Isn't solar the fastest energy source to spin up? Just take them out of the crate, put them on racks, tie them to the grid.

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c0l0 a day ago | parent | next [-]

I guess it is, but solar can only be part of the answer: You need a solid plan (and all the infrastructure that implementing this plan involves) for when the sun does not shine, because in the more northern parts of Europe especially, energy consumption is highest during seasons in which sunlight is (relatively) scarce.

Also, "the grid" cannot absorb any amount of solar energy - so if you choose to address (at least parts) of the above challenge with a photovoltaic build-out that results in massive excess capacity during summer, there needs to be a plan (and again, its implementation) to handle that.

	▲	mrguyorama a day ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Excess capacity (literally free power) is only a problem because we mandate that electricity generation can only be done as a business that has to earn profit margins. Because of economics, this means it makes sense as a business to sell power that requires a purchased input commodity, and doesn't make as much sense as a business to build enough solar to sell power during darker months. This is absurd, backwards, and is hampering our ability to deploy clean and affordable power. National Governments should be massively overbuilding solar and just handing out the resulting power. It's really difficult to mismanage a solar farm. Maybe instead of a deregulated generation market, we should focus on a barely regulated power storage market.
	▲	2snakes 21 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Iron air batteries.

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toasty228 a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Not to sound like an ass but that's your typical HNer hot take on a topic they don't know anything about (which is 99% of topics outside of tech).

I know that I don't know jack shit about the topic, but I can already tell you that if you do what you describe you'll quickly learn about why grids have frequencies, what generate these frequencies, and what happens when they drift.

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tapoxi a day ago | parent [-]

Yeah that's what an inverter does, the "tie them to the grid" part. Every solar system has them, and they can islanding or not.

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toasty228 3 hours ago | parent [-]

> Yeah that's what an inverter does

No, that's not what an "inverter" does, not most inverters at least, you need grid forming inverters and batteries for that... which is my whole point, you don't just take them out of the crate and plug them in the grid, that only works if most of the grid is powered by legacy plants stabilising it.

Do you describe nuclear power plants as "just putting two rocks next to each other and plugging them in the grid"

	▲	tapoxi 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You don't need a grid forming inverter to re-synchronize with the grid, you only need a grid forming inverter if you need a complete cold start or to support a grid island. In the context of our discussion, adding more capacity, that's exactly what's needed here. We're not replacing 100% of energy sources with solar, we are replacing energy sources with _renewables_ which is hydro, solar, wind, arguably nuclear as well. Even extending your argument to "well we need to only have solar" then you need a grid forming inverter with batteries. That's not a massive increase in complexity or time and supports the "just tie them to the grid" statement. Trying to use the analogy of a nuclear power plant, which requires 10-15 years (including permitting), is ridiculous. A solar plant is 2-5 (including permitting) - by comparison.