I sort of agree with the author's hypotheses, but reach diametrically different conclusions.
Price goes to zero at highest solar production within the day, ergo nuclear will suffer from this. Counterpoint: if electricity is sold at spot price, wouldn't it be solar mostly affected by this? If at its best hours price is zero or negative, this means mostly zero profits for solar certainly. Meanwhile nuclear still has nights to get some of the investment back?
The awkward thing is: mostly nuclear works. France is doing ok, thank you, has best CO2-impact, with flexible production tech though. But renewables suffer from the presence of nuclear.
While mostly renewables suffer from very high storage and flexibility requirements. The author mostly handwaves those away: "I have no doubt that entrepreneurs will find zillions of ways to use energy available". Sure free energy is nice, but that's a problem for solar investors surely (or the taxpayer).
But in the end what do we want? Renewables? Or the expectation that renewables reduce CO2? Zero-CO2 can be done with flexible nuclear.
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More on the prices:
* Short term market design (matching demand and production on spot): prices for solar and wind collapses when production is highest
* Long term market design (contracts for production at specified times): solar and wind can't predict their production, prices are lower than predictable sources.
This means you cannot free-market renewables unless with massive subsidies, or with artificially created market rules (like the current 'merit order' in the EU, which stifles coal and gas but nuclear too in an unfair manner)
> This means you cannot free-market renewables unless with massive subsidies, or with artificially created market rules (like the current 'merit order' in the EU, which stifles coal and gas but nuclear too in an unfair manner)
There is no merit order in the EU, it is simply marginal price. The marginal cost for an added kWh of solar is zero, for wind it is about zero, only an extra hour of wear, for gas it is quite expensive, nuclear power plants might need to pay for someone to take the energy because they can not ramp fast enough.
> The local Wikipedia says nuclear ramps up or down at 5%/min. This is faster than any other method of generation.
How is paying extra to ramp at 5%/min once a day "faster than" being able to switch off in seconds and back on in a minute like a wind turbine, or turn on and off in milliseconds as many times as you like like a PV inverter or even stopping starting in minutes like a reciprocating or OCGT peaker or ramping 0-100% in minutes repeatedly like hydro?
Price goes to zero at highest solar production within the day, ergo nuclear will suffer from this. Counterpoint: if electricity is sold at spot price, wouldn't it be solar mostly affected by this? If at its best hours price is zero or negative, this means mostly zero profits for solar certainly. Meanwhile nuclear still has nights to get some of the investment back?
The awkward thing is: mostly nuclear works. France is doing ok, thank you, has best CO2-impact, with flexible production tech though. But renewables suffer from the presence of nuclear.
While mostly renewables suffer from very high storage and flexibility requirements. The author mostly handwaves those away: "I have no doubt that entrepreneurs will find zillions of ways to use energy available". Sure free energy is nice, but that's a problem for solar investors surely (or the taxpayer).
But in the end what do we want? Renewables? Or the expectation that renewables reduce CO2? Zero-CO2 can be done with flexible nuclear.
----
More on the prices:
* Short term market design (matching demand and production on spot): prices for solar and wind collapses when production is highest
* Long term market design (contracts for production at specified times): solar and wind can't predict their production, prices are lower than predictable sources.
This means you cannot free-market renewables unless with massive subsidies, or with artificially created market rules (like the current 'merit order' in the EU, which stifles coal and gas but nuclear too in an unfair manner)