The whole of Europe and the waters around Europe do not experience the same weather at the same time.
No but very large swathes of it are similar. You only have to look at the weather maps for major blocking events to see that. Blocking high's often cover the entire EU.
It is extremely rare for an area to experience low wind for more than 3-4 days.
The UK experiences this once or twice a year for 4 to 7 days. It is a recorded phenomena and has been in the news more than once.
It only has to happen "once" for the grid to have to accommodate it. I also tracked the renewable power into and out of the last one. It was low on both sides.
We have been talking about all that "excess" renewable energy. Well first we need to put in Excess capacity then we need to use the normal and provide the excess over the same grid to power storage. Grid upgrades needed for that as our grids are not made for it.
Storage can only become viable once there is an excess of renewables to harness
Indeed and it must be charged "before" and "after" it is used and before it can be used again. Two minor lulls in a row, no storage.
EVs are significantly more efficient than FF and provide an asset to load shift energy usage on the consumer side.
No argument. But I did that calculation. If all 40m UK EV's averaged 50kw/h and gave half their power to the grid, then we'd cover half of the shortfall for a 4 day lull, where the UK renewables were generating, on average, 2.5gw of power.
So those vehicles use half their power, give up the other half to power the grid and, on day 5, do what? Charge?
And where does the other half of the energy required come from?
These are the things we have to be able to model and allow for.
The argument revolves around how much can renewables meet without significant storage, my view based on models is that if the total capacity factors of renewables reaches 100% of demand and the UK keep 5GW Nuclear then 85% of demand will be met in realtime with 22% curtailment.
Could be. But you have to remember, the vast majority who are shouting for 100% renewables are 100% opposed to Nuclear!
So the reality is storage and interconnectors need to utilise this 22% that would be curtailed to meet the remaining 15%. There is no single solution but what is clear is the supply is sufficient to feed into imports\exports, load shifting, short term batteries, medium term storage and longer term gas storage.
This does not seem insurmountable, the bit that concerns me for the UK is getting rid of domestic gas.
No the reality is that the interconnects don't exist, nobody wants to pay for them and it is going to take decades to fix the interconnects and the grids to be able to support them.
Meanwhile we keep on removing baseload power and replacing it with variable power.
A car crash waiting for it to happen. My concern is that the first time it happens the word Renewable will become a pariah and will destroy everything that has been built to date at the very worst possible time when we need it the most.
Hence, pragmatism.
As for UK gas. Yep, that is the difference between France at 50gw and the UK at 30gw. We have gas fields and France doesn't. It has to go, but that just makes the problem even bigger.
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I considered posting a reply, but decided to let it go.
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