Earlier quoted context omitted.
We don't need seasonal storage. The sun still shines in the winter, unless you're in the Arctic circle. We can use over building, production diversity, interconnection and short term storage instead. Or just use natgas peakers for the last 1% and call a 99% solution good enough. If we had reasonably priced seasonal storage we'd use it, but we don't need it.
In winter cloudy conditions solar PV produces 10-15% power. Assuming some hydro storage, that's 4x overbuild. Not cost effective. Europe all gets winter at the same time. If you've got a cold snap for three weeks with low wind, the only plan is reliance on massive fossil fuel backup. The cost of keeping that capacity for only using a week a year isn't priced into solar either. The CO2-intensity of electricity generat…
Keeping gas power plants around for backup power isn’t all that expensive since fuel accounts for two thirds of their cost of generation.
Offshore wind is far more expensive than onshore wind and solar but even so costs about a third of new nuclear power, with strike prices in the UK of £37/MWh vs £106/MWh for Hinckley Point C. Maybe keeping gas backup adds another £15/MWh to that but it still works out at half the cost of nuclear.
By building more France will probably get nuclear costs down some, but even so will struggle to be competitive with renewables and backup.
> But yeah Germany's approach is really working!
Germany’s approach of keeping coal plants around while closing existing nuclear is extremely dumb.