Saturday, December 2, 2023

No Amount Of Subsidies Will Ever Make A Wind/Solar Electricity System Economically Feasible

Divide by 8760 and you learn that Germany's average usage of electricity is 58.3 GW. So, can you just build 58.3 GW of wind and solar generators to supply Germany with electricity?

Germany already has way more wind and solar electricity generation capacity than the 58.3 GW, but can't come anywhere near getting all its electricity from those sources.

According to Clean Energy Wire here, through the first three quarters of 2023, the percent of its electricity that Germany got from wind and solar was only 52%. Capacity seemingly sufficient to supply double the usage in fact only supplies half.

If they double the wind and solar generation, then on the sunny/breezy June 21 mid-day they will now have over 250 GW of electricity generation - more than 4 times what they need - so they will have to discard or give away the rest.

The fact is that building a wind/solar/storage electricity system without fossil fuel backup does not provide cheaper electricity than a predominantly fossil fuel system, but more expensive electricity.

As noted, Germany has gotten to about 50% of its electricity generation from wind and solar, with so far about a 2 times overbuild of capacity, and almost no storage.

Of course consumers are never voluntarily going to pay $2 for energy that can be had for $1. Nor are investors ever going to invest to provide consumers the $2 energy when the consumers can go elsewhere for $1. As it becomes obvious that the whole LCOE "Wind and solar are cheaper" thing is a transparent lie, all private money will exit the energy transition.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/12/01/no-amount-of-subsidies-will-ever-make-a-wind-solar-electricity-system-economically-feasible/

No comments: