Never let NIMBY's obstruct modernization. But also never allow politicians to transform a well-functioning energy system into a state-planned green fantasy by means of vast subsidies and guaranteed renewable feed-in compensation. A sure path to failure.

Market forces and free price formation to enforce efficiency are paramount.

The predominant source of electricity in Australia is coal and gas.

As soon as Australia reaches 60...70 percent of annual renewables generation the tricky and really expensive challenges will emerge. Massive generation peaks; increasing distances (losses) between locations of generation and consumption; heavily fluctuating usage and local congestion of transmission links. Requirement to store daily, weekly or even seasonally fluctuating generation. Balancing grid frequency for heavily fluctuating renewable infeeds over periods as short as an hour or even just 15 minutes.

There are the quite long nights in Australia without solar and days (or also weeks?) with almost no wind. A continent-wide potent transmission grid is mandatory. Australia constitutes its own continent with all (supportive) neighbours far away. (NO interconnectors!!!) And there still is not even a countrywide grid that connects also WA, NT and rural Queensland. The existing transmission grid was designed and built for over a century from the locations of large power plants. With lots of special engineering solutions to minimize grid costs in this vast country (e.g. splitting up single AC phases in the medium voltage layer for last (dozens?) mile for long rural distribution links).

Reliable electricity 24/7 just with renewables is defying the laws of physics and economics. Only massive hydro (and co2-free nuclear) is capable to do that. But I don't think arid Australia can do hydro power;Tasmania maybe... and nuclear?... a lost cause there too...

Germany (62% renewable generation in 2025) is at least a decade ahead of Australia in terms of renewables.

I suggest everyone to buy lots of popcorn, lean back and watch the show how we will pursue our scheduled coal and lignite phase-out first before you decide to dismantle your existing perfectly working energy systems. Btw. we demolished our last nuclear power (formerly 30% of annual generation) just three years ago. Because of the dangerous Tsunamis.

The first renowned energy economist already expressed that most of our leading politicians know our 100% wind & solar approach failed. They just don't have the courage to admit they were mistaken: they already spent 500...700 billion euros for a road to nowhere. That are "gargantuan stranded assets". Tragic.

That's why the popcorn... the day for this confession will come... sooner than many realize.

Example here in "Sunny" Southern California. City installs a flashing red light over a stop sign, all solar. All goes well from the install in late spring through late autumn. Winter comes. The light frequently is out. What is the problem? City bought a off the shelf unit without any design. A larger panel and a larger battery and it would stay on. The bad part is now that the battery has hit dead zero, even several full sun days won't bring it up to full charge. Never mind the one direction is in the shade of a tree and the other not shaded. Every install has to be engineered for that exact location.

Example here in "Sunny" Southern California. City installs a flashing red light over a stop sign, all solar. All goes well from the install in late spring through late autumn. Winter comes. The light frequently is out. What is the problem? City bought a off the shelf unit without any design. A larger panel and a larger battery and it would stay on. The bad part is now that the battery has hit dead zero, even several full sun days won't bring it up to full charge. Never mind the one direction is in the shade of a tree and the other not shaded. Every install has to be engineered for that exact location.

Hmmm... I think that for this use case solar can save municipalities tremendous amounts of money. It's not about electricity costs but because you no longer need all this costly laying of cables below pavements, power connection, a meter... electric tariff... accounting...

I think they just choose the wrong flash light "product". That doesn't require rocket science.

In my hometown they placed a hundred small displays on aluminum posts everywhere. On top a small solar cell, just about 8 x 4 inches. A builtin 5G cellular modem... small battery and a low-energy electronic paper display. Works perfectly in summer and winters. Now we have real time data for bus and tram services almost everywhere. Before, they had just few bulky and heavy display boxes (builtin fans to dissipate heat) at interchange stations, power and network connection, ground works for cables. Presumably too costly to add more of them.

My criticism was about badly thought-out policies for grid scale renewables.

If irrational strategic policy decisions can be fatal for an entire economy, you better think carefully first and listen to broad advice from experts: physicists, engineers, economists...

My criticism was about badly thought-out policies for grid scale renewables.

If you can engineer an off grid system for a single house, and you can,, there is nothing preventing a multiplier up to doing so for an entire continent. As to grid systems, take a look at Cuba and Puerto Rico. Both have recently had their grids collapse.

Your real complaint is politicians making engineering decisions.

Your real complaint is politicians making engineering decisions.

Yes... that's the most devastating issue. ...and downright ignoring their own scientific economic advisers.

Your real complaint is politicians making engineering decisions.

Yes... that's the most devastating issue. ...and downright ignoring their own scientific economic advisers.

Scientific advisors don't arrive with campaign cash. Remember the scientific IQ of a politician is drink bleach for Covid.

If you can engineer an off grid system for a single house, and you can,, there is nothing preventing a multiplier up to doing so for an entire continent. As to grid systems, take a look at Cuba and Puerto Rico. Both have recently had their grids collapse.

Cuba and Puerto Rico are islands, not connected to continent-wide grids; which could have prevented collapse if interconnected with sufficient capacities. Cuba can't afford market prices for oil bc. of communist economic policies leading to mass poverty; so their grid collapsed repeatedly.

I still don't buy that the 'single house argument' can be projected onto a whole economy (which can't be based on a clean sheet design but the conversion of existing, efficient and reliable infrastructures, at bearable costs, within a finite time span (e.g. time-limited subsidies)).

An off-grid renewable system is never just about technical feasibility: It always about three goals: engineering AND economic feasibility AND 24/7 reliability for worst case scenarios.

See this configurable map of CO2 intensity resp. percentage of renewables for different regions; preset to display yearly average numbers:
https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/all/yearly

Example from this map: There are a couple of off-grid rural societies in the western sphere on remote islands or isolated from neighbors; some quite small, others comprising up to a million people, e.g. Danish Faroyar Islands (between Scotland and Iceland), Spanish Canary Islands (Atlantic Ocean near West Sahara), Cyprus (Mediterranean, near Turkiye but far from Greece), Israel.

All of these examples have in common that it's still impossible or too expensive to connect them to a continent-wide transmission grid. And they have none or just minor hydro capacities. They have lots of wind turbines and solar but still predominantly (~75-85% of yearly generation) depend on expensive heavy fuel oil (Israel: domestic gas and import coal).

Of course you can supply them with renewables only, or at least e.g. 70...80%. But these remote communities couldn't bear the costs that entails to reliably!!! supply them 24/7. Spain's and Denmark's governments wouldn't subsidize this forever.

In the Canaries, Cyprus or Israel there's more than enough sunshine all-season, on Faroyar plenty wind; but not 24/7. No reliable (grid) neighbors as backup. If you plan to reliably supply such regions 24/7 with renewables only, the required flexible backup capacities (batteries? (no gas!), hydrogen?) would make electricity an unaffordable luxury.

Scientific advisors don't arrive with campaign cash. Remember the scientific IQ of a politician is drink bleach for Covid.

That's a too fatalistic view... I think it's different here.

Our political parties are financed by taxpayers. There are strict transparency rules and relatively low limits on donations; no costly rallies or nationwide conventions for thousands of supporters... Violators risk public funding which by far exceeds donor's money. I think our politicians don't have to 'prostitute themselves' to wealthy donors. Yes, some are surely corrupt... a thousands but not millions of euros for secret, private favors.

... and yet they decide against scientific advice, against obvious, non-negotiable physical facts. They do not comprehend that they indeed can circumvent debt rules for a long time but can't mess with scientific laws for just a second.

So, I think it must be hubris; the inability to realistically assess your own inferior technical and economic knowledge. Instead reckless, political decisions (billions of euros) based on gut feeling and baseless optimism... Just some more subsidies... a few more years... Modern tech will make it happen... think positive... be confident! (smug grin).

The worst are the few... the most intelligent ones... who at some point in influential government position, understood the sheer dimension and the economic and physical obstacles of the renewables transition they control. Since this day they stopped to express their genuine optimist opinions, rather they began to repeat propaganda talking points, the same year-after-year ignoring contradictions. You literally can feel and see: They are lying... out of awkwardness.

An off-grid renewable system is never just about technical feasibility: It always about three goals: engineering AND economic feasibility AND 24/7 reliability for worst case scenarios.

Perhaps you in Bavaria only have to deal with ice, there is a lot of the planet that has to deal with other nasty weather, such as typhoons, tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, bush fire, ... . Grid fails then.

I'm on grid in urban area and on a any point on a given day basis, I don't even get 99.9%. Perhaps thinking about an acceptable percentage uptime is better.

Perhaps you in Bavaria...

Mike lives in Bavaria. I'm from Brandenburg... (our late Prince Elector, used to call this province his "sandbox"; not very fertile; mostly dry). No tropical storms here, that's for sure. Anyway...

I'm on grid in urban area and on a any point on a given day basis, I don't even get 99.9%. Perhaps thinking about an acceptable percentage uptime is better.

That's a typical misconception when arguing about the reliability of supply in electric grids. You can find the same confusion frequently in the political discussion, in "scientific" assessments; it's mixed up even by (self-proclaimed) experts who argue the renewable transition is on track... because we really achieve >"99.99%" here (on average just few minutes outage per year).

There are two different things:

1. reliability of power supply from distribution networks (e.g. <= 110 kilovolts).
   
2. reliability of power infeeds in interconnected transmission grids 24hrs/365days (>= 220 kilovolts).
   

Most of our distribution network is laid underground; in larger cities even the 110 kV links; Most 25 kilovolt cables are underground even in the countryside nowadays (less and less old ones still on pylons if just crossing fields; rarely still through forests). Is this the optimal tradeoff between reliability and costs? I doubt that in our politics-dominated sphere that always prefers subsidies and politically encouraged grand 'projects' over dull accounting of real costs.

The 'worst case' I meant isn't about (1), the robustness of distribution networks against weather extremes. That's measured with the SAIDI index, I think.

I meant (2), reliability of power infeeds into a renewables dominated transmission grid. Worst case weather scenarios (simulations of past weather history... better 30...50 years instead of just past ten years) for renewables generation, that a grid has to be prepared for. Many days of dark doldrums. Repeated dark doldrums within few days. Continent-wide blocking high pressure weather patterns with almost no wind for weeks in summer. Or extreme generation peaks in summer (in part from roof-top solar, not disconnectable by grid operators) that by far exceeds country-wide peak loads.

Weather extremes influence the technical viability (voltage management, link congestion, frequency oscillation) (c.f. Spain Blackout 2025) of renewables dominated grids AND its economic viability as well (tremendous grid costs for backup capacities and for vital and frequent manual intervention into grid operation; rising avg. wholesale prices; e.g. baseload & peakload contracts at power exchanges).

If off-grid renewables are truly cheap, reliable and better than the outdated centralized grid of fossil dinosaurs, then people, whole companies... would increasingly cancel their electricity contracts. I don't see that anywhere.

Here I might just have too wait for a few more years... then electric tariffs presumably will become so expensive that even operating your own diesel set 24/7 will be cheaper. If it wouldn't be for a Mr. Trump, Mullahs... Strait of Hormus, rising Diesel price...

It is a shame that the map you linked to has very course granulation....
While much of the UK is dependant on a mixture of nuclear, wind, solar, hydroelectric, gas and imports energy across both the North Sea and the English channel there is one group of islands that is more than self-sufficient in electricity and does not rely on burning hydrocarbons to do so. I talk about the Orkney Island.
This group of islands achieves its energy independence from wind, solar, wave and tidal sources. There is a small diesel generating station that is powered up every few weeks just to make sure it still runs and its grid connection still works. But, that's not the end of the story, they actually export electricity to the mainland via an undersea cable that was mean to supply all the islands' needs. As you travel around the island there is much evidence of both highly localised electricity generation with solar panels on roofs and south facing walls, wind turbines from small (a few tens of watts) to the more normal giants. Also in the main towns (Kirkwall & Stromness) there are many on-street electric car &vehicle charge points (many of the local authority small vehicles are electric). It was great fun on the campsite I last stayed at watching their electricity meter showing that their combined solar & wind generators were feeding back into the grid, even on a dull, wet day with little wind.
So don't decry small scale generation, it can work, can be less expensive than "conventional" large scale plant.

---

Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

It is a shame that the map you linked to has very course granulation....

I think these are the ENTSO-E zones resp. the separate bidding zones used by energy exchanges, e.g. EEX, EPEXSPOT, or Nordpool. These are the most fine granular (almost realtime) data which are publicly available. More fine-grained, unit-specific generation data (for large power plant units) is often only published with a (couple) days-long delay. For individual wind farms, this data is only available for large offshore farms, not onshore—and not at all more detailed for grid-scale solar.

Authorities only define separate zones within a country if there are limited and frequently congested interconnections between them, so that power trades have to adhere to these limits; e.g. islands far offshore with HVDC connections or low-capacity HVAC links.

Orkneys aren't far from the mainland. They have two redundant 33kV (distribution network... a few megawatts?) links to the mainland. Power trades are only possible between interconnected transmission grids (typically >=220kV). So there are no publicly available realtime data separate for Orkneys. But, e.g. the Shetlands are connected via a 320kV HVDC (I'd guess ~600 megawatts) link, supposedly for offshore wind farms and therefore have a separate bidding zone; and publicly available more fine-grained data.

https://openinframap.org/#8.82/58.917/-2.7583 (Btw. I do think that such maps should be classified; In cities, they are accurate to within a few meters. Irresponsible!)

This group of islands achieves its energy independence from wind, solar, wave and tidal sources.

A windy place year-round and tidal forces are reliable; forecasts can be made with astronomical precision. Low population density. Supposedly no large industries.

I do believe these islands are independent. Diesel just for emergencies or major failures... like the diesels in large hospitals.

So don't decry small scale generation, it can work, can be less expensive than "conventional" large scale plant.

I didn't. I agree, given the right climatic conditions (wind, sunshine... on average, seasonal variations), it can work.

I just rejected that such working smaller-scaled renewable grids can be seen as the model for a whole economy, e.g. supplying the London metropolis, large-scale chemical industries, electric arc furnace steelworks, rolling mills, or just: Heathrow Airport. Let alone future large AI datacenters. The Orkneys or Shetlands import all their energy-intensive goods (tangible and non-tangible ones)

The whole UK may can't, resp. shouldn't do that, because you won't save the climate by shutting down your refineries, steelworks, factories and import these goods from, e.g. China.