Last year, China generated 834 terawatt-hours of solar power.
Which is more than the G7 countries generated, and more than the US and EU combined. In fact the only country group that generates more solar power than China is the OECD, all 38 countries of it.
Data: @ember-energy.org
Source: https://bsky.app/profile/nathanielbullard.com/post/3lsbbsg6ohk2j
You can’t just switch it off and on. It runs at more or less full power all the time. So tell me, at what power is that taking into consideration that sun doesn’t shine during night + mornings and evenings when days are short or cloudy?
I don’t understand what you’re asking, sorry.
The question is simple. If you have installed solar power of 40% your country peak use, how much nuclear power you need - assuming simplified you have only these two power sources.
Not really enough information. I will assume that by “installed solar power” you mean peak generation when the sun is shining, and that instead of peak use, you mean 40% of average use, i.e. let’s suppose that at an average moment the country consumes 100GW and, if the sun is shining, generates 40GW from solar.
Assume further the sun is up for half the year and the sky is clear for half the year, meaning the total amount of your yearly electricity you can generate with solar is 10% assuming typical weather. Then you would be able to reliably power the country with a combination of nuclear totalling 90% of average use (90GW) and enough storage that you can ride out cloudy periods.
Yes, something like that. Now, while you can theoretically install that many solar panels, the kicker is that you don’t have nowhere enough storage. And even if you had that 10%, you could increase solar all you want, but the nuclear would be still running at 90MW because of the storage, or better, the lack of it. And because you would have a surplus of cheap solar power energy during the day - assuming more solar panels than 10%, it would erode more expensive nuclear one to become even more expensive. Basically if we solve storage, we can get rid of nuclear, but not before.
In a market or effincient economy, where peak occurs mid hot summer day, 100% solar dominated renewables makes sense. In Spring and fall, EVs can absorb daily oversupply and profit from trading back at night. Winter is when solar can fail to meet heating and electricity needs, and so either backup energy sources or having much more than 100% peak demand in order to make green H2 that can be exported to where it gets cold is needed.
0 new nuclear is best amount of nuclear for any economy.
If you trade too much EV energy during night, then you can’t drive during the day. And again, EVs capacity is not reliable at all. As per green H2, please show me a production and a storage capable of providing energy to a city. Or at least a real project that’s building it. Storing H2 is a big problem, like a huge one. If nothing else, Hindenburg tells a story. The fact that energy loss is at more than 50% when producing green H2 is a minor problem compared to storage.