What happens when you rely on renewable energy

[barrydidit]

They bath in Bradford? Since when?

April to October, typically. Though it must be said, there is nobody out there in the sleet at the moment. I've seen chavs on lilo's with a can in had before today. A very unsettling sight.

[d000hg]

Oil price dropped. Then El Nino stopped the rains.

Why is the UK intending to become more reliant on renewables? The only one you can rely on is tides. Sun and wind vary..

They vary in a fairly predictable way. Storage technology is the limitation.

[BrilloPad]

They vary in a fairly predictable way. Storage technology is the limitation.

From the article :-

Electricity Minister Luis Motta looks at the massive Guri Dam, virtually dry because of the drought

Maybe a few rich selfish s used all the water to keep their lawns green?

[SimonMac]

I drive past a vast solar energy farm in Wiltshire most days. Makes me laugh looking at the black skies and pouring rain running off the panels, then pop into the supermarket and see potatoes imported from Spain. Gotta love the EU!

You don't need the sun for certain types of solar panels, it won't be as effective with diffused light but will still work with cloud cover

[pjclarke]

Yah - Criminal over-reliance on a single source, combined with historical mismanagement of the grid …

To understand why Venezuela, a country with*the world's biggest oil reserves, keeps suffering from energy shortages, we have to look at the country's grid.*The vast majority of the country's electricity comes not from fossil fuel generators but from hydroelectric dams:

Most of the time, hydropower is a clean, reliable source of electricity. The trouble occurs when there's a drought and water levels in the reservoir fall too low to spin the dam's turbines. That's what's happening at Venezuela's massive Guri Dam, which provides 75 percent of Caracas' electricity. If water levels*fall four more meters, which could happen by the end of April, operators have to shut the turbines off.

This problem isn't unique to Venezuela: any place that relies on dams faces this risk. California*has seen its hydro output plummet*in the past few years amid a historic dry spell. The difference is that California has excess electric capacity elsewhere — natural gas turbines, mainly — that it can fire up to compensate.
Venezuela, crucially,*doesn't*have a good backup plan if its dams fail. And that's where the years of mismanagement come in.

In the 2000s, after Hugo Chávez came into office, investment in new electric capacity in Venezuela dried up, particularly after he nationalized the grid in 2007. But demand for power kept soaring after the government froze electricity rates in 2002 and began subsidizing consumption. More and more people bought air conditioners, TVs, and so on. Today, Venezuela's per capita rate of electricity use is one of the highest in Latin America.
Those two trends put a severe strain on the grid. "Between 2003 and 2012,"*notes*the US Energy Information Administration, "Venezuela’s electricity consumption increased by 49% while installed capacity expanded by only 28%, leaving the Venezuelan power grid stretched." It doesn't help that many households*connect to the grid illegally, tapping into existing power lines.

The roots of Venezuela's appalling electricity crisis - Vox

Luckily, though, droughts are NOT getting worse. The GWPF says so, so it must be true.

[DimPrawn]

You don't need the sun for certain types of solar panels, it won't be as effective with diffused light but will still work with cloud cover

Lately, it's been so dark during the day, it's more like night than diffuse light. But hey ho, let's get the EU to subsidise solar farms in the UK on brilliant arable land, then the EU can give Spain subsidies to import water to irrigate sun drenched infertile semi desert to grow potatoes and then ship those to the UK under a special farming subsidy. All run from Brussels.

Brexit FFS!

[BrilloPad]

I drive past a vast solar energy farm in Wiltshire most days. Makes me laugh looking at the black skies and pouring rain running off the panels, then pop into the supermarket and see potatoes imported from Spain. Gotta love the EU!

Did you attend Open day will shed light on solar array at Swindon bus depot (From Swindon Advertiser)

[DimPrawn]

Did you attend Open day will shed light on solar array at Swindon bus depot (From Swindon Advertiser)

Yes, and I had a lovely bacon bap from the Octagon cafe next door.

[d000hg]

You just need to put the solar panels high enough up to be in permanent sunshine.

[DimPrawn]

You just need to put the solar panels high enough up to be in permanent sunshine.

Wow, you are a true visionary. High level cloud is about 45,000 feet up. That's 8.5 miles. So some tall sticks then?