Honestly surprised Iceland doesn't rely more on geothermal, the entire country is a volcano! I had expected a 70-30 split in the other direction
Seven countries now generate nearly all their electricity from renewables (2024)
111–120 of 512 posts
Re: Seven countries now generate nearly all their electricity from renewables (2024)
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tbf, solar has gotten so much more effective/cost efficient in the last 12-24 months that it's beating pretty much everything aside from hydro in the cost efficiency department at this point - including (most of) northern Europe and Canada. Most data you find will be using data that's massively out of date and be off by at least 2x though... I had another facepalm moment when I read about EU planning to go nuclear ag…
Can batteries store enough energy for dunkelflaute in winter? I don't think it's possible with the current technology.
Batteries can store as much energy as you are willing to buy.
Re: Seven countries now generate nearly all their electricity from renewables (2024)
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
Having a continent-wide draught (or cold winter or other weather effect) is rather common though. Just a few years back Europe had a massive issue where draught caused both drop of hydro production and cooling for French nukes, causing energy prices to spike.
No. Cooling french nukes was never a problem. In that period France was net exporting 14GW. Cooling in general isn't a problem - some modulation is done just to save fish. Maybe you are confusing with 2022 when half of french fleet was shut down to check for potential pipe cracks/corrosion esp in one of their reactor designs due to poor geometry. But that's unrelated to droughts
That said, cooling does have an effect on ecosystems. Not the worst energy plant impact on that regard, but still not like it's all environmental friendly.
And of course, there is the what to do with the waste dilemma. And at least with current French park, there is a dependence on the rarer kind of uranium.
Re: Seven countries now generate nearly all their electricity from renewables (2024)
#114Pushback against the outliers of small + blessed with hydro and geothermal is overshadowing real wins: - California: 83% renewable, dominated by solar - Spain: 73%, dominated by solar & wind - Portugal: 90%, dominated by wind & solar - The Netherlands: 86%, dominated by solar & wind - Great Britain: 71%, dominated by wind & solar There's real momentum happening.
> California: 83% renewable, dominated by solar California's grid is pretty decently balanced. Solar isn't even close to 50% - so saying that it "dominates" is pretty misleading. It's like ~30% solar, ~12% hydro, ~10% wind, ~10% nuclear, all other renewables ~8% (~70% renewable, including nuclear) -> ~30% fossil fuels. Are you maybe only counting domestic production and not total consumption? Or are you looking at th…
AIUI, there has been excess solar at peak, but batteries have growing very fast. That might have caused a big change even in a year.
Re: Seven countries now generate nearly all their electricity from renewables (2024)
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or just use nuclear as base load, and battery storage as much as you can.
The economics of new nuclear plants don't make sense. They take too long to build and cost too much. By the time a new plant is ready, alternate sources (likely solar + battery and long-distance HVDC) will have eaten its lunch.
How much of this is unnecessary regulatory burden, though? There probably is some margin of improvement over what the anti-nuclear lobbyists have imposed.
Re: Seven countries now generate nearly all their electricity from renewables (2024)
#116> Albania, Bhutan, Nepal, Paraguay, Iceland, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo produced more than 99.7 per cent of the electricity they consumed using geothermal, hydro, solar or wind power. Let's head to electricitymaps.com ! Albania ( https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/AL/live/fifteen_min... ) - On 2026-04-12 16:45 GMT+2, 22,67% of electricity consumed by Albania is imported from Greece, which gen…
>So, the lessons for all other countries in the world is pretty clear: grow yourselves some mountains, dig yourselves a big river, and dam, baby, dam !! It is a relief that Environmentalists have decided that hydro counts as "renewable" energy! When I was in school, hydro was considered really bad for the environment, and projects like the Hoover dam and Yangzie River dam were "not helping"
They certainly can be disastrous in ecological terms, and will disrupt all biotopes along the concerned water flows.
But it's extremely renewable none the less.
Re: Seven countries now generate nearly all their electricity from renewables (2024)
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
With modern tech, these 100% renewable electricity countries have effectively overshot. Many other countries would be better off getting to 85% and then shifting to focusing more on EV and heat pump uptake to get the best bang per buck.
Quite a few developed countries have privatized their electrical grids. The effects - predictable - were rent seeking behavior without the necessary investments to remain future proof. This is now catching up with us in a big way, the electrification is going to lag behind considerably on account of this. I wrote about that in 2016, https://jacquesmattheij.com/the-problem-with-evs/ , and even though the situation has…
I think we're going to see a lot of grid defection, and not just from little consumers. Corporations won't wait for grid connections and will roll their own microgrids.
Re: Seven countries now generate nearly all their electricity from renewables (2024)
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tbf, solar has gotten so much more effective/cost efficient in the last 12-24 months that it's beating pretty much everything aside from hydro in the cost efficiency department at this point - including (most of) northern Europe and Canada. Most data you find will be using data that's massively out of date and be off by at least 2x though... I had another facepalm moment when I read about EU planning to go nuclear ag…
Can batteries store enough energy for dunkelflaute in winter? I don't think it's possible with the current technology.
I mean, who cares? Fire up the gas plants in the one week a year you have weather anomalies. We’d still be 90+% carbon free which would be incredible. The last gap can be solved at a later point as technology evolves
Re: Seven countries now generate nearly all their electricity from renewables (2024)
#119What a great beacon of hope to consider that we are closer than we thought in the clean energy rollout ! I read somewhere, not sure though how it is assessed/how valid it is, that last year 50% world-wide came already from clean power, with countries like the UK around 50% in the middle and others like Spain far ahead.
Yeah UK's currently going through the biggest rollout of renewable energy ever, the pace is insanely high. Theres new rules to allow plug in solar coming into effect too with kits already available for renters and such.
Re: Seven countries now generate nearly all their electricity from renewables (2024)
#120> Albania, Bhutan, Nepal, Paraguay, Iceland, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo produced more than 99.7 per cent of the electricity they consumed using geothermal, hydro, solar or wind power. Let's head to electricitymaps.com ! Albania ( https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/AL/live/fifteen_min... ) - On 2026-04-12 16:45 GMT+2, 22,67% of electricity consumed by Albania is imported from Greece, which gen…
Hydro electricity is also one of the most dangerous forms of energy production:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure
(This is the worst disaster, but could put Chernobyl to shame?)
Full list here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hydroelectric_power_st...