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Power EU Technology

International Energy Agency Predicts Wind Will Dominate Europe's Grid By 2027 (arstechnica.com) 69

AmiMoJo shares a report from Ars Technica: Today, roughly 25 percent of the European Union's power currently comes from nuclear sources, with coal and gas each delivering a little above 20 percent. Wind constitutes 10 percent of the European Union's energy mix. But by 2027, IEA's forecasts (PDF) put wind just beating all other electricity sources with a 23-percent share of the energy mix. "Other Renewables" like biomass plants contribute a little over 20 percent, gas adds 20 percent, nuclear contributes just a little below 20 percent, and coal declines to just over 10 percent. Solar energy contributes about six or seven percent in the IEA's 2027 scenario. The European Union has a wealth of wind energy, especially offshore wind energy, a sector in which the EU is the global leader. Offshore wind allows turbines to be built bigger, and coastal winds are often stronger and more consistent than onshore winds. [The IEA forecasts 200 gigawatts (GW) of installed capacity by 2040.]
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International Energy Agency Predicts Wind Will Dominate Europe's Grid By 2027

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  • aka lots of hot air blowing out of Brussels...

  • We need power when we want it not just when the wind blows. Wind is a nightmare to manage. In Ontario and our neighbouring US states it has been so badly managed that the price of electricity goes negative. (the governments guarantee a price for the wind mill operators regardless to whether or not anyone needs the energy). While during our highest demand the wind often isn't blowing at all.
    • by whoever57 ( 658626 ) on Friday September 28, 2018 @06:39PM (#57392872) Journal

      1. Over a large enough area, the wind is always blowing somewhere. You just need enough capacity. Also: have you ever been near the North Sea? The weather is brutal there.

      2. Negative pricing was seen in the UK long before intermittent renewable energy was a significant source of energy for electricity generation.

      • Negative pricing is generally caused by transmission limitations rather than broader generation limitations. If you can't get (say) a reasonable percentage of North Sea wind to London, it is quite likely that you will go negative in pricing for some other areas. It doesn't help when the transmission lines are shared with baseload plants that can't quickly respond to load changes.

        You need to subsidize new technology in order to move forward. The fact that a number of these price guarantees (subsidies) don'

    • the wind mill operators

      You have described "wind turbines."

      A wind turbine is a device that converts the wind's kinetic energy into electrical energy.

      As for windmills...

      Centuries ago, windmills usually were used to mill grain (gristmills),

    • by GNious ( 953874 ) on Friday September 28, 2018 @07:18PM (#57393010)

      Fuck
      We've been doing wind-power since the early 1970s, and it makes up 50% of our energy, and NOW you tell me it doesn't work?!? Why didn't you bring us this revelation decades ago, before we made it work?!?!?

      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        There are always plenty of idiots that think anything they do not like (usually for demented reasons) "does not work". Ask an actual engineer or scientist and it turns out that is just a lie.

      • Sure it works, as long as you have all of base load capacity worth of fossil fuel stations ready to take up slack as needed. You might even have so many windmills that you only need to burn fossil fuels on a single day in a year, but you still need them to be completely ready all the time. That's the problem with wind and solar, they displace CO2, they don't displace power stations, the capacity still needs to be there in full.
  • I hope they are researching and planning for large capacity storage solutions. They are a couple intriguing ones that could be tried. Personally i like hydro storage because it can be done with all existing tech (two reservoirs, pipe, pumps, generators). These already exist but it would be cool to see them on large scale to see if it is practical on a huge scale.
    • Grid scale battery technology is getting a lot of study now, but there isn't yet much market demand, and so the focus is more on basic research at this point, rather pushing for commercializing. Lithium is not going to be used on a large scale, you see it in limited use right now simply because it is available because of other markets (like vehicles). Sodium ion batteries, look very promising. They are cousins of lithium ion batteries, but with much cheaper raw materials.

      Pumped hydro definitely works and is

  • No, Mr. Trump - face the other side of the fan !!

  • but in another 20-30 years we're not gonna have a lot of oil based energy. Cars, even if they don't move to electric, are rapidly becoming unaffordable. And solar, wind and nuclear keep getting better.

    It would be interesting to see what the middle east is going to do when the buried treasure that's kept them afloat so long is worth about the same as the rocks that bury it. On the other hand maybe if western countries stopped screwing with them for cheap oil they could modernize. True story, Iran was a s
    • by GuB-42 ( 2483988 )

      It would be interesting to see what the middle east is going to do when the buried treasure that's kept them afloat so long is worth about the same as the rocks that bury it.

      No need to speculate because they are already doing it. They use the money to make investments. Dubai is building a resort city to attract business owners, while Qatar buys everything related to sports, football (soccer) in particular.

    • It would be interesting to see what the middle east is going to do when the buried treasure that's kept them afloat so long is worth about the same as the rocks that bury it.

      I have said this before in a similar discussion, but it bears repeating. Venezuela is probably a solid indicator of what is in store for the Middle East if the petroleum market crashes hard.

  • The US is a laughing stock ,and its not the Republics or the president, or the any polictical party. Its the people like the people commenting here about US politics, and the terrible way they do it.
    • Its the people like the people commenting here about US politics, and the terrible way they do it.

      Yeah, the eyes of the world are on Slashdot! I just got done explaining the Slashdot effect and just how irrelevant this place has become since those days to someone in meatspace.

  • It sounds like wind has some fans in the EU.

1 1 was a race-horse, 2 2 was 1 2. When 1 1 1 1 race, 2 2 1 1 2.

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