Posted on 08/07/2022 6:40:37 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Munich (Germany) (AFP) – The more the sun shines in the southern German town of Aurach, the more likely it is that Jens Husemann's solar panels will be disconnected from the grid -- an exasperating paradox at a time when Germany is navigating an energy supply crisis.
"It's being switched off every day," Husemann told AFP during a recent sunny spell, saying there had been more than 120 days of forced shutdowns so far this year.
Husemann, who runs an energy conversion business near Munich, also owns a sprawling solar power system on the flat roof of a transport company in Aurach, Bavaria.
Grid operator N-Ergie, which is responsible for harvesting electricity from Husemann's panels, admits the situation is less than ideal.
There were 257 days last year when it had to cut off supply from solar panels on parts of the grid.
"We are currently witnessing -- and this is a good thing -- an unprecedented boom in photovoltaic parks," Rainer Kleedoerfer, head of N-Ergie's development department, told AFP.
But while it takes just a couple of years to commission a solar power plant, updating the necessary infrastructure takes between five and 10 years, he said.
"The number of interventions and the amount of curtailed energy have increased continuously in recent years" as a result, according to N-Ergie spokesman Michael Enderlein.
"The likelihood is that grid bottlenecks will actually increase in the coming years," while resolving them will take several more years, Enderlein said.
According to Carsten Koenig, managing director of the German Solar Industry Association, the problem is not unique to solar power and also affects wind energy.
(Excerpt) Read more at france24.com ...
Go Green.
When the CHINA switches off the sale of solar panels
So basically solar panels make electricity when you don’t need it and none when you do.
One of these days someone will produce a genuine economic study of the cost of electric storage. Even under the most ideal circumstances, batteries are not free because of manufacturing, transportation, maintenance, set up and disposal costs. Manufacturing costs, even if the basic materials are cheap and plentiful they are not free and there are theoretical limits on storage efficiency.
The whole point of electric generation from any source is to try to match production to demand. Weather forecasts and historical data provide guidance.
So-called ‘green’ energy is wildly unpredictable and impossible to control. As this woman is finding out, it doesn’t matter how much electricity you create if no one needs it at that moment.
Conversely, if you need electricity and the wind isn’t blowing or the sun isn’t shining, tough luck.
More woke stupidity.
Check out “The Manhattan Contrarian”. He has done the economic modelling for battery storage. For NY state alone the costs for battery storage would be in the trillions and that’s if the raw materials were available (spoiler, they are not).
What I heard from German experts - Germany has now the “renewable” capacity of at least 1.5 times of energy they would ever need.
Yet, in total, the renewables are only like 25% of the used energy.
So the renewable theoretical capacity delivers actually only about 1\6 of itself as the real power.
Think about it, when you hear some new 100MW project. Divide by 6!
By comparison, fossil fuel usually delivers about 90% of its maximum capacity. (They have to do some maintenance there too.)
The only answer is nuclear power. Thorium based molten salt reactors.
To think we can store power in batteries on the scale that is needed is ridiculous.
The trouble is the left doesn’t want to solve problems, but rather to use them as controllers.
Problems as power tools, as it were.
I agree with the first statement, but not the second. It is another theortical technology invented to solve a problem that doesn't exist - the international shortage of Uranium that existed in 1947. Turns out U238 is plentiful.
But, its not because I'm for "green energy", or for economics.
It is for autonomy and reliability.
When there are blackouts due to stupid policy, we'll still be able to run our water well and the freezer.
Colorado is 6th in sunshine days/yr.
It’s so good we gotta turn em off. Great thinking.
It is not ridiculous and as a physicist I learned long ago not to make predictions about technologies. However, there is no demonstrated path to energy storage on that scale and one thing I have learned is not to rely on theoretical "technologies." Of course if it isn't demonstrated it isn't actually a technology. But, at this point there is no practical economic power storage system, and there is a theoretical limit based upon physical chemistry/physics, engineering, chemical engineering and economics as to what can be done. There exists no demonstrated laboratory technology that is ready for scale-up to these scales.
I do know a concept that is ridiculous - mining of asteroids for bulk raw materials. The energy costs of getting something to the asteroid so that you can get mined material back, and reenter the atmosphere without burning up or destroying our civilization are unachievable. That is a back of the envelope calculation based upon Newton's laws.
“Problems as power tools, as it were.”
“Power tools” require higher order thinking to be able to use them correctly. I think this is as basic as the old saw about “when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” In this case, they are trying to use the most esoteric, elegant, and expensive solution(s) possible with either solar or wind yet have failed to think about the whole system.
Gang Green
Storing energy with chemical batteries is too expensive, but not the only method of storing energy. Pumped water energy storage is more environmentally friendly, and perhaps cheaper for large solar farms.
Pumped water energy storage is not a theoretical technology.
Thorium reactors bring a number of advantages which have nothing to do with availability of uranium.
No. It can be reduced to practice. Has it been? Is it economic? What are the losses in energy used for storage vs energy generated. Hydroelectric power works well and is very efficient. But it discounts the costs to God to create the rain some of which fills the reservoir generating the power. Now we are replacing sun and wind and rain and controlled flooding with a solar driven electric pump.
Name them.
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