind doesn't blow or the sun
| doesn't shine. That backup capacity needs to be equal to the
| entire electricity demand. Renewables need to exceed that by a
| significant margin. So, either you build gas power plants and
| keep them idle, or you build nuclear power plants and switch
| them off when the sun is shining.
|
| There is an interesting in-depth analysis by Fraunhofer:
| https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/de/documents/p...
| (see page 25, for example).
|
| Considering that the EU classifies nuclear as equally renewable
| as solar, why should we rely solely on solar?
|
| PS: I built a low-energy house, heat it with a heat pump, and
| have PV on my roof.
| ezfe wrote:
| Yes, if you want 100% renewable. However, 100% is not the
| goal right now. Studies have shown that 97% solar coverage
| can be cheaper than nuclear in sunny areas, for example.
| Obviously Europe isn't necessarily the sunniest so that
| number would have to be lower.
| looping__lui wrote:
| What are you going to do at night, or in Germany when it's
| cloudy and rainy for a month straight? I can show you my
| electricity consumption from my heat pump in the winter
| compared to the electricity my PV system produced. Hint: it
| doesn't work. And batteries aren't an option either,
| because I can't generate any excess electricity during the
| day. Take a look at the Fraunhofer study.
| pfdietz wrote:
| One complements batteries with hydrogen (burned in
| turbines) or long term thermal storage.
|
| Germany has plenty of salt formations for very cheap
| hydrogen storage, and there are no geographical
| constraints on thermal storage.
| looping__lui wrote:
| Tell the Fraunhofer about that.
| pfdietz wrote:
| I don't need to -- we can just look in that report you
| linked earlier (thanks!), on pages 5 and 6. They already
| know. They knew five years ago.
| jopsen wrote:
| Gas? Which you then only use 5-10% of the time.
|
| At least that's what I hear people saying.
| looping__lui wrote:
| 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/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 wrote:
| Solar panels are cheap enough that it pays to have gas
| plants that never run.
| toast0 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| Take a look at this study: 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 wrote:
| 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.
| triceratops wrote:
| > And batteries aren't an option either, because I can't
| generate any excess electricity during the day
|
| _You_ can 't generate excess electricity because you
| don't have enough land or rooftop (I mean maybe you do,
| I'm talking about the typical homeowner). Utilities can
| overbuild panels because they're extremely cheap.
|
| LFP batteries have a self-discharge rate of 2-5% per
| month. Once they're cheap enough, over-building batteries
| to move summer sunshine into the winter months also
| becomes an option*. At $100/kwh, you could power Sweden 6
| months a year for about $60bn (EDIT: $6tn, sorry) in
| batteries (yes labor and everything else will probably
| double that cost). And that doesn't even account for
| recent advances in sodium batteries, which reportedly
| bring that price down to $20/kwh
|
| * (Any battery experts know why this might be wrong? I'm
| using basic arithmetic, not physics. That tells me a
| battery charged to 100% in July or August will still have
| > 70% charge left in December)
| looping__lui wrote:
| Germany would require a ballpark of 100 MILLION tons of
| Teslas Megapack grade batteries to run on battery for 2
| weeks - which is even shorter than what we had to endure
| due to "Dunkelflauten".
| triceratops wrote:
| Why would Germany need to run solely on battery for 2
| weeks? Do you expect 2 weeks with 0 sun and wind all over
| continental Europe?
|
| In any case, at $100/kwh, it would cost $250bn (EDIT:
| $25tn sorry) in batteries and maybe the same in
| installation costs to power Germany for 6 months a year.
| At the lower $20/kwh price tag it would be more like
| $5tn, compared to Germany's ~$4.5tn GDP. Over 10 years it
| could be done.
|
| (And 6 months' storage is maybe too much anyway)
| input_sh wrote:
| I mean not the whole Europe and this is obviously
| geography-dependent, but those "dark periods" are fairly
| common for Germany, as in there are weeks-long periods
| where Germany itself produces basically no electricity
| from wind or solar. In the most extreme case some years
| back, that "dark period" lasted almost two months.
|
| This isn't to say they can't import it from elsewhere,
| they just can't make any of their own. Adding more
| capacity wouldn't do anything, it would take an
| incredible amount of batteries to handle the more extreme
| end of those "dark periods".
| looping__lui wrote:
| Yes, we had these scenarios of 2+ weeks w/o sufficient
| renewable energy source MULTIPLE times: Google
| "Dunkelflaute".
| nicoburns wrote:
| Batteries are definitely an option for day -> night
| shifting. If not today, then soon, and without requiring
| and technological advances.
|
| Seasonal or month-long periods of low-generation are
| another matter, and as-yet an unsolved problem. It may be
| that synthesizing fuels ends up being a sensible option
| here.
| zurfer wrote:
| There is another under discussed alternative UHV power
| transmission, e.g. south to north: Morocco has great
| conditions for solar. Or East to West, the sun rises and sets
| at different times.
|
| We still need more storage and generation, but a better grid
| would help a lot.
| lawlessone wrote:
| Solar , wind and batteries are easier to add piecemeal
| though. Nuclear for countries that don't already have it is a
| huge investment.
| mrtksn wrote:
| No need to obsess with solar if it doesn't work for you, its
| just that solar is so good. It uses manufactured devices that
| you just point to the sky and makes your machine run. For
| stability of course you need something like nuclear or
| storage.
| looping__lui wrote:
| Industrialized countries generally need stability when it
| comes to electricity. People also want to watch TV whenever
| they like and take a hot shower whenever they feel like it.
| stuaxo wrote:
| Storage helps even out spikes.
| looping__lui wrote:
| In Germany: probably not so much when wind and PV aren't
| busy for a month straight and we still need to keep our
| industry up and running.
|
| We'll, I'll take that back - we probably solved all that
| by running our economy into the ground
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| > In Germany: probably not so much when wind and PV
| aren't busy for a month straight and we still need to
| keep our industry up and running.
|
| Please do go ahead and show some data on when we had a
| month long solar eclipse without wind.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Yes that's what nuclear and storage helps with
| nicoburns wrote:
| Some things need reliable, dispatchable, energy. But a
| lot of demand could (and probably should) be shifted to
| when energy is abundant.
| pfdietz wrote:
| > You are aware that the EU must choose between nuclear or
| gas to produce electricity when the wind doesn't blow or the
| sun doesn't shine.
|
| I'm not aware of that, because it's a lie. Storage is another
| alternative.
| looping__lui wrote:
| Read up the Fraunhofer study on how Germany can become
| renewable: https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/de
| /documents/p...
|
| Hint: we'll still end up producing more carbon emissions
| than France. Storage doesn't exist in the magnitude needed.
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| Now lets understand how the French grid works.
|
| France generally export quite large amounts of
| electricity. But whenever a cold spell hits that export
| flow is reversed to imports and they have to start up
| local fossil gas and coal based production.
|
| What they have done is that they have outsourced the
| management of their grid to their neighbors and rely on
| 35 GW of fossil based electricity production both inside
| France and their neighbors grids. Because France's
| nuclear power produces too much when no one wants the
| electricity and too little when it is actually needed.
|
| Their neighbors are able to both absorb the cold spell
| which very likely hits them as well, their own grid as
| the French exports stops and they start exporting to
| France.
| pfdietz wrote:
| That report is from 2020. Costs have fallen greatly since
| then, particularly for battery storage. And even so, that
| report doesn't say fossil fuels are needed (although the
| "net zero" solution still is allowed to burn some, I'm
| guessing because CO2 absorbed into the oceans isn't being
| counted?) It even says explicitly that hydrogen would be
| used for long term storage! See pages 5 and 6.
|
| With hydrogen available renewables can straightforwardly
| get to 100%. Germany has plenty of geology for hydrogen
| storage. As I mentioned elsewhere, long term thermal
| storage is also a possibility, with recent developments
| there suggesting very competitive capex.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| > Considering that the EU classifies nuclear as equally
| renewable as solar, why should we rely solely on solar?
|
| Because solar is ~5x cheaper and 1000x more deployable
| pydry wrote:
| It mystifies me that more people dont get this.
|
| _5_ x cheaper means you can add the cost of storage on top
| and it's _still_ cheaper than nuclear power.
| looping__lui wrote:
| Because it's not correct.
|
| You need either nuclear or gas (like 100% capacity, idle
| most of the time) in addition to massive investments into
| the grid to make it work (at least in Germany).
|
| I don't understand how people seem to NOT understand that
| you need the ENTIRE capacity when wind and solar act up
| as a backup and what the cost of that is. It's not me
| making that up but the Fraunhofer: https://www.ise.fraunh
| ofer.de/content/dam/ise/de/documents/p...
|
| There is no storage in existence that would allow us to
| run an industrialized country from battery backup. We are
| talking ballpark 20 TWh of storage which would require
| 100 MILLION ton Tesla Megapack gear.
| pydry wrote:
| >You need either nuclear or gas
|
| This is straight up misinformation. Nuclear power is
| _not_ a peaker.
|
| Gas is, batteries are. Nuclear power provides baseload
| and must be paired with a peaker too - almost always gas
| (France uses epic amounts of gas when its nuke plants are
| down for maintenance).
|
| The reason why we have gas as a peaker instead of
| batteries? Gas is cheaper, and batteries dont get
| lavished with subsidies like nuclear power does.
|
| >I don't understand how people seem to NOT understand
| that you need the ENTIRE capacity when wind and solar act
| up
|
| We look at real models based upon real data, for example:
|
| https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-near-100-per-cent-
| renewables-g...
|
| FUD and misinformation is a bad way to approach any
| scientific topic, whether vaccines or energy policy. Id
| recommend not doing that.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Is solar, in terms of pure amortized cost, given the actual
| solar power collected, really 5x cheaper?
|
| I'm not doubting you, but we know that in some countries
| solar will have a power ceiling (cloud cover, etc)
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| If solar or wind are cheaper than the fuel for gas plants you
| can save money by deploying them.
|
| Here a blog with an interactive website to explore that:
|
| https://electrotechrevolution.substack.com/p/renewables-
| allo...
|
| > This means renewables are economically worthwhile based
| solely on the fuel savings they provide. Even if they would
| never fully replace fossil power plants, but only reduce how
| much fuel those plants consume, they would be worth it.
| Simply reducing fossil fuel use during sunny or windy periods
| --or when batteries charged from these periods are available
| --saves more money than the entire investment in renewables.
| That's how remarkably cheap solar, wind, and batteries have
| become--and precisely why they're winning around the world
| today.
| looping__lui wrote:
| You factored in a new grid and backup nuclear plants/gas
| power plants requiring >100B investments in Germany or
| Tesla Megapacks in excess of 100 metric tons? Take a look
| at what is needed to make Germany "green" by a reputable
| and independent institute: https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/co
| ntent/dam/ise/de/documents/p...
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| > You are aware that the EU must choose between nuclear or
| gas to produce electricity when the wind doesn't blow or the
| sun doesn't shine.
|
| Which does not capture the cost of a nuclear plant being
| forced off the market because no one is buying its
| electricity during the day and they have to amortize the cost
| over a 40% capacity factor instead of 85% like they target.
|
| And this can be a purely economical factor. Sure a plant may
| have a 90% capacity factor but if the market clears at $0 50%
| of the time they still need to recoup all the costs on the
| remaining 50%, pushing up the costs to what would be a the
| equivalent to a 42.5% capacity factor when running steady
| state.
|
| Take Vogtle running at a 40% capacity factor, the electricty
| now costs 40 cents/kwh or $400 MWh. That is pure insanity.
| Get Vogtle down to 20%, which is very likely as we already
| have renewable grids at 75% renewables and it is 80
| cents/kWh.
|
| Take a look at Australia for the future of old inflexible
| "baseload" (which always was an economic construct coming
| from marginal cost) plants.
|
| https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-13/australian-coal-
| plant...
|
| Coal plants forced to become peakers or be decommissioned.
|
| Electricity is fundamentally priced on the margin and if you
| start forcing nuclear costs on the ratepayers they will build
| rooftop solar and storage like crazy, leaving you without any
| takers for the nuclear based electricity.
|
| You can say that "no one would do that" but it is the end
| state of the market.
|
| > Considering that the EU classifies nuclear as equally
| renewable as solar, why should we rely solely on solar?
|
| Why waste money on horrifyingly expensive new built nuclear
| power? Who looks at Flamanville 3, Hinkley Point C and
| friends and draw the conclusion that they want some more?!?
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| > Electricity is fundamentally priced on the margin and if
| you start forcing nuclear costs on the ratepayers they will
| build rooftop solar and storage like crazy, leaving you
| without any takers for the nuclear based electricity.
|
| The regime can just make it illegal to do rooftop solar or
| home batteries. In a functioning country this is easy
| enough to push through as a safety measure (lithium battery
| fires are legit scary, at least in videos). In the U.S. you
| can just start a campaign to get people fired for
| endangering their neighbors with dangerous woke energy, no
| legislation needed at all.
| nicoburns wrote:
| > either you build gas power plants and keep them idle
|
| Given that we already have a bunch of Gas plants, do we need
| to build new ones, or could we just maintain the ones we
| have?
| crote wrote:
| Not all gas plants are made equally. There's a huge
| difference operation-wise between "able to scale at any
| moment from 0% to 100% within 15 minutes" and "can start
| going online within 30 days".
|
| Most current plants are either designed to run basically
| all the time, or only run a couple of hours multiple times
| a day.
|
| A renewable grid needs generation which is fully shut down
| for months, but can scale up to 100% within days when
| weather forecasts predict it'll be needed. The current
| plants might work as a stop-gap measure, but long-term
| we'll need to build something designed specifically for
| this application.
| crote wrote:
| The problem is that nuclear had a fixed cost per _year_ , not
| per unit produced. A reactor sitting idle costs about the
| same as a reactor running at 100% capacity.
|
| This makes them fundamentally flawed as backup generation.
| Nuclear is already the most expensive source of electricity
| when operating at full capacity, having it run only 5% of the
| time makes it completely unaffordable as it'll cost 20x as
| much.
|
| When used traditionally, nuclear costs about $175/MWh. Solar
| and wind costs about $50/MWh. Use nuclear as backup and it'll
| cost $3500/MWh. Orrr, you've suddenly got a $3450/MWh budget
| to spend on storage for renewable energy...
| pzo wrote:
| This is only about electricity generation not overall energy
| usage (transportation, heating, etc) from given source. This is
| always misleading and gives impression that renewables cover
| 50% of needs already. Its so much worse - it's only around 20%
| in EU:
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-sou...
| mrtksn wrote:
| They are also very fast at electrifying everything.
| Especially for transportation, they built large high speed
| train network(runs on electricity) and are far ahead in
| electrifying the public transport like busses which also
| resulted in Chinese electric cars dominance. Future is
| electric, USA can't give up its fossils and EU not happy
| about ICE cars being phased out(or more precisely someone
| else winning the phase out) but that's really inevitable. US,
| EU should just drop everything and go electric or in a few
| years will look like backward civilizations because China is
| exporting that all over the world.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| How much of total transportation is trains?
| vkou wrote:
| Not great. 7.0% of person-kilometers travelled.
|
| https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-
| news/w/d...
| nonethewiser wrote:
| >Future is electric, USA can't give up its fossils and EU
| not happy about ICE cars being phased out(or more precisely
| someone else winning the phase out) but that's really
| inevitable
|
| Claims like this would need to be quantified further in
| order to make any real predictions, but I think these sorts
| of predictions about future electrification may turn out to
| be shockingly wrong.
|
| For example, many predict we have or will soon hit peak
| oil. Whereas I would wager it will continue to grow. You
| didn't mention global oil production, but I want to get
| specific. 50 years from now I think global oil production
| will be higher than it is today.
|
| There is a strong _desire_ by many for oil production to
| decrease and to electrify, but the incentive structure just
| isnt there. It 's too cheap and useful and the energy
| demand is effectively unlimited. Im not even saying we
| _shouldnt_ move away from it. Just that we wont.
| fakedang wrote:
| Oil isn't a binary for energy though. There's a growing
| need for it in other industries, from plastics to pharma
| to fertilizers. Moreover, oil production is currently
| staying high because the OPEC cartel can't simply afford
| to shut down well production - only scale it down very
| gradually and pray that no one finds out (which is
| impossible given that oil is sold on the spot market). On
| the other hand, American Big Oil is dependent on global
| prices - too low and drilling deep or fracking becomes
| infeasible for them, while high prices mean economic
| slowdown (due to domino effects on other industries)
| until OPEC bandies together to stabilize prices to
| reasonable levels (which is $65-75 per barrel).
|
| Currently we're in a situation where OPEC, remembering
| 2014 and hell bent on diversification, is offloading
| record quantities of crude into the market, to ensure
| that American production stays infeasible.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Yes, hence more demand for oil
| metalman wrote:
| less d3mand for oil, more demand for energy, much more to
| the point is the endless potential of abundent solar
| energy and the comming crisis caused by the end of
| scarcity your grandkids will dealing meems of
| archiologists finding fossil fossil fuel cars
| fpoling wrote:
| Anything that needs oil can be produced from coal. There
| are estimates that liquid fuel produced from coal can
| compete with oil when oil cost is 80-100 USD/barrel.
|
| The catch is that making coal liquid requires a lot of
| energy. If that energy comes from coal itself it is a
| very dirty process. But if energy comes from renewables
| or nuclear, it is not an issue.
|
| In fact with renewables and storage leading to cheaper
| electricity, the price competitiveness of coal-based
| liquid fuels will only get better.
| elzbardico wrote:
| Why would you extract those things from coal, when right
| now there's plenty of oil?
| mrtksn wrote:
| Europe hit its peak oil some time ago and the peak wasn't
| that high. Anyway, electricity is inherently more
| efficient and less problematic than the chemical
| alternatives. I guess you can bet on chemical energy if
| you have plenty of it. Its just that electricity is
| superior in every way.
|
| Also fossil reserves have other uses too, I also don't
| expect oil production going to 0 anytime soon.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Yeah that's why you have to use GLOBAL oil numbers. They
| increased imports of oil when the production went down.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Global oil numbers went horribly wrong when Russia
| invaded Ukraine. Prices multiplied and EU was left paying
| for an invasive force because it was still not %100
| renewable. Considering the damage done by the oil
| supplier war machine, fossils are just outrageously
| expensive. Biggest mistake ever was to rely on fossils.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| I dont understand what you are saying with this comment.
| They were importing before the war now they are still
| importing. That just shows how durable the demand is for
| oil.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Its not durable demand for oil, its a demand for energy
| and shows how bad idea is to rely on suppliers you don't
| control. Build enough renewable energy infrastructure and
| the demand for oil goes away.
| eucyclos wrote:
| I wouldn't bet against your 50 year prediction but that's
| because there will always be more infrastructure to
| extract oil, even as the oil left to extract dwindles. My
| own prediction is that rates of oil extraction will
| continue to increase with minor fluctuations until about
| 2160 and then fail off a cliff.
| cassepipe wrote:
| Conventional oil peaked around 2008. Shale oil (and
| others that need fracking)'s peak should be somewhere
| between 2019 and now IIRC
|
| It's not that there's is less and less oil, it's just
| that harder and harder to get it
| tialaramex wrote:
| However, electrical solutions are often more efficient, so
| this can be misleading because a transition means you're
| getting a large amount "for free" as a result of the improved
| efficiency.
|
| Instead of moving your car from oil to solar, you're moving
| the car from oil to electricity, and then electricity is
| fungible so you don't care that it was made with a solar
| array - but the efficiency win was from going to electricity.
| vladms wrote:
| You have to distinguish between transportation (electricity
| and oil) and source of energy (only oil).
|
| To have electricity you would need to invest at once in
| both generation, transport (the grids are not enough),
| storage and change in use (replace cars with electric
| ones). Your return will depend as well on the technology
| developed and none of the above fields is stable yet.
|
| I am a fan of going electric, even if only for more
| sovereignty, but it is not as simple as "electricity is
| more efficient".
| megaman821 wrote:
| You have to be especially careful when comparing
| oil/gasoline vs solar/electric through. Oil has an
| especially well developed infrastructure for it being
| drilled, refined, delivered and stored. Electricity on
| the scale to power all transportation does not, so there
| are large short-term costs.
|
| In terms of effeciency, you don't replace a billion BTU's
| of oil with the same amount of electricity, what you want
| is locomation. Only about 25% of oil's energy ends up
| spinning the wheels, compared to 85% of energy using an
| electric powertrain.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| So 20% from renewbles, 10% from nuclear, and roughly 25% from
| fossil fuels and 45% lost as waste heat when using fossil
| fuels.
|
| So we're more than half way there.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Yes, because you can't just increase capacity with solar. It
| has to be backed up by base power. Add 10% solar? OK now you
| need 10% from natural gas, nuclear, oil, etc. You need to add
| both solar and something durable then you can just use the
| solar until you cant.
|
| Look what happened in Portugal when it got cloudy.
| lompad wrote:
| This comment is always so strange to me - do you really,
| seriously believe that the people setting up the grids
| never thought about dunkelflaute? And I don't mean that in
| an attacking way, I'm genuinely curious about your thoughts
| there.
|
| Like, yes, we're aware. At least in the german south we
| have the opposite problem right now. We are getting
| negative electricity prices (you get paid for taking some)
| more often because we have more electricity than we can use
| due to solar, at least during the day. Proper power storage
| is being built at this very moment all over the country.
|
| Aside from dunkelflaute, the wind is statistically stronger
| when solar power generation is low, so at night and when
| it's super cloudy. And dunkelflaute is a couple days to
| weeks per year. (german perspective, don't know enough
| about the other countries' grids)
|
| Regarding that problem in portugal, you misunderstood
| something there. The big 2025 power outage wasn't caused by
| clouds, it was an combination of localized blackouts and a
| sudden power _surge_ which caused a cascading failure which
| couldn't be stabilized by the conventional power plants
| even though on paper they had the capacity. How did you get
| the idea it had anything to do with "cloudy" weather?
| asdefghyk wrote:
| RE "... dunkelflaute is a couple days to weeks per
| year..." My guess is its VERY expensive to build the
| needed storage so the supply reliability matches the
| current reliability 99.99%? ? ( in my area there has
| never been any unintended power outages for several years
| ) Which is why its never been done? Then again maybe
| people will be more tolerant of the situation. I've
| always though smart meters could always have a "mode" to
| reduce everyone's max demand to a small amount ...like a
| few hundred watts ...too help handle extended periods of
| dunkelflaute
| elzbardico wrote:
| People setting up the grids answer to politicians. They
| do what they can within the constraints given by public
| policy. If public policy is completely idiotic, like the
| one in germany, there's no much they can do other than
| try to duct tape whatever they can.
| crote wrote:
| Electricity demand is elastic, and electricity is
| dynamically priced. Plenty of industries are able and
| willing to reduce their consumption to avoid paying 100x
| more than usual, or even _get paid_ to reduce their
| consumption.
|
| A data center with backup generators can easily switch from
| grid power to generator power. If you're installing those
| generators for redundancy reasons anyway, why not make some
| extra bucks by signing a first-load-to-shed contract with
| the power company?
| elzbardico wrote:
| > Electricity demand is elastic,
|
| This is complete bullshit for the vast majority of
| industrial use cases.
| asdefghyk wrote:
| .... and is that the maximum percentage of renewables 54% ?
| what is the minimum daily percentage? There should be a
| measure what is the maximum percentage over a month? to see
| how renewable system handles outages of renewables ( ie no
| solor or wind ? and storage is the sole supply? How long can
| storage supply the needed power is the next question ? The
| needed storage and transmission changes are hard and
| expensive.
| foobarian wrote:
| I'm also loving projects like these [1] popping up all over the
| place. Looks like they are installing Tesla Megapacks with LFP
| cells. [2]
|
| [1] https://vcrenewables.com/medway-grid-energy-storage-system/
|
| [2] https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2023/07/17/massachusetts-
| greenli...
| barbazoo wrote:
| > But what's actually beyond me is the existence of Europeans
| that demand more fossil fuels. It is double ridiculous because
| EU doesn't even have these fossil resources at any viable
| scale. It is largely imported, they must be on the payroll of
| US and Russia or very stupid.
|
| > IMHO EU should just drop everything and do China level or
| even beyond transition to Solar and similar.
|
| If I find myself finding obvious "errors" in other people's
| plans and easy solutions they "just" have to implement then I'm
| usually missing something.
|
| Europe's strategy to tie themselves economically to Russia for
| the purpose of peace didn't work out but a lot of the
| infrastructure and energy investments were made when that was
| the strategy. The other thing is that you're talking about
| electricity, fossil fuels have thousands of uses so you can't
| "drop everything".
| elzbardico wrote:
| Europe didn't tie themselves to Russian fossil fuels for the
| purpose of peace. They bought the cheapest energy available
| to them, and this was the basis of their economy. You can't
| just compete with oil and gas coming out of a pipeline,
| regardless what a computer programmer may believe about
| energy policy and electrical grids.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Ugh, can we stop with the negativity every time anything
| environmental or energy related comes up.
|
| Regardless of how fast anything was progressing there will
| always be someone saying NOT FAST ENOUGH, you're not adding
| anything here.
| mrtksn wrote:
| If you're not the fastest, it means that you're not doing
| good enough.
| jalk wrote:
| You must have some other sources than that site. Downloaded the
| CSV, and at the risk of misinterpreting the columns here is
| some simple filtering:
|
| % of total energy generation EU Coal 9.64%
| US Coal 14.88% CH Coal 57.77% EU Solar
| 11.19% US Solar 6.91% CH Solar 8.32%
|
| Largest generation source EU Nuclear 23.57%
| US Gas 42.51% CH Coal 57.77%
|
| This ofc only says something about generation and not
| consumption
| mrtksn wrote:
| Look at the absolute values, your kettle doesn't run of
| fractions it runs on absolute power and EU&US are about the
| same. USA has fractionally lower renewables because they have
| very large fossil production. EU is making up for its lack of
| fossils through high efficiency policies.
| xbmcuser wrote:
| One of the biggest thing a lot of people are missing is that
| from this year Solar + battery became cheaper than coal in
| China. And avg annual price decline for solar and battery is
| still around 8-10% ie if you don't go to solar and electric
| machinery you will not be able to compete with China as they
| are about to reach the point in the next 10 year where
| electricity/energy is practically free.
| eucyclos wrote:
| It is weird to me that nobody wants to import Chinese
| electric cars. If Chinese investors and politicians are
| really subsidizing the production of electric cars,
| importing them would be basically having the new grid
| subsidized by a foreign government!
| crote wrote:
| The usual argument is that this kills the domestic car
| industry, leaving us fully dependant on Chinese cars:
| what's going to happen when they hike their prices by
| 1000%, or threaten to stop all exports?
| Aperocky wrote:
| But EU + US's total power generation only added up to 70% of
| CN's total in 2024 according to this graph.
| alexey-salmin wrote:
| > IMHO EU should just drop everything and do China level or
| even beyond transition to Solar and similar.
|
| If this is not happening without government's help then it's
| not profitable. Which means a forced transition to solar
| requires to "drop everything" quite literally.
| mrtksn wrote:
| AFAIK its more complex than that. It requires high capEx at
| first, it needs the grid to match it and affects previous
| investments. The solar got cheap fast, wind didn't as much
| but it has its own advantages like it works when solar
| doesn't etc. A lot of government coordination is needed to
| work.
|
| The governments can be very effective with that through
| providing long term visibility and reducing the risks.
| kwanbix wrote:
| If they hadn't shut down most nuclear reactors, some even after
| the war had already started, this wouldn't have happened.
| mrtksn wrote:
| EU did not shut down most of their reactors, Germany shut
| down a few.
| fpoling wrote:
| Europe has plenty of coal that can be used as a good backup for
| renewable energy production.
| icetank wrote:
| I heard a few years ago that China was building up to two new
| coal power plants every week causing huge amounts of pollution.
| Looks like they still do. Yes they scale up renewable energy
| but what good is that if fossil fuel power generation scales at
| the same rate. At least with the EU and the US you can see a
| trend of moving from fossil fuels to renewable.
| mrtksn wrote:
| > what good is that if fossil fuel power generation scales at
| the same rate
|
| It doesn't scale at the same rate though. Renewables are
| accelerating which means in China especially you see a trend
| of moving from fossil fuels to renewable.
|
| The fossil thing about China is kind of understandable
| because don't forget that pretty much everything we all
| consume is made in China.
| gred wrote:
| Checking in from Spain, looking forward to our next national
| blackout (compulsory Earth Day).
| lentil_soup wrote:
| Spain is actually one of the countries with the most solar
| power generation in the EU
|
| It's also the country with the highest solar power potential
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_the_European_...
| lomase wrote:
| Some months ago in Spain the price of solar energy became
| negative and minutes later there was a blackout.
|
| Some people like gred say is because too much solar energy is
| a problem.
|
| In my, uneducated, opinion it was a market failure.
| adev_ wrote:
| I really hate this kind of article. Because they do twist numbers
| to serve a narrative (on renewable energy) instead of showing the
| complete picture fairly.
|
| > June 2025 was a milestone month: Solar became the EU's single
| largest electricity source for the first time ever.
|
| Yes June was a record for Solar power _production_ due to an
| amazing weather.... But it was a pure disaster for Solar power
| _profitability_ with an all time low.
|
| The peak was too large for the grid to consume and the price went
| _negative_ (or null) for the _entire month_ during the solar
| hours.
|
| That should bring serious questions on the ROI of any future
| investment in solar capacity and about Europe electricity storage
| capacity.
|
| The article ignores that entirely.
|
| https://www.rte-france.com/eco2mix/les-donnees-de-marche#
|
| > Some countries are already nearly 100% renewable. Denmark led
| with an impressive 94.7% share of renewables in net electricity
| generated
|
| This is also miss-leading. _Production_ does not mean
| _Consumption_.
|
| Denmark is very far from 94% consumption based on renewable. It
| rely heavily on import from German grid (Coal and Gaz powered)
| almost every night and this is _a disaster_ in term of CO2
| emission.
|
| That leads to emissions over ~140CO2g/kwh in average, meaning
| _way_ over what other Scandinavians countries are able to do (e.g
| Sweden < 15gCO2/kwh)
|
| https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/DK-DK1/3mo/daily
|
| > In total, 15 EU countries saw their share of renewable
| generation rise year-over-year.
|
| Yes but that does not mean CO2 emissions are falling (which
| should be the only thing that matter).
|
| Belgium is closing perfectly working nuclear powerplants recently
| that are providing around 30% of the country consumption.
|
| Meaning the country CO2 emission are expected to increase
| significantly this year due to that and this is just plain
| stupid. Spain might follow a similar track and this is
| disastrous.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Belgium
|
| In short, please stop this kind of article.
|
| - Renewable are good but what Europe need is massive investment
| in energy storage through battery and/or pump hydro. And this is
| nowhere here. Blind praise in solar capacity is
| counterproductive.
|
| - If we do not carefully control our current capacity of non-
| controllable renewable in Europe, we might doom the ROI of an
| entire industry for the decades to come. And this is the taxpayer
| will have to sponge all this mess financially speaking.
|
| - What matters is CO2 emission and CO2 reduction, not renewable
| capacity. This kind of article favors _wrong_ political decisions
| by putting first and foremost renewable capacity as the only
| metric that matters. The Belgian nuclear situation is one of
| these terrible decisions.
| z3ratul163071 wrote:
| gold comment
| adev_ wrote:
| Not everybody seems to think so when I see the number of
| downvotes on this post.
|
| Sadly, any criticism on renewables, even constructive, is
| often straight downvoted without any comments nor
| justifications on Hackernews.
| fuoqi wrote:
| Yeah, and you can even consider yourself lucky if it's just
| downvotes, sometimes your messages just get flagged, like
| when I called renewables being a major reason for the
| Iberian blackout with citations from the official report.
| inerte wrote:
| TBH your first phrase is how every bad comment starts so I
| can understand reflex downvotes, BUT, your actual content
| after that is fantastic, and it took me a while to mentally
| go to "oh wait they make sense here"
| kieranmaine wrote:
| To provide some numbers on the storage side of things. On
| European battery storage [1]:
|
| * 2024 - 21.9 GWh installed.
|
| * 2025 - 29.7 GWh predicted to be installed.
|
| * 2029 - Between 66.6 GWh and 183 GWh to be installed for 2029.
| Total capacity estimated to be 400 GWh.
|
| The UK also recently received applications for 52.6 GW of
| storage Long Duration Energy Storage cap and floor scheme [2].
| LDES in this context is classed as 8hrs or greater. Seasonal
| storage is not included.
|
| I don't know if this sufficiently plugs the gaps, but it does
| show a large increase in installed battery storage, which
| appears to be accelerating.
|
| Edit: Include total capacity in 2029 figure.
|
| 1. https://www.solarpowereurope.org/press-releases/new-
| report-e...
|
| 2.
| https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2025-09/LDES%20...
| adev_ wrote:
| Solar capacity is over 400GW now in Europe and projected to
| be over 700GW in Europe in 2028.
|
| So, considering that. The battery storage estimate you give
| is still one order of magnitude under of what would be
| needed. Even considering the optimistic numbers.
| kieranmaine wrote:
| Apologies, the 2029 figure was the annual install amount.
| Total estimated installed amount is 400 GWh. Solar Power
| Europe says "780 GWh by 2030 to fully support the
| transition".
|
| From the page[1]:
|
| > By 2029, the report anticipates a sixfold increase to
| nearly 120 GWh, driving total capacity to 400 GWh (EU-27:
| 334 GWh). However, this remains far below the levels
| required to meet flexibility needs in a renewable-driven
| energy system. According to our Mission Solar 2040 study,
| EU-27 BESS capacity must reach 780 GWh by 2030 to fully
| support the transition.
|
| This is also only up to 2029. Battery prices are dropping
| and the amount of batteries being manufactured is
| increasing, so I don't agree the continued installation of
| solar is a big problem.
|
| 1. https://www.solarpowereurope.org/press-releases/new-
| report-e...
| adev_ wrote:
| > Apologies, the 2029 figure was the annual install
| amount. Total estimated installed amount is 400 GWh.
| Solar Power Europe says "780 GWh by 2030 to fully support
| the transition".
|
| It is still nowhere enough. It is barely the capacity to
| support few hours of consumption of the European grid.
|
| Most of the solar production will go wasted.
|
| That means that the price of the solar production _will_
| tank and go negative during most of the spring-summer
| period.
|
| And that is terrible as far as ROI on the production
| systems are concerned.
| kieranmaine wrote:
| > It is still nowhere enough. It is barely the capacity
| to support few hours of consumption of the European grid.
|
| You just need to move the excess to times of high demand.
|
| > Most of the solar production will go wasted.
|
| Germany saw renewable curtailments (including wind) of
| 3.5% in 2024. I can only find reports it will reach 10%
| by 2030 in Germany and 10% in the EU. I would define
| "Most" as 50%+.
|
| > That means that the price of the solar production will
| tank and go negative during most of the spring-summer
| period. And that is terrible as far as ROI on the
| production systems are concerned.
|
| This depends on the market. The UK guarantees a price for
| renewables that have a Contract for Difference (CfD), so
| they're unaffected. I don't know much about the other
| European markets, so this might happen.
|
| Any developer will account for this though, so money will
| flow out of renewables and into storage if there are
| serious issues around over capacity - unless you have
| schemes like the UK's CfD.
|
| Finally, I disagree with your prediction
|
| > we might doom the ROI of an entire industry for the
| decades to come
|
| You have plenty of price signals in energy markets so I
| can't see a scenario where there's a complete
| misallocation of resources into renewablews and not
| storage. In addition investment predictions for
| renewables and storage are healthy and not of an industry
| in distress.
| fuoqi wrote:
| Add to that cost of electricity routinely rising in EU. The
| practice shows that with the current technology intermittent
| renewable generation above a certain threshold in the total
| generation mix results in a sharply higher cost of electricity
| for consumers when accounted for all additional expenses
| (storage, more robust grids, "smart" grid controls, etc.). And
| we got this with massive EU subsidies on top of dirt cheap
| solar panels subsidized by the Chinese government.
| nicoburns wrote:
| > during the solar hours.
|
| My understanding is that most new solar being built today is
| being paired with batteries for this reason. Then they can sell
| the energy at night when the price is better.
| jokoon wrote:
| for an entire year?
| top_sigrid wrote:
| Literally the first sentence: More than half of the European
| Union's (EU) electricity came from renewables in the second
| quarter of 2025, and solar is leading from the front.
| nickslaughter02 wrote:
| Is that why electricity in EU is so expensive?
| https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cost-of-e...
| mrtksn wrote:
| Yes, its because it is still short of %100 renewables and EU is
| importing its fossil fuels. When Russia invaded Ukraine it
| caused a spike in prices, now its coming down. Prices will go
| down as renewables proliferate, probably we will pay some fixed
| amount as equipment maintenance fee once its %100.
| lokimedes wrote:
| Only when it's dark, overcast, winter or really cold. Otherwise
| it's mainly due to the extreme overcapacity required to handle
| distributed unreliable energy sources as well as an increasing
| fleet of electric cars, stressing every last kilometer of the
| grid. And windmills, a reliance on methane gas as gap-filling
| and a few other issues. (Sorry, I know snarking is frowned upon
| on HN - but we choose this collective delusion over the
| hellish, yet stable, Cherenkov light of nuclear)
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| How will you make the electricity cheaper when nuclear power
| requires above 20 cents/kWh excluding transmission costs and
| everything else to get built in 2025?
|
| You also do know that said nuclear plants won't deliver a new
| kWh to the grid until the 2040s?
|
| What problem are you even solving?
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| Probably more to do with taxes etc. Better would be to look at
| cost of production and not cost to consumer with taxes and
| fees. Then you arent comparing the production but rather
| different models of socity
| logicchains wrote:
| It's not taxes; German electricity costs increased over 3x
| since pre-covid, and taxes certainly didn't go up that much.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| OK and did they increase not renewables by 54%? You can't really
| increase overall capacity from solar, wind etc. Look at what
| happened in Portugal when it gets cloudy.
| nielsbot wrote:
| When people talk about countries having "energy independence",
| isn't moving to renewables the right move? (Since you reduce your
| demand for fuel inputs to 0, assuming a 100% transition)
| zdragnar wrote:
| For many countries, pure renewables plus batteries only works
| with an international grid. In a different thread here, Germany
| was coming up quite a bit during the dunkelflaute, and the only
| way to go pure renewable is to import energy from, say,
| Morocco.
|
| It does achieve potential independence from current
| adversaries, but only by introducing dependence on other
| nations instead.
|
| Countries like the US have it a little better independence-
| wise, except we need (a) significant buildouts of batteries
| that don't rely on rare earths, because we can't mine them here
| for environmental reasons, and (b) massive buildouts of solar
| panels in regions across the country.
|
| The upper midwest has something similar to Germany's
| dunkelflaute- it gets cold enough windmills may even be net
| negative to keep their turbines ice free, and we can go weeks
| under total cloud coverage.
|
| Supporting all of that is possible, but requires overbuilding
| the grid to such an extent that the carbon cost of the cement
| and metals added to the grid would extend the payoff period
| quite a bit. It's definitely not a free lunch, though probably
| better to start now than hope for miracle cold fusion or
| something equally silly.
| guerrilla wrote:
| Fucking Germany though with insistence on coal, Russian gas and
| no nuclear. I'm so suck of literally paying for their mistakes. I
| wish we could just disconnect them from our grid until they take
| some responsibility. Also stop dragging your feet sending weapons
| to Ukraine.
| brikym wrote:
| It's because of stupid tribalism and hysterical non-thinking.
| When I was there 10 years ago it was really common to see the
| 'Atomkraft? - Nein Danke' stickers in public places. I guess
| when the position is held by a majority, that created an
| environment where people, especially policy makers, did not
| want to challenge it for they'll get excluded for wrong-think.
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