For the first time in more than 150 years, Alberta's electricity is coal free

Post by energy123 » Mon, Jul 08, 2024, 3:49 PM UTC

Teever wrote: post #50

toomuchtodo wrote: post #30

ElectricityMaps zone CA-AB: https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/CA-AB?wind=false&solar=... Total fossil gas generation capacity is ~12.7GW. Seems straightforward to replace with solar, wind, batteries, and interconnects with neighboring grids. Wind and Solar Potential resource: https://www.pembina.org/pub/wind-solar-alberta

It seems straightforward but it isn't. Alberta is about twice the size of Germany, 50% larger than California and has a meager population of 4.3 million spread out across that area.With a latitude that ranges from 48' to 60' and a wide variety of geography there's a range of availability in solar and wind. Alberta politics is also a factor. Alberta is a complete aberration in North American democracy in that more or…

Post by SketchySeaBeast » Mon, Jul 08, 2024, 3:52 PM UTC

jfim wrote: post #49

bryanlarsen wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alberta isn't very cloudy in the wintertime, the reduced insolation is mostly due to lower angles and shorter days. AFAICT, winter sunshine is more than a third of summer sunshine in Alberta. In Europe the number is often 10%. It's cheaper to size production for winter sunshine than to build a lot of storage. AKA it's cheaper to put down 3X as many panels than to build seasonal storage. Alberta doesn't lack for hills…

> Alberta doesn't lack for hills, which is what's needed to build pumped storage which is what's cheapest for seasonal storage. From what I understand, BC has a lot of hydro dams. I wonder if there is a way to use them for pumped storage.

Post by SketchySeaBeast » Mon, Jul 08, 2024, 3:57 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #47

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why I didn't specify it needed to be seasonal, but it does need to be stored, as a lot of that load isn't shifting. At 7pm on a -35 day there is zero solar generation, but every furnace in the province is on and people are doing their evening cooking and cleaning.

You're right, you said "as much storage as production". That's actually a very tiny amount of storage. Generally a "24hr" solar plant for California usage patterns has about 4-6Wh of storage and about 1W of discharge per watt of solar plant. Alberta will likely need ~2X that for daily load shifting during the winter. Seasonal storage would require a couple of orders of magnitude more.

Post by mywittyname » Mon, Jul 08, 2024, 3:58 PM UTC

_aavaa_ wrote: post #44

lbrito wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a high share on Alberta, but definitively not close to "the entire economy" According to the most recent Statistics Canada's National Economic Accounts, the Mining and Oil and Gas Extraction industry accounted for approximately 26% of Alberta's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2020, an increase from 23.3% in 2010.

However that 23.3% undersells its importance. Primary industries like mining, oil and gas extraction have large knock on effects on the rest of the economy. Many of the retail and service companies would go out of business if the fossil fuel industry were to disappear overnight.

Post by neonate » Mon, Jul 08, 2024, 4:01 PM UTC