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mono442 4 days ago

Solar and wind are intermittent. Grid scale energy storage is not even a thing yet.

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defrost 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

https://reneweconomy.com.au/big-battery-storage-map-of-austr...

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mono442 4 days ago | parent [-]

That's not much. Projects listed there can't store energy for winter needs.

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pydry 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

Neither could French nuclear plants when they were turned off for weeks at a time for emergency maintenance.

So, France fired up the gas.

5x cheaper electricity, on the other hand, makes power-to-gas economic, which can smooth out seasonal variations in a carbon neutral way.

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modo_mario 4 days ago | parent [-]

Isn't power to gas still ridiculously inneficient?

Last I checked it seemed like something pushed by gas companies since it upholds gas infrastructure and most of the intermittence is currently supported by gas.

	▲	pydry 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		It's very costly compared to normal gas but it's still marginally cheaper to use solar and roundtrip p2g to use on a cold, windless night than it is to use nuclear power produced on any day of the year. There's just zero economic incentive while polluting gas is dirt cheap and maxxed out solar and wind rarely even covers 100% of current electricity demand.

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triceratops 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's windy and sunny in the winter too.

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defrost 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Ahhhhhhh . . . it's Australia.

Winters here have more sunshine than UK summers.

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ViewTrick1002 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

This data is a year old now: https://blog.gridstatus.io/caiso-solar-storage-spring-2025/