Why Solar and Wind cannot power Germany

[Adeptus Mechanicus]

I disagree with that.
I apply the NIMBY rule when it comes to what power stations should be built. And coal power stations fall flat on that aspect, whilst nuclear, solar and wind do not.

Ok, but that is not argument against what remains a viable solution for maintaining a base load given the alternatives for costing/time to commission. Ideally one would not have to burn coal at all, but reality is that it does have its place and can be done in far less environmentally impactful manner than has been done in the past.

I agree that many people in SA probably don't have an alternative (it's a no brainer to use a solar panel to heat your water for example), but I am worried that our Renewables will also do the same as it did in Germany i.e. increase the over all consumer costs.

What goes missing into these discussion is the Renewables need to be substituted when the sun doesn't shine and turning gas turbines of and on effectively makes their operations cost more expensive.

When the renewables generate a lot of energy, they tend to oversupply resulting in negative electricity prices, meaning you need to shut down the other electricity systems and then increase their prices to make for the shortfall.

The whole system is one big expensive uncessasary mess and yet its proponents refuse to acknowledge it.

Base load is a concern. One that people propose is solved not just with alternative generation means when the sun isn't out/wind isn't blowing, but with large scale industrial battery technology. Given the amount of energy and raw material that goes into that battery tech, the cost, the lifespan and ultimately the waste generated it isn't a viable, widespread solution with our current battery tech. For SA this could mean that we simply burn less coal during the day and more at night.

In terms of oversupply we do have the unique advantage of being able to supply any excess to other African countries, which is a great position to be in economically.

 

[Nicodeamus]

Ok, but that is not argument against what remains a viable solution for maintaining a base load given the alternatives for costing/time to commission. Ideally one would not have to burn coal at all, but reality is that it does have its place and can be done in far less environmentally impactful manner than has been done in the past.

It is not ideal to not have to burn coal at all, its cheap, reliable and efficient, unless you can put Nuclear reactors everywhere (of which am a big proponent), but realistically you cannot beat the cost of cheaper coal.

Why not just use cleaner coal plants?

Base load is a concern. One that people propose is solved not just with alternative generation means when the sun isn't out/wind isn't blowing, but with large scale industrial battery technology. Given the amount of energy and raw material that goes into that battery tech, the cost, the lifespan and ultimately the waste generated it isn't a viable, widespread solution with our current battery tech. For SA this could mean that we simply burn less coal during the day and more at night.

That speaks to my point, renewables are a subsidy for coal, because it will eat into the revenue of the coal suppler and then on the off-peak hours you have to jack up coal prices to increase the price of electricity.

The graph below shows what the current wind farms is doing for South Africa, notice how wind almost always leads to an increase use of gas? (why do you think BP loves Wind and Solar).

Overall the customer pays an enormous amount of power for the intermittent nature of renewables, what people don't seem to get is that you cannot just magically turn coal or gas on and off without increasing the operations cost.

In terms of oversupply we do have the unique advantage of being able to supply any excess to other African countries, which is a great position to be in economically.

Why not just supply them with coal as opposed to sending them tech that can impoverish them?

 

[itareanlnotani]

Wind and gas work well together.
Latency is the reason. It's quick to ramp up if needed.

Gas can be ramped up quickly to fill any deficit. Gas has low latency.
Pumped storage is also low latency, and can be ramped up as needed (if available).
Batteries are also low latency (mere ms for switching).

Coal doesn't ramp up well, nor does Nuclear.

Nuclear is used as "base load" as its inflexible generation.
You really don't want too much of it (baseload, nuclear), as you also need to have spare backup running in case it has issues.

Solar is predictable - sun comes up, sun goes down.
Wind is predictable too - weather forecasting can tell when it will be windy.

In SA's context, we should be adding a lot more generation - more wind and more solar. We can fairly easily add another 20-30% generation in either of those without too many changes to infrastructure.
That would help tremendously with the current issues where we're filling in the gaps with diesel in our "gas" generation. Its fast to ramp up, but the cost to run diesel is close to R3/KW.

Solar and Wind are far cheaper than that to run, even if you need to install more of both to provide sufficient generation.

You obviously have your mind set though, so not much point telling you this (again).

No-one is saying we can only use one form of power.
A mixed bag of generation is needed.

Low latency (i.e. fast rampable generation such as battery, pumped storage, gas) to fill in gaps.
Flexible generation (solar, wind)
On demand generation (coal, nuclear)
etc.

Currently we do not have sufficient generation as generation capacity has halved since the ANC stole the maintenance funds, and overpopulated Eskom with useless staff.

The private sector can provide generation for far cheaper, and it makes more sense to do that, than get Eskom to do it.

The problem is that the governing parties sticky fingers are in the REIPP generation as well, and pricing is far higher than it should be. Ramaphosa and his gang of thieves are making money from both sides there..

 

[Nicodeamus]

Wind and gas work well together.
Latency is the reason. It's quick to ramp up if needed.

Thank is my point as well, Wind is just a subsidy for gas, but why not run the electricity in gas all together and then compare the price?

Gas can be ramped up quickly to fill any deficit. Gas has low latency.
Pumped storage is also low latency, and can be ramped up as needed (if available).
Batteries are also low latency (mere ms for switching).

Pumped storage in SA is kind of limited (we are the 25th driest country in the world after all)
Batteries for large grid storage are a fantasy at this stage,
Gas prices are jacked up to compensate for the loss that the Wind eats into its revenues.

Coal doesn't ramp up well, nor does Nuclear.

Nuclear is used as "base load" as its inflexible generation.

You really don't want too much of it (baseload, nuclear), as you also need to have spare backup running in case it has issues.

Nuclear and Coal can be coupled with pumped storage (SA already does it with coal and the Swiss Benefit from the French's excess), that is how you moderate it. It isn't a massive issue,

Solar is predictable - sun comes up, sun goes down.

Solar intensity is not the same every time of the day and passing clouds can cause rapid fluctuations in the grid.

Wind is predictable too - weather forecasting can tell when it will be windy.

I am not sure if I have to laugh or cry,

Generation power runs as a function of a cubic root of the windspeed, if the wind is blowing fast then all the media will be covering you, if the wind is running low then you end up with the black spots in the graph below.


When these things don't work, well then you ramp up those gas subsidies boys.

In SA's context, we should be adding a lot more generation - more wind and more solar. We can fairly easily add another 20-30% generation in either of those without too many changes to infrastructure.
That would help tremendously with the current issues where we're filling in the gaps with diesel in our "gas" generation. Its fast to ramp up, but the cost to run diesel is close to R3/KW.

Why not just use gas only?
How much of SA's land should we destroy to have a renewable wet dream?

Solar and Wind are far cheaper than that to run, even if you need to install more of both to provide sufficient generation.

that is just not true, its highly misleading, Solar and Wind is cheaper to generate, but what the consumer eventually pays is higher, because it has to be subsidized by gas.

You obviously have your mind set though, so not much point telling you this (again).

You weren't very convincing the first time around, and you're still struggling to explain why Germany and California entered into energy poverty when they switched over to these tools.

 

[s0lar]

MyBB, where everyone is a large scale energies expert.

 

[Vorastra]

Germany's energy mix as a developed and industrialised country is quite clearly out of whack and is a result of kowtowing to the EU's progressive green agenda, which at best could be described as the well meaning, but off the mark.

Having said that, in SA's context the viability of renewables has more to do with the ability to add power to the grid to urgently meet shortfall (v.s. time take to build more coal/nuclear plants) and to dismantle the generation monopoly held by Eskom. Ideally we should be building more nuclear and cleaner coal fired stations while we get these renewables off the ground.

This is not Germany kowtowing to the EU lol. For example, Nuclear power was totally removed because the population wanted it removed, mostly due to fear mongering that the population bought into.

This was an internal German decision.

Germany kowtowing to the EU is the most ridiculous thing. They are THE most powerful economy in the EU.

They are the ones who guide a lot of these policies in the first place.

 

[AchmatK]

MyBB, where everyone is a large scale energies expert.

Can't comment on the large scale energy discussion here but for homes, SSEG should be encouraged. Just 3kw of solar panels on every house should be more than enough for day time use with a grid tied system to feed excess back to the grid.

I have nearly 8.5kw of solar and on a normal day I could push back over 25kwh to the grid during the day after my batteries are fully charged.

How much wasted solar is there currently sitting on residential rooftops sitting idle due to restrictive feed in legislation and tariffs? I know of at least 5 home systems that are sitting idle after 11am when their batteries are full. This is over 100kWh of lost electricity per day. I'm sure there are a few hundred, if not a few thousand home solar systems like these.

 

[Nicodeamus]

Can't comment on the large scale energy discussion here but for homes, SSEG should be encouraged. Just 3kw of solar panels on every house should be more than enough for day time use with a grid tied system to feed excess back to the grid.

I have nearly 8.5kw of solar and on a normal day I could push back over 25kwh to the grid during the day after my batteries are fully charged.

How much wasted solar is there currently sitting on residential rooftops sitting idle due to restrictive feed in legislation and tariffs? I know of at least 5 home systems that are sitting idle after 11am when their batteries are full. This is over 100kWh of lost power power day. I'm sure there are a few hundred, if not a few thousand home solar systems like these.

Yip and to make it clear, I have no problem if someone uses a Solar Panel on his house to heat up his water or even to substitute his business a bit, but that is not what we are talking about here.

What I am highly skeptical of is that we can have a large scale grid supply in SA without making the same mistakes as Germany did.

 

[richjdavies]

How much wasted solar is there currently sitting on residential rooftops sitting idle due to restrictive feed in legislation and tariffs? I know of at least 5 home systems that are sitting idle after 11am when their batteries are full. This is over 100kWh of lost electricity per day. I'm sure there are a few hundred, if not a few thousand home solar systems like these.

And thousands of commercial systems not generating at weekends particularly Sundays..

Done right, we should have free electricity on weekends.

As to the "energy density" in SA question. No... It is not an issue in SA. The country is empty. Go for a drive someday, even next to roads there are huge swathes of empty land to generate all the kwh needed. And it doesnt need to be next to roads!

Quick google...
SA uses 3600kwh/capita/yr.
SA has 49 people/sqkm
So you need 49 x 3600 = or lets have some space 50 x 4000 = 200,000 kwh per sq km
Highest DNI is SA in the Northern Cape is 3000kwh/sqm... Or about 5 effective hours per day. And panels produce about 200W/sqm = so on average 1kwh/sqm/day or 350kwh/year/sqm...

Now remember a sqkm = 1000 x 1000 = 1milliom square meters...
1sqkm in a hot area of SA will generate 350,000,000 kwh... Yes you read that right..

We need 200,000 we get 350,000,000, or 0.05%

In short we would only need to cover 0.05% of SA...or 1 in 2000 sqkm.
Given how cheap and empty much of SA is, I dont think that would be hard. Go searching for farmland for sale and you'll see you can hundreds of hectares very very cheaply!

 

[AchmatK]

Yip and to make it clear, I have no problem if someone uses a Solar Panel on his house to heat up his water or even to substitute his business a bit, but that is not what we are talking about here.

What I am highly skeptical of is that we can have a large scale grid supply in SA without making the same mistakes as Germany did.

Not too clued up on large scale solar or wind systems but a solar subsidy/rebate for residential users would be a better option for government to introduce than sinking money into Eskom or a large scale solar or wind farm.

How far would a R10 billion solar residential subsidy/rebate program go vs just giving Eskom R10 billion?

Only issue for government would be with the subsidy there would be very little opportunity to loot.

 

[Lupus]

And thousands of commercial systems not generating at weekends particularly Sundays..

Done right, we should have free electricity on weekends.

As to the "energy density" in SA question. No... It is not an issue in SA. The country is empty. Go for a drive someday, even next to roads there are huge swathes of empty land to generate all the kwh needed. And it doesnt need to be next to roads!

Quick google...
SA uses 3600kwh/capita/yr.
SA has 49 people/sqkm
So you need 49 x 3600 = or lets have some space 50 x 4000 = 200,000 kwh per sq km
Highest DNI is SA in the Northern Cape is 3000kwh/sqm... Or about 5 effective hours per day. And panels produce about 200W/sqm = so on average 1kwh/sqm/day or 350kwh/year/sqm...

Now remember a sqkm = 1000 x 1000 = 1milliom square meters...
1sqkm in a hot area of SA will generate 350,000,000 kwh... Yes you read that right..

We need 200,000 we get 350,000,000, or 0.05%

In short we would only need to cover 0.05% of SA...or 1 in 2000 sqkm.
Given how cheap and empty much of SA is, I dont think that would be hard. Go searching for farmland for sale and you'll see you can hundreds of hectares very very cheaply!


View attachment 958626

And what happens at 6am to 9am and 5pm to 10pm. Those are peaks that is when we hit our peaks.

 

[richjdavies]

And what happens at 6am to 9am and 5pm to 10pm. Those are peaks that is when we hit our peaks.

Diesel, like now ... Or pumped storage, like now...

The coal and nuclear stuff doesnt flex for those times either.

Grid battery is also much more viable than the Koch brothers will have you believe. Rather than regurgitating big coal /.big oil dross, go and see a real.life solar experience like MANY people on this forum. Battery + Solar is possibly cheaper than grid now (and the grid loses money left right and centre!!)

 

[Lupus]

Diesel, like now

So it makes it more expensive? Also our octgs only cover up to about 2Gw. Our thermal generation is supposed to be over 40Gw, nuclear is around 1800Mw, pumped storage about the same, import about 1200.
On average our wind generation is between 500Mw to 1Gw,while CSP is 50Mw to 300Mw supposedly its supposed to be 4Gw.

 

[Polymathic]

The green movement in Europe is quite authoritarian, it is all about virtue and power, but these policies are enormously unpopular.

That being said, some aspects of EV cars are potentially competitive, but it is screwing the environment where the materials are being mines and more so than Fossil Fuels.

There we are, seems like your antigreen agenda is based on politics rather than actual data

 

[Nicodeamus]

Not too clued up on large scale solar or wind systems but a solar subsidy/rebate for residential users would be a better option for government to introduce than sinking money into Eskom or a large scale solar or wind farm.

How far would a R10 billion solar residential subsidy/rebate program go vs just giving Eskom R10 billion?

Only issue for government would be with the subsidy there would be very little opportunity to loot.

In a first world country, Eskom would be better of with the R10 billion..

but this is the ANC so, you might have a point.

The problem with paying consumers for their generation is that eventually it is eating into the revenue of the coal suppler and therefore they have to hike up prices later. I have seen mixed models that suggest that it can help somewhat, so my position on it is by no means fixed,

other people have suggested that we separate the house grid from the industrial grid for example,

 

[Nicodeamus]

There we are, seems like your antigreen agenda is based on politics rather than actual data

no it's based on fact and I am worried when a country like SA adopts Germany's dogma, did you read the document that I posted about increasing Energy poverty in Germany?

I am not anti green, I am anti stupidity and increasing poverty and the reason that I might seem a bit ideological is that I work in the sector and many people in the German Industry sector is concerned about the Energiewende did to their country.

 

[Polymathic]

This should add more context

 

[Nicodeamus]

This should add more context

Lots of cables to be stolen to start with and long distance to the population centers.

but that does prove the energy density issue, how many Square kilometers of land do you need to replace Koeberg for example? and then on top of it, how much gas/diesel do you need for a backup?

I would like to see feedback from the studies that Eskom piloted and currently what I am seeing is a repetition of California and Germany.

 

[Moto Guzzi]

This video explains that for Germany to be entirely powered by Solar and Wind, you need to use around 20% of the landmass of Spain.


I know that a lot of people here think that Renewables have been getting cheaper, but it is simply false,

Germany has some of the world's most expensive energy prices, because they use these technologies, they aren't environmentally friends and they have created large scales of Energy Poverty.

You know long time ago it was decided electricity is important for growth and it should be cheap as possible, this is long term, this is not a get rich scheme to be quickly for a few. It was also seen that the cheapest way was centralisation of the power equipment per area, province, state, etc within a country. The less types of the same, the easier parts availablity and cheaper this is important as well as the better experienced knowledge gathered over years, easier to maintain, cheaper to maintain, cheaper to do preventative maintanance.
One should not confuse centralised management(Everything control from one centre per country, this could lead to dipletion of experience on the ground in provences/states over time), with centralised placing of power sources.

Now Europe(EU) had this bright idea of scattered power sources all over the place, subsidised one or other way initially which rely on Wind and Sunlight. Now this is decentralisation of power equipment scattered all over the place which will lead to Physical Polution as time marches on.
These equipment is also subjectable to Updates, Upgrades, and replacements to keep up with 'ever changing stanards from Europe' to be set, set , and set again and again, keeping changes going. Now this experiment cannot possibly ending up being cheap,I just cannot see that.
Ownership:Now the next thing I see coming overr the years, are the dendence of society on these(Forced), and the change of ownership as owners realise its time to let go. These erections also happened in relative short timespan in each country, and as it going to start failing, that timespan is going to be important as well, its going to get busy. This this is not going to end well. There is a place for these in individual seperate cases, but in my opinion not as the EU forsee it going for the world.

There is already science going for back to centralised equipment in the for of smaller safer cheaper nuclear type power supplies. If they struck luck here within next 10-15 year, the above scenario is going to get interesting quickly with losses, liquadations etc, leading to even more higher taxes as thing bind up.

The thing is no country can afford to play around with power schemes left right and centre. Its a basic resource, and if handled incorrectly making it expensive(Relativity game), it will bind up and load up the monetary systems at the resource base of it, its in your Water, its in your Food, its in your Fuel, Its basic in your House, eventually bancrupting the society.

 

[Polymathic]

Lots of cables to be stolen to start with and long distance to the population centers.

but that does prove the energy density issue, how many Square kilometers of land do you need to replace Koeberg for example? and then on top of it, how much gas/diesel do you need for a backup?

I would like to see feedback from the studies that Eskom piloted and currently what I am seeing is a repetition of California and Germany.

Shifting the goalposts are we?