Thread by @mac_puck

Any fule kno "renewables aren't reliable"; "are expensive"; "are difficult to integrate into grids"

The problem is the fools never, EVER, bother to check the facts. So this thread is for all you fools out there, to save you 30 seconds googling.

Continued...

1. Reliability
University of Pennsylvania have done some good data digging: repository.upenn.edu/psr/vol1/iss8/…

They looked at SAIDI - average interruption duration ( minutes) of States in US and countries in EU.

Higher %ge renewable = longer SAIDI, right? WRONG.
Quite the opposite.

And the German switch to renewables the "Energiewand" must have led to an increased SAIDI, yes? NO.

2. More expensive.
"Electricity is more expensive in Germany than it is in the US. Germany has a higher percentage renewables. Ergo renewables are the reason."

Nope. You cannot compare EU to US because Natural Gas is consistently nearly twice as expensive in the EU
Instead....

You need to look at renewables %ge vs cost between different US states and then, on a different graph, repeat the exercise for EU countries.

Slight *reduction* in price with increasing %ge renewables. (very weak correlation though: wide scatter)

A variation on the theme of Electricity in the EU is more expensive is: "Denmark has the highest percentage wind energy in the EU and the highest Electricity prices"
Nope: it's all down to taxation - which goes into the general pot in Denmark NOT renewables subsidies.

3. Grid Integration.
There are 3 elements to this myth (grains of truth actually, but ancient grains):
a) Power not where you want it. An HVDC supergrid from Iceland to Egypt would virtually eliminate this issue.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperSmar…

supergrid-institute.com/en/2020/02/05/…

b) Power not when you want it. Typically the daytime maximum demand is 50% more that the night-time minimum. Wind Turbine output doesn't necessarily match this. However, the switch from ICE cars to EV's offers the opportunity to shift the demand curve with night-time charging.

And the switch from gas-fired boilers to electrical heat pumps creates a huge, low-cost, buffer for load shifting: run the heat-pumps at night and store the heat for the next day.

c) Grid resilience / frequency nadir

This can occur with a lot of wind turbines running and a sudden failure in part of the grid.
Professor Zhang at Birmingham University has just published a really clever solution that turns turbines into a strength rather than a weakness in this situation.

birmingham.ac.uk/news/latest/20…

And so, twitter fules, please don't "@" me with opinions. Unless you have a link to some actual data, or a proper study by a respected university, or institute, just save your opinions for the other fools down the pub.