Infograph: Renewable Energy’s Growth Over the Past 15 Years

7 thoughts on “Infograph: Renewable Energy’s Growth Over the Past 15 Years”

• Nice infograph but its kind of misleading about the PV part (and probably abut the wind part).

  Although roof PV can provide 1/5 of annual electricity needs representing it like this misses the point – that much PV *will* supply **ALL** the electricity needs when the sun is shining from 10 AM to 16 PM almost every day of the year.

  This means that base load power plants will become obsolete. And this is the main point – renewables will force base load plants (yes – nuclear) to close.

  • Solar steals the day, wind steals the night, baseload plants go hungry….

    • Exactly:)

      Renewable advocates should start pointing this issue out as much as we can.

      Watch this site Sundays in December (when the wind is strongest) and Sundays in May (when the solar is strongest):

      http://www.transparency.eex.com/en/

      And maybe Saturdays – when the demand is low – usually 20-30 GW less than in working days – but renewables produce as much as they can.

      • And not just the baseload plants, but also gas peakers are feeling heat from the Sun…

        “Powers also shared with the *Reader* an article he penned for the September issue of*Natural Gas & Electricity Journal*, which argues that while the need for these new “peaker” plants, designed to come online quickly in the event extra power is needed for a temporary event, is already low, *their utility will be further diminished as the spread of on-site solar power in both residential and commercial reduces strain on the power grid during typical midday times of peak demand*. In the article, Powers actually suggests that due to the adoption of localized solar power, *these midday hours that have historically strained the grid most as consumers crank up the air conditioning will actually transition into the times of lowest demand*, since the same excess sunshine that drives electricity demand will be providing the power needed to stave off future energy emergencies.”
        http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/news-ticker/2012/aug/23/san-diego-had-surplus-power-even-during-recent-hea/

        • Nice. However once all base load closes there will still be need for some back-up power to renewables similar to today’s “peaker” plants.

          But they will be called something else because they will work when renewables are not producing enough. 🙂 They might be called something like “off-peakers” plants…

        • I’ve started calling them “fill-ins”.

          I expect it will be lots of gas turbines at first but those will be replaced with batteries as the technology matures. For a while the grid is likely to be wind and solar with gas and hydro filling in.

          It may be that gas turbines will be the best solution for those very few times each year when the Sun and wind go on strike together. Liquid fuels can store a lot of energy in a small space.

          We don’t need to eliminate fossil fuels, we just need to get them mostly eliminated. Those gas plants that are now being built when NG is cheap could last 100 years if used only a few days a year.

          And 100 years ago we’ll be only 20 years away from being able to switch to fusion….

        • exactly.

          clearly, though, traditional baseload plants would be horrible in such a role: http://cleantechnica.com/2012/01/03/baseload-power-gets-in-the-way/
          bad news for those who invested in nuclear and coal (ahem, Exelon).

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