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Wind power prices now lower than the cost of natural gas

arstechnica.com

5 points by deedree 6 years ago · 2 comments

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Out_of_Characte 6 years ago

These articles ALWAYS fail to mention the impossibility to run a country on 100% wind energy (Or solar) It might be cheap(er) per MW to run solar but it can only supply that 20% slice on the middle of the day, when power usage is at its minimum. Same with wind energy, they can only supply the tiny slice around the evening or morning. after that the power supplied by them is oppertunistic. You would still need to build gas, coal or nuclear to catch all power lost when the wind is low or when it is too cloudy.

The article fails to mention another simple problem with most states that have good places for wind turbines. They usually have hydrolectric power plants which already can supply all green energy they want at all times of the day and year. Hard to then reccommend investing in wind turbines which need to be backed up with 'expensive' gas or nuclear.

  • cjbenedikt 6 years ago

    ...there is of course always the possibility to store surplus energy. For example off shore wind farms produce a lot of energy at night when demand us low. That energy when stored can later on be fed into to the grid.

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