this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2024
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[–] iii@mander.xyz 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Assuming that 12 hours of sun, you just need 2Gw solar production and 12Gw of battery to supply 1Gw during the day of solar, and 1Gw during the night of solar,

Again, I think you might not understand the difference between W and Wh. The SI unit for Wh is joules.

When describing a battery, you need to specify both W and Wh. It makes no sense, to build a 12GW battery, if you only ever need 1GW of output.

[–] mosiacmango@lemm.ee 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

If you want more exact details about the batteries that array used, click on the link in my comment.

The array has a 380 MW battery and 1.4Gwh of output with 690Mw of solar production for 1.9 billion dollars. Splitting that evenly to 1 billion for the solar and 1 billion for the battery, we get 2.1Gw solar for 3 billion, and 12.6Gwh for 9 billion.

So actually, the solar array can match the nuclear output for 12 billion, assuming 12 hours of sun.

For 17 billion, we can get a 3.3Gw generation, and 15.6Gwh of battery. That means the battery array would charge in 7-8hrs of sun, and provide nearly 16hrs of output at 1Gwh, putting us at a viable array for just 8hrs of sun.

Can solar + battery tech do what nuclear does today, but much faster, likely cheaper and with mostly no downsides? That is a clear yes. Is battery and solar tech advancing at an exponential rate while nuclear tech is not? Also a clear yes.

Nuclear was the right answer 30 years ago. Solar + battery is the right answer now.

[–] iii@mander.xyz 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

That means the battery array would charge in 7-8hrs of sun, and provide nearly 16hrs of output at 1Gwh

How many days a year does that occur? How much additional storage and production do you need add, to be able to bridge dunkelflautes, as is currently happening in germany, for example (1)?

That's why I mentioned the 90%, 99%, etc. If you want a balanced grid, you don't need to just build for the average day (in production and consumption), you need to build for the worst case in both production and consumption.

The worst case production in case for renewables, is close to zero for days on end. Meaning you need to size storage appropriatelly, in order to fairly compare to nuclear.