Re:Germany boosts renewables with “biggest energy policy ref...
by lkbm on Wednesday April 06, 2022 @03:48PM
(#30936683)
Oh, I assume it's much more expensive than nuclear. Personally, I tend to think of nuclear as renewable, though I guess it's not really; just carbon-neutral.
But even without nuclear I'd think it's viable, albeit expensive. You have to overbuild, add a lot of storage, and interconnect the continent (and maybe northern Africa) with high voltage transmission lines.
Domestically, night time isn't the big deal for Germany. They're 20% wind and only 8.5% solar[0]. They just need to be able to trade their wind output with countries whose wind blows at a different time.
Their geography seems like it would be good for pumped hydro storage, but they only have ~6GW capacity as of 2019[1], so maybe it's not.
But even without nuclear I'd think it's viable, albeit expensive. You have to overbuild, add a lot of storage, and interconnect the continent (and maybe northern Africa) with high voltage transmission lines.
Domestically, night time isn't the big deal for Germany. They're 20% wind and only 8.5% solar[0]. They just need to be able to trade their wind output with countries whose wind blows at a different time.
Their geography seems like it would be good for pumped hydro storage, but they only have ~6GW capacity as of 2019[1], so maybe it's not.
[0] https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Economic-Sectors-Enterpris...
[1] https://www.hydropower.org/country-profiles/germany