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A pretty visualisation of the European power grid (2022)

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Re: A pretty visualisation of the European power grid (2022)

#111

Post by fzeindl »

A specialty in austria (in the middle of the map) is pumped-storage hydroelectricity. Since there are so many mountains and valleys, lakes are used as giant batteries. Water can be pumped up in times of excessive supply and released to produce energy when there's higher demand.

This keeps the power lines stable and compensates for factors like lack of wind in wind power stations, startup/shutdown times of thermal power plants, differing consumption patterns because of colder weather etc.

Re: A pretty visualisation of the European power grid (2022)

#112

Post by RandomThoughts3 »

immibis wrote: post #109
RandomThoughts3 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Counting only electricity production when you are talking about CO2 emissions is dishonest. Cars also emit CO2.

That doesn’t make sense. The goal is decarbonation, not arbitrary account. The sole reason to mix together things that don’t go together is making bad faith arguments like in this case.

Re: A pretty visualisation of the European power grid (2022)

#113

Post by teo_zero »

xandrius wrote: post #102
coreyp_1 wrote: post #21

I get irrationally angry when a map is skewed in this way and there is no way to change it. The more you zoom in, the worse the distortion is made to be. Even zooming all the way out does not eliminate the angular distortion. This took actual effort on some programmer's part! Who ever thought that this is a good idea?!? It's like those navigational mini maps (car or computer game) that won't keep north pointing up...…

Angry or slightly annoyed? Because if angry is the right emotion then there might be some other underlying causes and this is just a trigger for them.

> if angry is the right emotion

Of course it's not, haven’t you noticed they said "irrationally"?

Re: A pretty visualisation of the European power grid (2022)

#114

Post by unfixed »

post-it wrote: post #16

Something I've wondered for a while: if the whole continent is on a synchronized grid, how can countries tell to or from whom they're exporting and importing electricity. I can see how they can measure their total imports or exports by comparing generation to consumption, but how do they figure out which neighbour they're getting electricity from / sending it to?

Each country works as a free market (inside a rails defined by their national agencies), where energy providers aim to offer a price low enough to be among the cheapest to cover the energy consumption forecast.

For those countries connected, those providers can participate in other markets. France power plants can sell energy to Spain, but not to Portugal.

The trick here is that the price each opperator's offer is somewhat calculated based on opportunity cost. Wind turbines has no opportunity cost, since not selling the energy generated from the wind now does not make them able to sell it in the future (that energy can not be stored at industrial level). Then, all the accepted offers for a given forecast are paid at the price of the most expensive offer among them.

Re: A pretty visualisation of the European power grid (2022)

#115

Post by vr46 »

skagenpilot wrote: post #7

When looking at France, at a zoom level where one can see the whole country, all the green dots are located next to nuclear power plants. It's a good reminder that the french grid is mostly powered by nuclear. It'd be nice to see the same map over summer to see if the different electric mix then gives birth to a different map.

I was hoping to see a giant red line going from France directly into CERN, as Geneva (last I heard) was unable to supply them the power they needed.

Re: A pretty visualisation of the European power grid (2022)

#116

Post by globular-toast »

RandomThoughts3 wrote: post #92
fsh wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most countries use way more primary energy for heating and transportation than for electricity generation. It would be disingenuous not to include this.

It’s fairly disingenuous to mix both actually when they don’t mingle. Especially when you consider that both heating and transportation are going in the direction of using more electricity which is actually favorable to the French choice.

Energy is energy. Why make a special category for heating and transport?

Re: A pretty visualisation of the European power grid (2022)

#117

Post by szszrk »

xandrius wrote: post #102
coreyp_1 wrote: post #21

I get irrationally angry when a map is skewed in this way and there is no way to change it. The more you zoom in, the worse the distortion is made to be. Even zooming all the way out does not eliminate the angular distortion. This took actual effort on some programmer's part! Who ever thought that this is a good idea?!? It's like those navigational mini maps (car or computer game) that won't keep north pointing up...…

Angry or slightly annoyed? Because if angry is the right emotion then there might be some other underlying causes and this is just a trigger for them.

That is "slightly" nitpicking, isn't it?

On a bit slower computer it took me a few minutes to locate my capital - found some tiny cities around it, yet still had no idea what direction I am looking at. Lack of major city names (until zoomed far) or that grey map (especially combined with screen "night shift" mode) style didn't help as well. Or the lack of a few important power plants around me.

At least major power lines were there - that was actually very cool. The whole thing is great, but readability is just bad.

Re: A pretty visualisation of the European power grid (2022)

#118

Post by Timwi »

socksy wrote: post #22
coreyp_1 wrote: post #21

I get irrationally angry when a map is skewed in this way and there is no way to change it. The more you zoom in, the worse the distortion is made to be. Even zooming all the way out does not eliminate the angular distortion. This took actual effort on some programmer's part! Who ever thought that this is a good idea?!? It's like those navigational mini maps (car or computer game) that won't keep north pointing up...…

Also got annoyed by this, but worked out pretty quickly that if you hold down right click and drag then you can change the angle

There is no right-click on phones.

Re: A pretty visualisation of the European power grid (2022)

#119

Post by draven »

layer8 wrote: post #106
insane_dreamer wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if it wasn't for France having primarily used nuclear power decades ago, Europe as a whole would be in a much much worse state when it comes to CO2 emissions. That makes it abundantly clear that nuclear needs to be a part of the mix when it comes to non-emission generating energy production.

Germany’s net power grid imports are less than 5% (17% imports vs. 12.5% exports in 24H1), despite having no active nuclear power plants anymore. Around 60% of their domestically generated power currently comes from renewables (up 8% from last year). I don’t think it’s abundantly clear.

CO2 equiv from https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/24h:

France: 40g/kWh Germany 557g/kWh

If the goal is decarbonation, using wind+solar is alright (renewables are a bigger part of the mix in Germany) but burning gas and lignite when there's no sun or wind is not.

Re: A pretty visualisation of the European power grid (2022)

#120

Post by ZeroGravitas »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #70
briandear wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any data on how much France has slowed the decrease of global temperatures? Is there a “nuclear power to degrees saved” converter?

someone could calculate the savings in CO2 emissions over all the power generated by nuclear energy each year in France, since the power stations were built, vs coal plants (which would have been the alternative at the time)

They replaced oil burning plants in France, when the global oil supply got disrupted.

If France had coal to burn they wouldn't have been burning oil in the first place.

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