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A real world analysis of a near-100% renewable grid in Australia - Year 2. (reneweconomy.com.au)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/energy@slrpnk.net
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This is a great article that uses real data to see how our grid world perform with greater wind, solar and storage. It shows that we can easily achieve a 95% renewable grid with a modest level of storage.

What i really like about this, is it has been running for 2 years now, and it is pragmatic about its aims (ie, not 100%), it aims for reality (this is real data that is collected weekly), and it looks at the cost (in $$ and CO2-e).

He sets some targets (60% Wind, 45% Solar + storage), then works off of the actual data to scale the wind & solar generation, to see how it would meet demand. excess is accumulated in storage (theoretical battery storage and actual hydro), and shortfalls is taken from storage.

The really nice part shows where "other" is required, in Australia's case, existing fossil fueled peaker plants.

I often use his 1st year report to have the discussion with "non-believers" to show what is possible, and where the gaps are to achieveing a renewable grid.

Have a read and let me know what you think.

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[–] 6 points 2 years ago (1 child)

This shows pretty well that we need two kinds of storage. One relativly high efficent, but more expensive for 9% of use cases. The other one large, low cost to built, but larger losses are possible. So I would say pumped hydro, batteries and similar storage in the first category, while biomass and hydrogen are good canidates for the second one.

However priotrity should be to go towards the reaching the 99%. That is a really good position for the rest and well 61% of global electricity still comes from fossil fuels.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 2 years ago

    Interesting, I never thought of it as storage. I do like that it is referred to as other.

    It is the missing piece that we have the option to use fossil fuels, or biomass, or h2 or whatever we like or can come up with.

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