Re:France prepares for possibility of electricity blackouts ...
by Schroedingersat on Sunday December 04, 2022 @04:33AM
(#33852037)
Nice train you've got the goalposts on there.
The wind and solar capacity factors are anticorrelated.
There are areas in france where the december average is >2.6kWh/d. At 54kg/kWp a modern panel on a lightweight racking system gets this works out to 1800t/TWh and it's almost all glass you can build the same net wattage now for half the price and then use the money you save to replace in 30 years (or 50 if you take real world degradation rather than predicted). Having to recycle some glass once to decarbonize now ranther than in 20 years is a reasonable tradeoff for halving the costs. The gas plants are dirt cheap and that much solar would easily power enough electrolysis to fill your february gap during the 11 months of the year when it produces far more. The electrolysers will be needed in either case for ammonia, shipping, and SAF.
If we're invoking technology that doesn't exist and costs several times more, just use something that does exist and costs several times more like a CSP plant and an HVDC cable.
The wind and solar capacity factors are anticorrelated.
There are areas in france where the december average is >2.6kWh/d. At 54kg/kWp a modern panel on a lightweight racking system gets this works out to 1800t/TWh and it's almost all glass you can build the same net wattage now for half the price and then use the money you save to replace in 30 years (or 50 if you take real world degradation rather than predicted). Having to recycle some glass once to decarbonize now ranther than in 20 years is a reasonable tradeoff for halving the costs. The gas plants are dirt cheap and that much solar would easily power enough electrolysis to fill your february gap during the 11 months of the year when it produces far more. The electrolysers will be needed in either case for ammonia, shipping, and SAF.
If we're invoking technology that doesn't exist and costs several times more, just use something that does exist and costs several times more like a CSP plant and an HVDC cable.