Portugal ran entirely on renewable energy for 4 consecutive days last week
http://electrek.co/2016/05/16/portugal-ran-entirely-on-renewable-energy-for-4-consecutive-days-last-week/According to Zero.ong, and brought to our attention by SolarCrunch, Portugal ran on renewable energy alone for 4 straight days last week. This 100% was preceded by more than 70 percent of its electricity from renewable sources of energy during the first quarter of 2013, and 63% for all of 2014. Portugal stopped burning coal in 1994.
From Zero.ong –
System Sustainable Land Association in collaboration with the Portuguese Renewable Energy Association (APREN) analyzed data from the National Energy Network (REN) and concluded that in the week ended yesterday it has reached a very important record in this century. In fact, the consumption of electricity in Portugal was fully covered by renewable sources for more than followed four days (more precisely, between 6: 45h on Saturday morning, May 7, and 17: 45h Wednesday, May 11). This corresponded to a total of 107 hours at a time where it was not necessary to resort to any source of non-renewable electricity production, particularly the production of thermal power plants to coal or natural gas. Translated by Google
According the the IEA, the main sources of Portugal’s energy is coming from biofuels and waste. Wind and hydropower and adding increasingly larger amounts, with geothermal and solar just starting to take off. In 2013, Portugal got 25.7% of its electricity from renewables, 2014 was 63% of its electricity from renewables and 2015 – due to drought – saw 50.4% of its electricity from renewables.
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There have been large populations that are effectively 100% renewable at times for decades. Anywhere close to a large hydro plant for instance.
What has been (correctly) doubted is that variable renewables (i.e., solar and wind) could do the job absent dramatic overbuilding combined with massive amounts of storage capacity. You can see why by comparing two of the graphics on that site to see how much solar was involved in this latest achievement compared to how much of a contribution solar plays overall in Portugal.
Nothing in this story really changes that, because the overwhelming majority of Portugal's renewable generation comes from hydro and biomass/waste - which are baseload generation plants (and deforestation in Portugal at least raises the question re: whether that can truly be considered "renewable"
. Nor is it really the same thing to say that variable renewables provided 100% of demand for a brief period of time... since the doubt has never been whether or not you can get electricity from those sources... merely whether you can power a modern society with them.
