Which storage can solve. The problem is that "base load" as we know it is dead. It was only ever an economic construct, never a physical one.
Distributed renewables are unraveling the grid monopoly, meaning you can't just foist enormous nuclear subsidies on the tax payers anymore. They will vote with their wallets.
Storage can not solve firming in most of the world, maybe South Aus being exception, maybe. It can be solved by gas peakers or gas peakers combined with bess if you go fossils way, or hydro if you have it or nuclear. In Germany it'll be gas+bess but mostly gas, according to their Fraunhofer ISE org. In UK it'll be mostly gas too. In DK it'll be imports from hydro rich nordics.
It's interesting you mentioned nuclear subsidies when Germany poured on it's EEG renewables scheme alone more than double the cost of entire french nuclear fleet, both adjusted in today money
Who cares if there's a tiny portion of gas turbines left (optimized for low CAPEX) when we've solved high 90s% of the problem?
Its like complaining about the 3% fossil gas usage in France today when we still need to decarbonize shipping, agriculture, aviation, construction etc.
It is trivial to run gas turbines on carbon neutral fuel when the time comes if we determine they are still needed.
> It's interesting you mentioned nuclear subsidies when Germany poured on it's EEG renewables scheme alone more than double the cost of entire french nuclear fleet, both adjusted in today money
This is a backwards looking metric, we need to look forward based on the costs today. Are we paying 2011 solar prices or 2026 solar prices when building renewables in 2026? We pay 2026 prices.
Look at the proposed French EPR2 program. 11 cents/kWh 40 year CFD and interest free loans with the first reactor coming online in 2038.
Just an absolutely insanely large handout from tax money to force new built nuclear power into existence.
While the competition in renewables and storage are built on massive scale without subsides.
It's not tiny portion - it's a fully parallel grid. Germany as example needs to have 80GW+ of gas per Fraunhofer.
French epr2 nuclear will have smaller subsidies than german biomass. The handout of tax money for epr will be the equivalent of about 1.5-2y of german eeg now or even less in the future since it's projected to grow due to ren self cannibalization.
It's not that trivial to run gas firming on carbon neutral fuel aka biogas. First you don't have enough fuel, second- their opex will get so high due to low CF that you'll need a separate market for that and owners will be sure to ask a lot of $ for this firming to get profit and compensate no demand periods.
And we are talking only about direct subsidies. Germany will start subsidizing transmission this year tpo because their household prices are highest in EU, about 6bn/y. Most of this transmission is due to distributed ren expansion and need to avoid curtailment
That is a question for the 2030s to answer. Maybe demand response, storage and similar is enough? Either way, locking in trillions in nuclear handouts when the entire energy system will be reshaped before they are even online is by far the most stupid thing we can do today.
> French epr2 nuclear will have smaller subsidies than german biomass. The handout of tax money for epr will be the equivalent of about 1.5-2y of german eeg now or even less in the future since it's projected to grow due to ren self cannibalization.
Now you're trying to compare with the worst, because you know how outrageous the comaprison becomes when comparing with solar, wind and storage.
You do know that the EEG payments have been quickly reducing due to not needing subsidies anymore? And €20B in subsidies per reactor, which you did try to hide in "1.5-2y of eeg" is just a horrific waste of money.
> It's not that trivial to run gas firming on carbon neutral fuel aka biogas. First you don't have enough fuel, second- their opex will get so high due to low CF that you'll need a separate market for that and owners will be sure to ask a lot of $ for this firming to get profit and compensate no demand periods.
Or hydrogen, or hydrogen derivatives. Just pick whatever the maritime industry and aviation settles on as they decarbonize.
Yes. That is called "capacity markets". They already exist all around the world. Generally very cheap to run.
> And we are talking only about direct subsidies. Germany will start subsidizing transmission this year tpo because their household prices are highest in EU, about 6bn/y. Most of this transmission is due to distributed ren expansion and need to avoid curtailment
You do know that an electrified society requires 2 - 3x the grid size right? No matter the path we take we will need to massively expand the grid.
The only reason for curtailment is because Germany haven't divided the country into more markets because they expect to resolve the transmission bottlenecks in a few years.
France wants to spend less than 20bn/unit, afaik more like 12bn/unit and half of all the sum will be 0% govt loans, about 35bn (hence 1.5-2y of EEG), rest covered by edf.
EEG in Germany is projected to rise per EWI because it's paid more frequently
Hydrogen is insanely expensive. To think it'll be more economical than nuclear is strange. Germany isn't building transmission just for electrification, but mostly due to distributed generation and the need to avoid curtailment, like sudlink.
And I want the cost of renewables and storage to drop by 80%. That doesn't make it correct.
If you actually look at the EEG data over the years it is vastly down from peaking in ~2020-21.
Today yes. But that is what aviation and the maritime industry is looking and. In in the case of the maritime industry mostly derivatives, likely ammonia due to voluemetric constriants.
So like I said. Just pick whatever they settle on in the 2030s. No need to rush out trillions in handouts from tax money for new built nuclear power today because hydrogen is not cheap.
The absolut worst thing we can do today is lock in trillions in handouts to new built nuclear power just as the energy grid is fundamentally being transformed.
That's like betting on the steam locomotive when the age of diesel had already arrived. Would that be reasonable?
