

Germany’s solar power suppliers are destabilizing big power companies. - sheri
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/alternative_energy/2013/03/solar_power_in_germany_how_a_cloudy_country_became_the_world_leader_in_solar.html

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claudius
> Until researchers can find a way to store energy at a large scale, coal and
> nuclear plants—which can’t simply be switched on and off at will—must be
> kept running to guarantee a steady stream of electricity when the sun isn’t
> shining.

This is simply wrong – natural gas plants can already be switched off and on
in a matter of minutes to secure appropriate supplies in case the sun isn’t
shining anywhere AND there is no wind whatsoever. There is absolutely no need
for nuclear or even coal plants as a ‘steady stream of electricity’ (though
fusion is still pretty cool :)).

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vellum
> _natural gas plants can already be switched off and on_

They can be, but unless the government steps in to subsidize them, it's not
very profitable. Due to low gas prices, a lot of European gas plants are being
shut down.

[http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-12/europe-gas-
carna...](http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-12/europe-gas-carnage-
shown-by-eon-closing-3-year-old-plant-energy.html)

~~~
DanBC
This is really confusing. I'm constantly told that prices for gas[1] are high
(partly because of various shenanigans in Europe and Russia) and that there's
a dash for gas.

(<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-21913374>)

(<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21903837>)

[1] Natural gas, not petrol.

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yessql
SMA, a big German inverter company, shows the daily amount of PV generated in
the country. Today, they hit nearly 18 GW. I'll bet they have at least one 30
GW day this year, once the sun finally comes out.

[http://www.sma.de/en/company/pv-electricity-produced-in-
germ...](http://www.sma.de/en/company/pv-electricity-produced-in-germany.html)

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velodrome
The real problem is the battery. It is not improving as fast as everything
else...

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chazchaz101
If this is really such a large problem for the companies, they should switch
to setting rates based on real-time availability rather than traditional peak
hours.

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mtgx
Who cares? That's what disruptive innovations do. They destabilize and mostly
eliminate the incumbents. The future is everyone having their own energy
source at home, fully decentralized, without the need for "power companies".
I'm thinking even beyond solar here, although solar will definitely be the
majority of this in the next few decades.

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anizan
German energy prices are like 2$ KW/h or one of the most expensive in the
world. Its not hard to disrupt that when put in context

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tobiasu
The price is around 0.30E/kWh or less for consumers...

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claudius
0.30 €/kWh already? Does that include only green energy? Three years ago I
paid about 0.17-21€/kWh, though the supplier included nuclear as well as
fossil energy.

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tobiasu
That was only a rough number, more like a reasonable (upper) limit. As you
probably know prices vary depending on volume, energy "source", supplier etc.

~~~
claudius
Well, $2/kWh is also an upper limit ;) - I simply didn’t expect anything
remotely in this region, for me, a kWh is still about 20 cents or roughly 1/3
less than this upper limit.

