I don’t understand: one day you read that Germany made a mistake closing their nuclear plants (they were old and at the end of their life cycle, by the way) and is relying on carbon plants, and the next day you read that they have too much solar power ??
Germany doesn't have too much solar power, some of it just needs to be moved to the evening.
This process has just started but needs to go much further. There are currently 1.4 million electric cars in Germany. If they charged @11KW during the day, they would draw 15.4GW, or roughly the equivalent of 3 Gravelines [1] nuclear power plants running in reverse.
However, most Germans pay the same for electricity throughout the day, so instead they charge when they arrive at home after work and Germany needs to cover 3 Gravelines worth of energy with wind, hydro, coal, and gas instead.
If consumers could charge with solar for 20 cents per kWh during the day or with brown coal for 80 cents per kWh in the evening, many would alter their usage.
Lot of Germany still uses legacy electricity meters. I don't understand why a switch to remote readable meters still hasn't been mandated. This would allow companies to offer market priced electricity with as short as 15 minute price intervals, and would in turn allow consumers to optimise their energy usage to the cheap hours.
I know Nordics do this already, it would be about time for the rest of Europe to follow suit.
Both can be true at same time. You need power also during night. And that will not come from solar. You really want to support at least that demand from non-carbon sources...
You can't shutdown the coal plants quickly when their energy is no longer needed, like on a bright sunny day. It's still a problem that Germany wants to use coal for their base load generators.
Germany needs to use coal, the government fears being replaced by a far right movement, which has strong roots in the coal areas of East Germany - politicians feels that closing coal production would be the tipping point for a far right and far left coalition to get into government.
It's always about the jobs.
The challenge on top is the replacement of coal after the exit from nuclear power. The anti-nuclear stance of many people and politicians in (West-)Germany is from the 1970s and the 1980s, especially when PershingII missles were installed in Germany. People of many other countries had no contact with nuclear weapons, stored somewhere in the wilderness. In Germany a nuclear missle facility was near to many people (I grew up next to a PershingII depot). Chernobyl didn't start the anti-nuclear stance but later accelerated it. So decades later Germany got out of nuclear energy.
Which now poses the problem of getting out of coal.
The challenge on top is the replacement of coal after the exit from nuclear power.
Solar when the sun is shining, windmills when the wind is blowing, batteries, hydro, and maybe 1 backup nat. gas plant when somehow all of that is out and you need to ramp up.
Looks like some more wind and a lot of batteries is what's left.
Sure, once. Then you can switch it off for good, because it will get damaged - the combustion chamber inside needs to be heated up or cooled down slowly, otherwise it will crack. When you are "not using" coal power plant, you still need to keep the combustion chamber hot.
The cost of a nuclear power plant is enormous. Surely they can buy a hell of a lot of batteries for the cost of one of those things and the maintenance costs thereof?
The current leaders in the Netherlands also want to start projects for new nuclear power plants. The Netherlands is also over producing apparently. Surely, they also should be investing in massive battery plants instead of new nuclear reactors.
Imagine the maintenance costs of protecting the nuclear reactors when the global warming flooding starts in these low lands.
Unfortunately no they can't. China themselves, the biggest producer in the world, only has the equivalent of a few days of winter consumption of Germany. Batteries to smooth out the production yearly is still sci-fi.
There's no replacement for a nuclear plant yet for this purpose until a very large breakthrough is made. The only realistic large scale storage at this level is a dam and since the tech is old, most places in the developed world where one can be built has one already.
There has been plenty of replacement for nuclear. It's something that really never made it big due to costs. I would also highlight risks, given the current environment in Europe. If you build nuclear, you would have to allow for defending it too.
Depends which part of the year these headlines are.
In summer they have plenty of energy that they don't know what to do with it and in winter they depend on France to not burn too much coal just to keep the lights on despite not even transitioning heating yet.
Comments
I don’t understand: one day you read that Germany made a mistake closing their nuclear plants (they were old and at the end of their life cycle, by the way) and is relying on carbon plants, and the next day you read that they have too much solar power ??
Germany doesn't have too much solar power, some of it just needs to be moved to the evening.
This process has just started but needs to go much further. There are currently 1.4 million electric cars in Germany. If they charged @11KW during the day, they would draw 15.4GW, or roughly the equivalent of 3 Gravelines [1] nuclear power plants running in reverse.
However, most Germans pay the same for electricity throughout the day, so instead they charge when they arrive at home after work and Germany needs to cover 3 Gravelines worth of energy with wind, hydro, coal, and gas instead.
If consumers could charge with solar for 20 cents per kWh during the day or with brown coal for 80 cents per kWh in the evening, many would alter their usage.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravelines_Nuclear_Power_Stati...
Lot of Germany still uses legacy electricity meters. I don't understand why a switch to remote readable meters still hasn't been mandated. This would allow companies to offer market priced electricity with as short as 15 minute price intervals, and would in turn allow consumers to optimise their energy usage to the cheap hours.
I know Nordics do this already, it would be about time for the rest of Europe to follow suit.
Both can be true at same time. You need power also during night. And that will not come from solar. You really want to support at least that demand from non-carbon sources...
You can't shutdown the coal plants quickly when their energy is no longer needed, like on a bright sunny day. It's still a problem that Germany wants to use coal for their base load generators.
Germany needs to use coal, the government fears being replaced by a far right movement, which has strong roots in the coal areas of East Germany - politicians feels that closing coal production would be the tipping point for a far right and far left coalition to get into government.
It's always about the jobs.
The challenge on top is the replacement of coal after the exit from nuclear power. The anti-nuclear stance of many people and politicians in (West-)Germany is from the 1970s and the 1980s, especially when PershingII missles were installed in Germany. People of many other countries had no contact with nuclear weapons, stored somewhere in the wilderness. In Germany a nuclear missle facility was near to many people (I grew up next to a PershingII depot). Chernobyl didn't start the anti-nuclear stance but later accelerated it. So decades later Germany got out of nuclear energy.
Which now poses the problem of getting out of coal.
Solar when the sun is shining, windmills when the wind is blowing, batteries, hydro, and maybe 1 backup nat. gas plant when somehow all of that is out and you need to ramp up.
Looks like some more wind and a lot of batteries is what's left.
Of course you can.
Sure, once. Then you can switch it off for good, because it will get damaged - the combustion chamber inside needs to be heated up or cooled down slowly, otherwise it will crack. When you are "not using" coal power plant, you still need to keep the combustion chamber hot.
The question is not if you can, you can, it's about speed and how fast.
And solar is predictable per day good enough that you can compensate the short intervals with gas and batteries.
The cost of a nuclear power plant is enormous. Surely they can buy a hell of a lot of batteries for the cost of one of those things and the maintenance costs thereof?
The current leaders in the Netherlands also want to start projects for new nuclear power plants. The Netherlands is also over producing apparently. Surely, they also should be investing in massive battery plants instead of new nuclear reactors.
Imagine the maintenance costs of protecting the nuclear reactors when the global warming flooding starts in these low lands.
Unfortunately no they can't. China themselves, the biggest producer in the world, only has the equivalent of a few days of winter consumption of Germany. Batteries to smooth out the production yearly is still sci-fi.
There's no replacement for a nuclear plant yet for this purpose until a very large breakthrough is made. The only realistic large scale storage at this level is a dam and since the tech is old, most places in the developed world where one can be built has one already.
There has been plenty of replacement for nuclear. It's something that really never made it big due to costs. I would also highlight risks, given the current environment in Europe. If you build nuclear, you would have to allow for defending it too.
The proof is in the pudding, if a replacement existed, they would use it.
The lack of cooling water would be a concern. Then, in addition, every nuclear reactor being a military target. How would you pay for that insurance?
Depends which part of the year these headlines are.
In summer they have plenty of energy that they don't know what to do with it and in winter they depend on France to not burn too much coal just to keep the lights on despite not even transitioning heating yet.