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Portugal just ran on 100% renewables for six days in a row

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Re: Portugal just ran on 100% renewables for six days in a row

#21

Post by jagger27 »

deburo wrote: post #13
defrost wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes - the plants are on standby, not consuming much beyond a "pilot light" worth of natural gas and not putting energy into the national grid. This is quite different to coal fired power generation which doesn't have low energy standby mode with rapid online to full generation ramping up in the manner of gas fired turbines. During the six day period the national grid was supplied only with energy from renewable sourc…

At what cost?

Good question! At what cost do the externalities of fossil fuels come? What is the cost of inaction?

What are you trying to achieve with this banal line of questioning?

Re: Portugal just ran on 100% renewables for six days in a row

#23

Post by defrost »

deburo wrote: post #13
defrost wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes - the plants are on standby, not consuming much beyond a "pilot light" worth of natural gas and not putting energy into the national grid. This is quite different to coal fired power generation which doesn't have low energy standby mode with rapid online to full generation ramping up in the manner of gas fired turbines. During the six day period the national grid was supplied only with energy from renewable sourc…

At what cost?

At the cost of building enough solar and wind farms to supply the nation I would guess, with additional costs to upgrade the distribution infrastructure for smarter load balancing, etc.

It's quite possible Portugal has put out a white paper on their transition toward renewable energy that you can find with some hunting about.

Wikipedia has a rough overview that'll provide some points to drill down further into if you're interested in the per capita comparative costings of a hybrid national power scheme.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Portugal

Re: Portugal just ran on 100% renewables for six days in a row

#24

Post by barney54 »

pmoleri wrote: post #14
melling wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People like these small wins. Population of Portugal is 10.5 million people. We have such a long way to go. Global fossil fuel will hopefully peak by the end of the decade. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/world-oil-gas-coal-d...

> People like these small wins. And for good reason, it proves wrong the mainstream thinking that this is impossible. Quite a few countries already run the full year over 90% renewable[1] and we still neglect it with all kind of excuses. [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_renewab...

We still neglect what? There is incredible pressure to build renewables.

Re: Portugal just ran on 100% renewables for six days in a row

#25

Post by reaperman »

deburo wrote: post #13
defrost wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes - the plants are on standby, not consuming much beyond a "pilot light" worth of natural gas and not putting energy into the national grid. This is quite different to coal fired power generation which doesn't have low energy standby mode with rapid online to full generation ramping up in the manner of gas fired turbines. During the six day period the national grid was supplied only with energy from renewable sourc…

At what cost?

On one hand, solar and wind are very cheap - significantly cheaper than fossil fuels. On the other hand, you still also need either a significant amount of fossil fuel capacity or energy storage available to kick in during hours when solar and wind can't provide as much production. So instead of building enough fossil fuel production for 110% of your peak need, you might lower that to 50% and then still also build 110% of your need in renewable energy -- so you'd be over-capitalized at a total installed capacity of fossil fuels + renewables at about 160% of peak need.

So, marginal cost is lower. Total capital outlay might be higher. Portugal provides energy at an average of 9.7¢ / kWh which presumably is high enough to pay back all the capital costs in addition to the marginal costs. Mississippi only has 1% renewables and provides electricity at 11.55¢ / kWh.

So it would appear at a very rough glance that the answer to "At what cost?" is..."Negative cost".

Re: Portugal just ran on 100% renewables for six days in a row

#26

Post by simonhorlick »

Note that since about 2021 renewables have overtaken fossil-based sources of energy on price. New installations of utility scale wind and solar PV are now cheaper than their alternatives. Not to mention protection from price fluctuations in the cost of fuels needed to power fossil fuel plants.

Re: Portugal just ran on 100% renewables for six days in a row

#27

Post by Jedd »

dukeofdoom wrote: post #8

Huge waves in Portugal, when I visited. I'm guessing it's the wind coming off the Atlantic Ocean is strong and steady. And somewhat not common. Where I live, for most of the Winter the sky is overcast with clouds. So that somewhat limits solar panels. But I'm sure California is great place for them.

Any story like this always summons up people eager to cry 'But where I am is an exception'.

They rarely say where they actually are.

The thing that most countries - a convenient non-geo construct only because most countries have a national grid - who claim to be exceptional have in common, is a firm commitment to the idea that they are exceptional. I am reminded of that onion headline that ends 'says only nation where this regularly happens'.

I concede that it's possible you happen to live somewhere that is out of reach of a grid that in turn has potential feeds from hydro (pumped or otherwise), solar pvc, solar thermal, geothermal, tidal, wind, and so on.

But I doubt that's likely to be the case.

(That you mention California makes me assume you're somewhere in the USA.)

Re: Portugal just ran on 100% renewables for six days in a row

#28

Post by simonhorlick »

pmoleri wrote: post #16
dukeofdoom wrote: post #8

Huge waves in Portugal, when I visited. I'm guessing it's the wind coming off the Atlantic Ocean is strong and steady. And somewhat not common. Where I live, for most of the Winter the sky is overcast with clouds. So that somewhat limits solar panels. But I'm sure California is great place for them.

Tidal, waves, hydro, wind, solar, geothermal, biomass. Many options to choose from, it just takes political will.

Did you know that tidal energy is actually not renewable? Harvesting tidal energy slightly slows the rotation of the planet over time. Here's a quote from the relevant paper by Liu:

> Based on the average pace of world energy consumption over the last 50 years, if we were to extract the rotational energy just to supply 1% of the world's energy consumption, the rotation of the Earth would lock to the Moon in about 1000 years.

Re: Portugal just ran on 100% renewables for six days in a row

#29

Post by flextheruler »

helloooooooo wrote: post #15
gustavus wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course if they had a nuclear base they wouldn't even need the natural gas plants.

How would they regulate fluctuations in demand? Nuclear can’t do that. You need storage, or a reasonably scalable generation medium. Nuclear as a base load is moot

Didn’t Germany just put its nuclear power plants on standby instead of shutting them down last year

Re: Portugal just ran on 100% renewables for six days in a row

#30

Post by [deleted] »

gustavus wrote: post #11
wongarsu wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as the gas plants aren't burning any natural gas, I would say that's fair. Standing by to supplement power on load spikes is one of the primary roles of gas plants (together with pumped hydro), and that they didn't need to supply any electricity over those six days is noteworthy. From a climate standpoint there also isn't much wrong with having generating capacity in fossil fuels, what matters is how many gre…

Of course if they had a nuclear base they wouldn't even need the natural gas plants.

[deleted]
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