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Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

electrek.co

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Re: Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

#131

Post by tootie »

dimitrios1 wrote: post #79
Aurornis wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know how you can be against solar unless you’ve been given some uninformed talking points. Are they against solar subsidies or other policy provisions? It’s hard to understand someone who is against passive energy collection.

I am against it for one reason only, but it's very solvable, IMO, and it's the amount of space they take up. I live next to 200+ acres of solar farms. A part of me cries a little when I see so much beautiful land and trees cut down and these lifeless panels taking up so much space. We have so many buildings, and structures already (think parking decks, tops of apartments, homes, offices, even parking lots) that we co…

Sure but compare that to the amount of land used for oil and gas extraction. The difference is that mines and drills can only go where there's stuff to extract and solar panels can go anywhere. Including near residential areas. That's also due to the fact that they are so environmentally neutral.

Re: Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

#132

Post by nonethewiser »

Is it possible to increase the grid by add solar and wind and NOT adding an on-demand backup source (gas, etc.) WITHOUT ADDING RISK?

What I mean is say the grid demands 100. The grid is powered entirely by coal. You give it 120 for 20% redundancy. This is extremely reliable.

The grid demand is now 120. You now need 144 for 20% redundancy. You dont want to use coal. So you add solar and batteries.

Batteries are great because they normalize the volatility of solar generation over time, but they do not make solar truly on demand. So if you add 24 solar to the 120 coal you are increasing the risk on the grid. What often happens is you add 24 solar but you have 24 coal as a backup. Ideally the real-world use will be solar but in case of downtime your grid will not fail.

Re: Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

#133

Post by ZeroGravitas »

erelong wrote: post #9

I know some people who are adamantly against solar and wind (personally I like both but I can see some shortcomings - for example I have heard that ai datacenters are using gas at times because of its flexibility) So what are some of the best talking points to "sell" solar and wind to the unconvinced? Or will they just adopt it once it's seen everywhere?

In Australia conservatives with solar on their own roof continue to complain about renewables generally. It's just a weird cultural thing for some people.

Re: Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

#134

Post by 8note »

Aurornis wrote: post #46
erelong wrote: post #9

I know some people who are adamantly against solar and wind (personally I like both but I can see some shortcomings - for example I have heard that ai datacenters are using gas at times because of its flexibility) So what are some of the best talking points to "sell" solar and wind to the unconvinced? Or will they just adopt it once it's seen everywhere?

I don’t know how you can be against solar unless you’ve been given some uninformed talking points. Are they against solar subsidies or other policy provisions? It’s hard to understand someone who is against passive energy collection.

solar heating isnt as passive, and requires that the fluid keeps flowing, and all thr plumbing maintenance that goes with that.

a lot of opinions were made about solar when solar heating was the primary approach, vs today's chinese PVs

Re: Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

#135

Post by root-parent »

erelong wrote: post #9

I know some people who are adamantly against solar and wind (personally I like both but I can see some shortcomings - for example I have heard that ai datacenters are using gas at times because of its flexibility) So what are some of the best talking points to "sell" solar and wind to the unconvinced? Or will they just adopt it once it's seen everywhere?

>> I know some people who are adamantly against solar and wind

Sounds like they have more serious issues going on there... :-)

Re: Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

#136

Post by marcosdumay »

erelong wrote: post #9

I know some people who are adamantly against solar and wind (personally I like both but I can see some shortcomings - for example I have heard that ai datacenters are using gas at times because of its flexibility) So what are some of the best talking points to "sell" solar and wind to the unconvinced? Or will they just adopt it once it's seen everywhere?

https://xkcd.com/3226/

PV is getting on the range where it pays for itself in 3 or 4 years. If somebody is just "against it", well, I have to agree with the sibling that said you can't reason with that person.

Re: Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

#137

Post by jl6 »

tialaramex wrote: post #110
mtmickush wrote: post #74

This is exciting news but the term power here should really be replaced with electricity which is clarified early on in the article. Electricity only accounts for roughly 20-25% of all power / energy used and the vast majority of the remaining 75% is fueled by gas (cars, ships, heating, construction, ect.)

This is true but also distorting because it's not an Apples-to-Apples comparison. Electricity is not only much more flexible it's also much more efficient when it's an option. The internal combustion engine is not a very efficient way to convert fuel into movement, its key benefit was that it is compact enough to put inside the vehicle itself. A steam train was more efficient, and steam boats were more efficient stil…

All true, but also remember that in a zero-fossil world the supply chain for solar/wind also needs to be decarbonized, which involves things like making green steel, which is not such a favorable efficiency story (the way to overcome it is simply to generate massive amounts of electricity cheap enough that you can eat the inefficiency).

Re: Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

#138

Post by 8note »

dimitrios1 wrote: post #79
Aurornis wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know how you can be against solar unless you’ve been given some uninformed talking points. Are they against solar subsidies or other policy provisions? It’s hard to understand someone who is against passive energy collection.

I am against it for one reason only, but it's very solvable, IMO, and it's the amount of space they take up. I live next to 200+ acres of solar farms. A part of me cries a little when I see so much beautiful land and trees cut down and these lifeless panels taking up so much space. We have so many buildings, and structures already (think parking decks, tops of apartments, homes, offices, even parking lots) that we co…

on that easy fix - the land under solar panels can still be used for farming or ranching

Re: Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

#139

Post by toomuchtodo »

nonethewiser wrote: post #132

Is it possible to increase the grid by add solar and wind and NOT adding an on-demand backup source (gas, etc.) WITHOUT ADDING RISK? What I mean is say the grid demands 100. The grid is powered entirely by coal. You give it 120 for 20% redundancy. This is extremely reliable. The grid demand is now 120. You now need 144 for 20% redundancy. You dont want to use coal. So you add solar and batteries. Batteries are great…

Take a look at California. Their grid is routinely, daily, generating ~84% of its power from renewables [1] (with ~25GW of existing solar PV capacity, ~6GW of wind, and ~6GW of hydro). They are adding batteries rapidly [2] (with a goal of 52GW by 2045; they are 33% of the way there). They still have ~32GW of fossil gas generation capacity, but it is rarely used constantly at full capacity. They have plans for another ~21GW of solar PV on land that can no longer be farmed due to water shortages [3] [4] (enabling families to keep their land with long term lease payments).

Not everywhere is California, but solar and batteries are the cheapest form of generation in 90%+ of the world [5]. You simply keep building more solar collection, storage, transmission, etc. to orchestrate collecting this "fusion at a distance" and distributing it to loads. The sun rises every day, and will for our lifetimes. We continue to deploy batteries and solar at manufacturing capacity, while continuing to increase manufacturing capacity year over year. You fill any gaps with fossil generation until there are no longer any gaps to fill [6].

Tangentially, Australia is currently testing a battery with a 8 hour discharge capability [7] ("Long-Duration Energy Storage (LDES)"), as they are rapidly preparing for a network/team of battery storage facilities to assume grid health responsibility from their retiring thermal coal generators [8]. Certainly there is much work ahead in understanding and developing longer duration energy storage systems.

[1] https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/US-CAL-CISO/live/fi...

[2] https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/califo...

[3] 21GW of Solar for California Land That Can No Longer Be Used for Agriculture - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46488648 - January 2026

[4] https://valleycleaninfrastructureplan.com/

[5] Solar electricity every hour of every day is here and it changes everything - https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/solar-electricity-e... - June 21st, 2025

[6] Renewables reached nearly 50% of global electricity capacity last year - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47615756 - April 2026 (149 comments)

[7] https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/articles/australias-first...

[8] https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/files/initiatives/engineerin...

(think in systems)

Re: Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

#140

Post by ravedave5 »

_whiteCaps_ wrote: post #96

I just upgraded the solar system at my family's off-grid cabin. It's incredible how much battery technology has improved over the last 10 years. Everyone is getting tired of me checking the panel to see how many watts we're bringing in. Next project, install a shunt and get a Raspberry Pi talking to it over USB. And then I'll be able to build a Grafana dashboard. :)

I have a similar project, I'm so overpaneled I bought an electric heater so I could actually see how many watts I brought in during a nice summer day. The victron UIs have an excellent graph history.
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