Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community - View Single Post - Cost of green energy 40% higher than government estimates: new study

tjinaz · 10-18-2011, 04:02 PM

The achilles heel of renewables is variance. In the grid what is put in has to match the load nearly instantly. When dealing with fluctuating sources of power such as wind and solar you have to have something solid to make up the difference and be able to increase and decrease at roughly the same interval as your "green". This and putting in the infrastructure to connect the new wind farms and solar sites are what makes them cost so much. The capital expenditures necessary make these projects losers unless you take a very very long view..

Renewables other than hydro (which comes with its own environmental issues) can never be base load as you can never say with the needed degree of certainty what your outputs are going to be.

10-18-2011, 04:02 PM	#32
tjinaz Scoring Winger Join Date: Aug 2004 Exp:	The achilles heel of renewables is variance. In the grid what is put in has to match the load nearly instantly. When dealing with fluctuating sources of power such as wind and solar you have to have something solid to make up the difference and be able to increase and decrease at roughly the same interval as your "green". This and putting in the infrastructure to connect the new wind farms and solar sites are what makes them cost so much. The capital expenditures necessary make these projects losers unless you take a very very long view.. Renewables other than hydro (which comes with its own environmental issues) can never be base load as you can never say with the needed degree of certainty what your outputs are going to be. Last edited by tjinaz; 10-18-2011 at 04:07 PM.