Re:Air pollution is worse than we thought
by eldaisfish on Thursday August 13, 2020 @02:55PM
(#24146891)
my pet peeve with people mentioning Denmark as the poster child of renewable energy is that has one absolutely enormous advantage - access to two large and stable electric grids to account for the variations and uncertainty of renewable energy.
The continental European grid is massive and Denmark has power lines to Germany, Sweden and Norway. The Nordic grid has massive amounts of hydro power.
Not every country has such access to allow them to go all-in on renewable energy.
The real poster-child for large-scale renewable integration is the UK.
It actually a bit above 100% to the point where the price can go into negative during optimal conditions. This has put a damper on the enthusiasm for further expanding beyond 100%.
By my estimates, with land wind parks operating on an average ~30% capacity per year and ocean wind parks at around 60%, the average during a year is about half the energy grid generated from renewable and the rest from fossil fuels.
Going beyond that is going to be hard.