Some consequences of increasing the share of solar and wind that are rarely talked about
In some of my previous posts, I wrote about some “graphs of the day” compiled by Martien Visser (a Dutch lecturer in energy transition) on his twitter account. He creates some very interesting graphs that shed some light on the challenges that intermittent energy sources will need to overcome in order to become the dominant power sources. Unfortunately, he doesn’t clearly acknowledges these challenges in those tweets, which made me wonder whether he is aware of those challenges.
The last time I wondered about this was in a graph depicting the number of negative prices on the day-ahead market, calling these “free electricity”. The same story with the graph he created to make the claim that electricity prices decrease when capacity of solar and wind increases.
In the end, it made me wonder whether he was well aware that these prices are a symptom of an imbalance on the grid, not something to cheer about?
There were however some examples in which he seems to be aware of those challenges. Like the graph of the “skewed” distribution of intermittent output (variable between very low to very high, depending on the weather), adding that we need to learn to live with this variable output.
Another example is his comparison of intermittent output in June and in December, concluding that although there is on average enough electricity is produced by solar and wind to satisfy the demand of households, but that there is nevertheless a shortage in December and a massive surplus in June.
In both cases, he seems to hint to those consequences, although it is not that clear.
https://trustyetverify.wordpress.com/2024/06/30/some-consequences-of-increasing-the-share-of-solar-and-wind-that-are-rarely-talked-about/
