> TL;DR: we can delete most of the emissions of the developed world today by switching heating & car and truck transport to electrical - if we make sure we generate all electricity with near-zero emissions. Just building more renewable generation won't solve it though, as you still need to make sure it covers all consumption everywhere. This map intends to show why that's a complicated problem, and why we should also be smart about where we build renewable generation so that most of the generated energy can also be used and not thrown away because the grid can't handle it.
This is what I wonder about when I drive through West Texas and see massive wind farms in the middle of nowhere.
"In 2022, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the grid manager for most of Texas, curtailed 5% of its total available wind generation and 9% of total available utility-scale solar generation. By 2035, however, we project wind curtailments in ERCOT could increase to 13% of total available wind generation, and solar curtailments could reach 19%."
Both are interesting, I understand the site displayed in this article aims to show the complexity of the underlying system, which isn't shown by electricitymap.
It'd be nice to see the same map over summer to see if the different electric mix then gives birth to a different map.
If France had coal to burn they wouldn't have been burning oil in the first place.
Pretty obviously it's better than what the other European countries have been doing.
France also regularly sells its surplus to neighboring countries.
And in order to do that it has pretty massive lines to neighbours meaning it also acts as an exchange platform (for a profit) e.g. if there are strong winds it can buy electricity from an oversupplied german grid and sell it to italy.
https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/24h provides live views of the european electricity grids, and France is the only country which is consistently green (and often dark green aka under 50gCO2eq/kWh) without being blessed with enough hydro for most or all of its requirements (as Iceland and Norway are).
Also, France gets 70% of its energy from nuclear, not 40%.
No, it gets 70% of its electricity from nuclear.
This is fairly common for coal and gas power plants, but as far as I know, not really used with nuclear power plants.
As far as I know, the French nuclear power plants aren’t exactly in close proximity to any major city, making district heating most likely not economically viable
Nope.
The most recent nuclear reactor (Civaux-2) was delivered in France in 1999.
The project aiming at building an EPR in France (Flamanville) started in 2004, and it was a work-in-progress on the field in 2007. Where are those "decades"?
Moreover an EPR was sold to Finland before, and work started in 2005.
Then a pair was sold to China.
Then another pair to the U.-K.
All 6 are very late and have huge overcosts.
If those 6 are in your opinion a "SINGLE reactor" let's swap my single dollar for your six bucks.
Not to count attempts to stem other projects (even in France, at Penly) by offering it to India, Slovenia, USA through UniStar Nuclear, Czech Republic, United Arab Emirates... The prospect weren't thrilled by patent problems at then ongoing projects.
There was a tangible will. As usual this isn't sufficient to succeed.
France's nuclear program was also very, very expensive: https://www.i-sis.org.uk/The_True_Costs_of_French_Nuclear_Po...
Skimming your source, I would not trust it very much.
They imported and still import just as much oil as anyone else.
For people interested about a real inquiry discussing the price of the french nuclear program [1] which is actually exhaustive and well documented.
[1]: https://www.ccomptes.fr/sites/default/files/EzPublish/themat...
Maybe also it's a provider thing ? From country to country, you can always have things that seem randomly more expensive. Germany is more renewable but more expensive than France, is it because of their national company is benefiting citizen properly or is it because the remaining gas part drives up the cost ?
Rome wasn't built in a day and I find it hilarious to advocate for nuclear power instead, if the average construction time (not even taking into account the prior mountain of bureaucracy) is over a decade. Not a single nuclear power plant built in past 15 years in Europe has been on time or on budget. Not even close.
Lignite numbers:
2019: 114TWh, 18.7%
2020: 92TWh, 16%
2021: 110TWh, 18.8%
2022: 116TWh, 20%
2023: 88TWh, 17%
I've seen steadier terminal alcoholics.
Renewables have increased significantly, but much of that is displacing nuclear power. The remainder, plus a small increase in natural gas, his displaced hard coal and a small amount of lignite. Presumably hard coal is more expensive.
The overall trend is coal is reducing, but it's a poor show compared to Great Britain [2].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Germany#...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_in_Great_Britain#/...
Yeah, Germany did have hard coal mines but they closed a few years back as they've gotten too deep and difficult to access to be economically viable (and it was subsidised until 2018), so Germany imports hard coal. Meanwhile germany is either #1 or #2 lignite producer.
Nuclear is still a bit cheaper per Watt and less carbon intensive, as it involves less infrastructure, logistics and batteries overall. It's also somewhat more reliable, as it doesn't depend on sun or wind (the former of which France often lacks).
Also, I am hopeful that nuclear power plant construction delays will only improve in the near future, as Europe rebuilds its expertise in nuclear engineering, which it lost after the past decades of anti-nuclear waves.
Finally, I don't see fossil fuel usage going down much in Germany in the link you gave, if at all. Which is the only thing that matters, ecologically speaking.
LCOE [1] of nuclear power in Europe and the USA is roughly thrice that of solar or wind [2]. In China it is about even. If you do not trust the Deutsche Bank report, the World Nuclear Association comes to roughly the same conclusion but assumes a lower discount, thus making nuclear power more attractive. [3]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricity [2] https://www.dbresearch.de/PROD/RPS_DE-PROD/PROD0000000000528... [3] https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspec...
I trust your data, but the situation here is different, most reactors are already built, and "only" need maintenance and fuel replacement.
I still stand by what I said in my previous comment about emissions per watts, etc.
[1] https://www.ccomptes.fr/sites/default/files/2021-12/20211213...
A significant and stable base load is important and it has shown that wind/solar makes it substantially more expensive to keep the grid stabilized, which is of course a no brainer if you don't want a blackout.
It's the LCOE, you can read what it encompasses in the link I provided.
> A significant and stable base load is important and it has shown that wind/solar makes it substantially more expensive to keep the grid stabilized, which is of course a no brainer if you don't want a blackout.
I assume you mean the utility frequency [1] when you say "base load", because you said "synchronized" and "stabilized". The frequency indeed has to be stable with a rather small margin of tolerance. Today that's mostly a job for gas turbines, though. One can hope that we find ways to store all the surplus regenerative power soon, so that we can retire those, too. Nuclear power plants, in any case, are too slow for that purpose.
Just in case you really meant load, load has no requirement to be stable. The power demands at any time can be met by dispatchable power plants, but utilities like to plan long-term, so they use some averaged load over time to determine a "base load" and buy accordingly on the electricity market. That's prudent business practice, but there is no technical reason to run low-variability power plants because of that.
No, germany is more renewable but it's also more coal, any time there's no wind the coal plants start up. And they burn lignite (because that's what in germany e.g. that's what the Baggers strip mine).
As a consequence, Germany's electricity emissions are absolute garbage: https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE/12mo
It's not as bad as Poland which basically runs entirely off of coal, but it's absolutely at the bottom of the european barrel.
Also electricity storage still isn't much of a thing (and while germany has two pumped hydro station they have very little capacity), so in periods of high winds germany actually pays its neighbours to take electricity off its grid so it doesn't collapse (at this point it has hundreds of hours of negative spot prices every year).
Which is getting problematic because increase in wind generation in said neighbours means the issue is spreading as they too need to get rid of their wind production at those times.
Hm. The actual facts say otherwise, though: https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Economic-Sectors-Enterpris...
So number go DOWN, not up, is what I'm seeing.
They don't.
> So number go DOWN, not up, is what I'm seeing.
The comment I replied to is comparing germany to france. The map I linked literally tells you that in 2024 Germany generated 370g CO2 equivalent per kWh, where France generated 32, that's an objective number you can straight up read.
Yes Germany is 58% renewable versus France's 28 (something the map also tells you), but then 30% are gas and especially coal, the link you provide agrees with that. Coal is insanely polluting, especially because Germany mainly uses lignite which is the least energy rich coal (so even more emissions for the same production), coal represents >3/4th of its emissions.
Meanwhile gas is a minor component of france's electricity mix (pretty much just peaking plants and a few combined cycle district heating plants) and coal is a rounding error.
~9%
https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy?Metric=Share+of+...
The issue with it is that dividing by GDP rather than, say, population or total energy used is kind of disingenuous. For instance, France's 2007 GDP can't be compared to Germany's 2022 GDP, so it's extremely hard to have an idea of what you're comparing.
You can see the per capita numbers on the same site and it's the same basic story, France had a head start but Germany is cleaning up faster (while growing GDP faster).
One of the anti-German memes going around is that their decarbonisation is via deindustrialization, so per GDP helps avoid that accusation and adjusts for people importing their carbon as the country with the heavy industry gets paid.
Meanwhile the USA, which has the most nuclear plants and yet is clearly worse than Germany and the EU average, somehow gets a free pass. How odd. It's as if we attack the countries (and states) that reduce carbon without nuclear rather than the ones emitting lots of carbon.
No catching up happened, because France also improved in the meantime, despite building no new plant in the 2007-2022 interval. And that's the issue with this measurement: it measures plenty of parasitic information. For instance, GDP growth between the 90's and now explains a large part of what you're highlighting.
Here's another chart from your site showing carbon intensity [1] which shows the improvement in carbon per energy generated is only a small part of the improvement shown in your graph.
And here's a chart [2] showing how GDP growth is the dominating factor for Germany's evolution in your graph.
[1]: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/production-consumption-ca...
[2]: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/kaya-identity-co2?country...
Thanks to renewables: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-fossil-renewa...
The difference has been cleaner energy use (e.g. better car motors) and cleaner production on non-electric energy.
Moreover ~60% of France's final energy is obtained by burning fossil fuels => France must electrify (replace fossil fuel by electricity) => produce more gridpower => deploy new gridpower-producing equipment and such heavy industry thingies cannot be built overnight.
Upon an economic viewpoint electrifying is facilitated by the sheer availability of low-priced electricity.
> Renewables did compensate nuclear's underproduction
The underproduction episode in 2022 was mostly handled thanks to imports and consumer sobriety.
> Moreover ~60% of France's final energy is obtained by burning fossil fuels
Yeah, that's my point. France would be better served by electrifying its non-electric energy usages rather than trying to replace one clean production by another.
> => deploy new gridpower-producing equipment and such heavy industry thingies cannot be built overnight.
France has a healthy margin before needing to rush production, with electricity usage going down for two decades, and a significant share of its power being exported currently.
> The underproduction episode in 2022 was mostly handled thanks to imports and consumer sobriety.
Source?
> France would be better served by electrifying its non-electric energy usages rather than trying to replace one clean production by another.
I disagree:
Renewables-produced electricity reduces fossil the amount -fuel-produced electricity: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-fossil-renewa...
A large part of resources needed by electrification isn't needed to build electricity-producing equipment.
Producing more electricity enables us to contain its price, boosting electrification.
Starting right now to build in order to replace 40-years old nuclear plants (on average) seems adequate to me. New nuclear (Flamanville-3 EPR) isn't adequate (6x times overcostly, at least 12 years late).
> France has a healthy margin before needing to rush production,
Electrification has to ramp up, therefore if everything goes as planned it will soon be over. Waiting is dangerous.
> with electricity usage going down for two decades
Production nearly-flat from 2004 until COVID: https://ourworldindata.org/energy-production-consumption
> a significant share of its power being exported currently.
The challenge (getting rid of fossil fuels and the necessary powergrid, see ENTSO-e) is at continental-scale.
Why the hell would you show me the same graph I showed you earlier, but with only 3 years of history? That graph, over time, shows that fossil hovers around 10%, has been for decades now. Renewables is not decreasing fossil use here.
> A large part of resources needed by electrification isn't needed to build electricity-producing equipment.
As France is a market economy, the issue isn't resources, money is.
> Starting right now to build in order to replace 40-years old nuclear plants
Here is the issue: you don't give a fuck about CO2, all you care about is for renewables to replace nuclear, another clean energy source. All of your discourse is warped and dishonest because you want to pretend that you care about catbon emissions when, in fact, you don't.
If you cared about carbon emissions you would focus on means to lower carbon emissions: electrifiying.
I quoted it 4 days ago (see above). I propose my interpretation of it, for the objective reader to make his mind. Renewables' share is up, therefore they replace fossil fuels because without renewables France should burn more fossil fuels.
>> A large part of resources needed by electrification isn't needed to build electricity-producing equipment.
> As France is a market economy, the issue isn't resources, money is.
If in your opinion each and every resource (expertise, material...) used to deploy electricity-producing plants is 100% adequate for electrifying let's say we live in distinct universes.
> Here is the issue: you don't give a fuck
No arguments, therefore you rant about what (in your opinion) I think. This is moot.
> If you cared about carbon emissions you would focus on means to lower carbon emissions: electrifiying.
I already explained, above, why deploying electricity-producing plants is just as important and urgent. You didn't even try to counter-argument.
Once again the declining share is nuclear. Fossils are stable as the data you quote shows.
> If in your opinion each and every resource (expertise, material...) used to deploy electricity-producing plants is 100% adequate for electrifying
My point is that this is irrelevant since the bottleneck is money. We don't live in a command economy where material resources and workers are assigned by the state on a given project.
> You didn't even try to counter-argument.
Why would I try when we're at the point where you don't even acknowledge raw data?
Materials used for current storage technologies are expected to see demand skyrocket. We’re still to see the renewables going further than the residential proof of concept on a society scale.
God bless plutonium.
Whilst battery demand will increase it's expected costs will continue to decrease - "Innovation reduces total capital costs of battery storage by up to 40% in the power sector by 2030 in the Stated Policies Scenario"(3)
1. https://www.gridstatus.io/live/caiso?date=2024-11-27 2. https://modoenergy.com/research/ercot-battery-energy-storage... 3. https://www.iea.org/reports/batteries-and-secure-energy-tran...
We haven't even specified what kind of storage technology we're talking about yet you already state that "materials used for current storage technologies are expected to see demand skyrocket". Are you referring to batteries? There are countless other technologies to "store" energy.
Home batteries can be part of a grid level response but this is nascent.
There is a significant mismatch between reality and the kind of headlines we see in tech-focused media. These hype future products as if they were already widely available, which creates a false idea of the actual situation in the real world.
At least some of that is surely because of renewable power, mostly wind.
Currently, battery grid-scale storage stores seconds.
You'd need an increase of several orders of magnitude for this to work.
Even if manufacturing costs were magically 0, the amount of lithium, copper and other materials required would be unsustainable.
It's not going to happen.
You don’t use lithium for long term energy storage. You just have very shallow understanding of issues at hand.
France: 40g/kWh Germany 557g/kWh
If the goal is decarbonation, using wind+solar is alright (renewables are a bigger part of the mix in Germany) but burning gas and lignite when there's no sun or wind is not.
France switched to nuclear because at the time it didn't have any fossil fuel ( https://sites.google.com/view/electricitedefrance/messmer-pl... ), while Germany (especially the then-RDA part of it, Soviet-controlled) had huge reserves.
Phasing-out coal is therefore difficult for Germany, however it does so and the acceleration after Fukushima (2011) and during its nuclear phase-out is impressive: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-electricity-coal?ta...
France & Germany (beware: check the scales...): https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-generation-fr...
After Fukushima most German citizens didn't want nuclear reactors anymore: Which political parties switched most of the nuclear plants off since Fukushima? CDU/CSU: 14 FDP: 11 SPD: 9 Greens: 3 (source: https://x.com/HannoKlausmeier/status/1784158942823690561 )
The current carbon intensity per KWh in Germany is 526g, vs 50g for France.
The average yearly carbon intensity per KWh in Germany, is 354g.
So, either the rest 40% of domestically generated power are hyper-polluting, or the other statistics don't hold up.
Either way, with such a high carbon intensity, there is nothing to brag about.
And that's before entering the discussion about how the repercussions of the poor long-term German energy plan is currently killing their economy, and, indirectly, their social fabric.
> net power grid imports are less than 5% (17% imports vs. 12.5% exports in 24H1)
depending on when those happen. If they import French electricity whenever the wind is taking a break from blowing, that prevents craptons of pollution (including, but far from exclusively, CO2) from the massive German coal plant I live near to. If it's more random, say if it's just helping with some peaks when everyone's making bratwurst and coal currently doesn't cut it, then it's not reducing them from running
There are also times where we hear electricity prices are negative or near zero for a time, afaik usually caused by too much wind-based production. Exporting that may balance the thing out so that the net value is near zero
I'm sure it'll be some mix of those and other scenarios, but I'm not sure that looking at the net result says very much about whether nuclear electricity exports helped reduce emissions in surrounding countries like Germany. I'm more inclined to say the claim of the person you're responding to is likely correct (though I'd say "helpful to be" part of the mix, rather than "needs to be")
I'm happy for any energy (not just electricity) mix that ends up with a reasonable total cost, adding up current investments needed and future adaptation measures. The problem with ruling out a clean and safe energy source for irrational fears is that it delays net zero (higher future adaptation costs) and requires spending more on alternative solutions to guarantee a steady power supply (higher current investments)
Wind and solar are currently much cheaper per kWp (opportunistic production) and so it seems like the quicker way to net zero, and during the first bit (where we are currently at) that's definitely true. The problem shifts when we want to actually stop using things like gas to make up the difference. Afaik we need to go quite a way beyond what cost-effective pumped hydro locations can supply in most of Europe, so we need to look beyond 2030 and think what power sources we need to have ready by, say, 2040 or 2050, start making specific plans, and break ground on whatever solution is the best compromise
(I'm expecting some people to object to saying nuclear is not rationally dangerous. Please, prove me wrong! I'm happy to update my opinions based on non-cherry-picked data. I've previously looked into the cost in human health (not just deaths) of different energy sources, including dependencies such as uranium mining which is among the worst aspects. The only reliable data I've been able to find shows fission on par with renewables — iirc tending towards being safer, but probably not beyond the error margins due to the low percentage of nuclear energy)
Edit: on the other hand, I'm afraid that this nuclear discussion (especially with germans, I say that as a foreigner living in Germany so I've heard different perspectives) only serves to divide the people who at least understand there is something we should be doing about climate change. I'm happy to compromise if that lets us finally settle on a concrete plan that'll land us in a place we want to be
That is debatable, nuclear power can be really cheap when managed correctly. See for example Ontario, Canada or France during the 70s-90s.
Many nuclear power plants can have life times of more than 8 decades and only the initial build and licensing is the expansive part, so if you average the cost over the total life time it is rather cheap.
https://www.iea.org/reports/projected-costs-of-generating-el...
> relies on finite uranium resources
https://whatisnuclear.com/nuclear-sustainability.html
> there is no safe solution to store the waste
If its so unsafe, why has there not been a single major accident with used fuel from civilian nuclear power plants? We have been using hundreds of NPPs for decades, yet not a single fatality.
The truth is, nuclear waste can be and is managed safely.
See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_cask_storage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KBS-3
Also, there are safe solutions to store nuclear waste. They are not 1.0e31% secure, but many other kinds of power plants carry significant risks [1] [2] [3]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajont_Dam
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmington_Mine_disaster
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Connecticut_power_plant_e...
That's what "super expensive" means.
And yeah, most of it comes from the cost of building them. But they are barely competitive with solar + batteries if you count only the costs of operating them.
cheaper than dealing with climate change
> finite uranium resources
we're not going to run out anytime soon, unlike oil
> no safe solution to store the waste
yes, there are
It's not the perfect solution for sure. But solar/wind/water isn't going to get us to where we need to be fast enough.
One day we'll figure our fusion and can shut down all our fission plants.
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDuZqYeNiOA
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_to_the_Future
If you haven't seen it, the entire trilogy is worth checking out: very fun and quite family friendly.
I know movie nights are not a thing every family does but I'd imagine having one day modern movie, one day oldish from 80-90a, another day a classic from the 40s, etc.
Wouldn't that have worked if you started from when they were young?
I'm just thinking as that is my plan for when/it I have kids: mix older media with new one and just enjoy it with them. If it is truly good and not just nostalgia, they should be enjoyable even as a rewatch.
I don’t think I have any other facts that are very interesting, but then again I didn’t think not having seen BTTF was all that interesting either. For the record I was familiar with 1.21GW and what it related to… I don’t live under a rock!
Like The Princess Bride or Labyrinth, BTTF currently remains a phenomenom of the 80's and 90's -- familiar to most from that time and deeply treasured by some, but not refreshed and sustained the way the Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel/DC, etc brands have been.
Giga just wasn't as commonly used an SI prefix as it is now I guess.
full disclosure: I install high voltage switchgear for a living.
Like, if power from several different sources flows into a single substation before it goes to your home, you know exactly which source created the electricity you're using?
And if I purchase power from a 100% renewable company, is it always only electricity from their generators, never ever mixed in with power from other grid sources during downtime?
No, it's just best estimates based on generation, consumption and flow.
That's like taking a bucket of water out of the ocean and saying you know where it came from. Sure, it might have come from the nearest estuary, but odds are it got mixed in with water that originated somewhere else.
The question isn't even well-formed. It's like playing tug-of-war and asking exactly which player on the other team you're pulling against.
But I can tell you, each line is measured closely and billed accordingly. There is no guessing.
Each national grids has interconnections with other grids and you can measure the flow of power through these interconnections to know who is sending electricity or getting electricity from neighbours.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_grid_of_Continenta...
(Russia is another big chunk of Europe but not included in the above map, though I think it may be the same grid with the Baltics)
For the question, measuring the flow of electricity is just normal power engineering, your home electricity meter does it as well. It's not so much the countries doing it though.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/baltic-countries-leave-...
E.g. trading https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&...
Physical flows https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&...
And it's not the same, so sometimes there is just "transit", although transit here should I guess be understood very loosely. I also assume they just know who paid for what.
Edit: although upon re-reading I think you probably asked something else. Sorry in that case.
They do know who paid for what. And actually anyone is able to know. It's a very regulated market, and most of its data is published, although I have to admit that if you don't know how to fetch it and read it, it's a bit hard to figure out by yourself.
You should be able to find published data on the ACER Remit Portal (https://www.acer-remit.eu/portal/home), ENTSO-E Transparency Platform (https://m-transparency.entsoe.eu/) and JAO website, Market Data tab (https://www.jao.eu).
For those countries connected, those providers can participate in other markets. France power plants can sell energy to Spain, but not to Portugal.
The trick here is that the price each opperator's offer is somewhat calculated based on opportunity cost. Wind turbines has no opportunity cost, since not selling the energy generated from the wind now does not make them able to sell it in the future (that energy can not be stored at industrial level). Then, all the accepted offers for a given forecast are paid at the price of the most expensive offer among them.
In terms of market deals, TSOs can't really do that. What can be done is measure the power flowing in lines connecting two grids, and summing them you get the total power exported from one grid to another.
It's like those navigational mini maps (car or computer game) that won't keep north pointing up... only worse.
Of course it's not, haven’t you noticed they said "irrationally"?
On a bit slower computer it took me a few minutes to locate my capital - found some tiny cities around it, yet still had no idea what direction I am looking at. Lack of major city names (until zoomed far) or that grey map (especially combined with screen "night shift" mode) style didn't help as well. Or the lack of a few important power plants around me.
At least major power lines were there - that was actually very cool. The whole thing is great, but readability is just bad.
Don't forget the fact that we need batteries to store the power, which is a much more annoying problem.
All of those solutions require infrastructure investments and smarter grids (likely with real-time pricing to incentivize consumers to use power when there's an excess, and an API so devices like chargers and boilers can act on this information without user input). But they don't require power storage at the grid level.
Edit: Loaded after a few refreshes. Slowness relates to loading static assets from coppersushi.herokuapp.com
Probably contributing to the high percentage of EV sales. In Finland 90% of new vehicle sales are EVs. Sweden and Norway are at ~%60, and have a greater share of PHEVs.
"EVs, they're gonna be a bloodbath" and "they don't work in the cold", indeed /s
Never seems to occur to people that "I don't ever have to stand outside in the cold pumping gas into my car" and "I can have my car warmed up by the time I get in to go somewhere" are really popular features.
Also, they didn't build out their EV charging infrastructure via legal settlement, leading to having chargers owned and operated by a company ambivalent about maintenance and repair.
Europe as a whole is 24%, rising at a good clip. Also surprising is Romania - ahead of everyone except the Scandinavian countries and way, way ahead of all the former soviet states.
https://energygraph.info/d/7dWs1mVVk/interconnect-physical-f...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibraltar_Wave_Farm
Perhaps omitted since Gibraltar is a British possession and therefore not in the EU?
This map is simply based on a research paper where not every connection appears (notably, I don't see the 63/90 kv grid in France).
This keeps the power lines stable and compensates for factors like lack of wind in wind power stations, startup/shutdown times of thermal power plants, differing consumption patterns because of colder weather etc.
Worldwide, Switzerland is the main user and beneficiary of PHS relative to its electric capacity. Total it’s China, Japan, and the USA, they’re the only countries breaking 2 figures (in GW of generating capacity).
It's not super clear. It says it's using 2 hour slots, but there's no clock saying when it was last updated or anything.
> The math behind it is real, and it uses the same calculations that real grid operators use to keep the lights on. However, the amount of power that each power plant actually produces depends on the price they offer. This price varies wildly from hour to hour, and neither the price nor the power amount is publicly available.
> Instead, pypsa-eur makes assumptions on prices for solar, wind, coal, nuclear, etc. based on historical averages, and then runs an optimisation algorithm to cover all consumption for the least cost of production.
