Our (Swedens) base load is mostly nuclear and hydro currently, the capacity generated from each type can be viewed live at https://www.svk.se/kontrollrummet

But we have multiple large industries starting up in the coming decades which will require substantial power, while at the same time electric vehicles are slowly but surely becoming mainstream, further straining our grid.

Increasing nuclear is a great (and necessary) decision, it's just a shame the decision wasn't taken 20 years ago.

Electric vehicles is both a bane and a boon. Let them charge when it's cheap, program them to sell back a fraction of the charge when it's expensive.

Some of the planned industry investment is hydrogen generation, which is perfect for varying power. The gas caverns can be filled when rates are low.

Yep, this (EVs with bidirectional charging) is something we have to do, as it could be used to balance the grid when necessary, diminishing the need to spin up fossil fuel power in these circumstances.

Unfortunately most EVs don't have the hardware to be used as batteries through their Type 2 (Mennekes) connector, as it requires a built-in inverter that just isn't there.

There are some new products (e.g. [1]) coming out that uses the CCS2 port on the car, providing the necessary inverter externally, which would enable older EVs to be used as batteries for grid balancing or other similar uses.

1: https://wallbox.com/sv_se/quasar-2-laddare-dubbelriktade-elf...

The kind of storage we would need in the Nordics is around 1 week of total consumption. That is roughly how long the longest really cold windless periods last in the winter (basically a large high pressure zone parking itself over the area and they can be big enough to cover pretty much all of Sweden) and sun is kinda bad during the winter this far north.

In the north thermal energy storage is a viable solution, and those can store energy for months. You can dump heat into them in summer and still pull from it in winter.

Since heating is by far the biggest consumer of energy in winter, just taking care of that with stored thermal energy will deal with a big fraction of the energy storage needs.

We need more districting heating systems.

We are talking about 2 to 3 million MWh for Sweden alone (~120 million MWh yearly consumption so in reality probably a bit more then that as the consumption is higher in the winter).

The largest battery based energy storage in the world is 3000 MWh so we just need to build thousand of those (or a 1000x larger one). Good luck with that.

The largest heat storage under construction is 90000 MWh so that is a step in the right direction but still falls short by around 35x and even more if we have to turn that heat into electricity (While a lot of this consumption is district heating it is not all of it. And a large chunk of new district heating is just massive heat pumps)

And now that you have built these tools to make wind/solar work you have to factor the price of these into the price of wind/solar and suddenly they do not look that cheap when compared to nuclear. This is why the government and Vattenfall in Sweden want to build more nuclear.

Realistically the only cost effective energy storage on this scale we have available is hydro and pretty much all the places where it is cheap in Sweden have already been built.

In general I think Sweden is on the right track. They have a lot of wind and are building a lot more of it. They can also build more nuclear at the same time.

Though Sweden (just like here in Finland) are slowly reaching the point that when it is windy the wind farms don't really make much money as the price on the spot markets is very close to 0 so we also need a lot of new intermittent energy consumption (industrial processes that can be slowed down/ramped up cost effectively, make hydrogen, fill the heat storages with heat pumps, etc)

There's several projects ongoing to store heat from district heating systems, for example in Västerås [1] and Linköping [2]

[1] https://www.malarenergi.se/om-malarenergi/framtidens-samhall... [2] https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/ost/de-lagrar-varme-i-berg...

I don’t think solar is as bad as you think it is during winter. During a stationary high pressure, you’ll have clear skies. Solar cells are more efficient when cold, and in fact in warmer countries the heat of midday can make them so inefficient that solar panels generate the most power in the morning and late afternoon.

It is bad due to the short days and low angle of the sun.

For example in Stockholm you get around 6h of daylight. Malmö (can’t really get further south than that) a bit over 7h.

Basically the northern most point of mainland US is a lot further south than the most southern place in Sweden. Thinking about how good solar panels are in the winter in Anchorage gives you some idea (which has slightly slightly shorter days then Stockholm at around 5h30min at their shortest)

6 hours of daylight, then you need to over-provision the solar so you can charge 18 hours worth of batteries in that time. This is still cost competitive with nuclear

It is way worse than “6 hours of daylight” due to the lower angle of the sun.

I don’t know the numbers for southern Sweden but for Stockholm level you get maybe 5% to 10% of the production you get in the summer.

Here in Finland we have it even worse but I know where to find the numbers.

https://www.fingrid.fi/en/electricity-market-information/sol...

Basically if we are lucky we hit 5% of a typical summer summer day for an hour maybe two. As the days are less then half as long you end up with ~1% the production vs summer.

But in reverse the panels are really good during the summer as the days are very long. This is why people bother installing solar here.

Is it really? Including the batteries?

And we're still ignoring the fact that many days you'll get barely any direct sunlight during those 6 hours of "daylight"

> and increased imports

From France, who has a shit-load of nuclear. :-)

I'm for more nuclear (a decent amount is generated in the UK), but I think your statement:

"So we need something to replace coal, which provides the grid’s base load. That thing can basically only be nuclear at this point."

doesn't take into the impact storage (both stationary and in the form of EVs) will have in the future.

> the impact storage (both stationary and in the form of EVs) will have in the future.

Have you ever heard the expression "hope is not a plan"?

I'm basing this on the huge increase in battery production.

From https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/annual-grid-s...:

* Annual grid-scale battery storage additions went from 0.76 GW in 2016 to 11.21 GW in 2022. I couldn't find the GWh figures, but this is a fast ramp up.

* "In September 2022, India released its draft National Electricity Plan, setting out ambitious targets for the development of battery energy storage, with an estimated capacity of between 51 to 84 GW installed by 2031-32."

* "In December 2022, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency...announced funding support for a total of 2 GW/4.2 GWh of grid-scale storage capacity, equipped with grid-forming inverters to provide essential system services that are currently supplied by thermal power plants."

From https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2023/executive...:

* "Automotive lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery demand increased by about 65% to 550 GWh in 2022, from about 330 GWh in 2021"

* "August 2022 and March 2023, major EV and battery makers announced cumulative post-IRA investments of at least USD 52 billion in North American EV supply chains – of which 50% is for battery manufacturing, and about 20% each for battery components and EV manufacturing."

These pages also list the challenges faced, so I'm not assuming it's a smooth road ahead. However, the trend is clear. Hopefully, technological improvements will continue and drive down costs further (I have no knowledge if this will happen).

I hope there's improvements in nuclear technology that allow for a faster, cheaper nuclear rollout and belief it has it's place.

But to return to original comment I replied that states

"we need something to replace coal...that thing can...only be nuclear at this point"

dismisses the increases in investment and production of battery storage.

No, they don't. The French grid wouldn't have made it through 2022 without a lot of imports from Germany, as too many reactors were down for maintenande. They found a fault which concerned most reactors of that type. On top of that, in the summer the cooling of the reactors is a growing worry with raising temperatures. Of course, you could decide to sterelize the rivers used for cooling. Alternatively, you have to throttle the nuclear output.