Even in a warmer Europe, wind and solar could still keep the lights on

[Eugene]

Source: The Verge

Even in a warmer Europe, wind and solar could still keep the lights on

Barring infrastructure-destroying extreme weather, that is

By Rachel Becker Mar 6, 2019, 12:53pm EST

Europe’s electricity future could be both green and consistent, even as climate change warms the continent, according to a new study. That’s good news for Europeans who are trying to shift their power grids toward wind and solar power and away from traditional power plants.

The study, published today in the journal Joule, investigates how the effects of climate change on wind, sunlight, and temperature might change electricity supply and demand in the future. Researchers led by graduate student Smail Kozarcanin at Aarhus University in Denmark primarily looked at the electricity generation side of the story, including how much wind and solar power feeds into the grid. They found that if a renewable grid can handle the shifts in sun and wind today, it should be able to handle them in the future — even if it gets really warm.

There’s a catch, however: the researchers didn’t look at how extreme weather exacerbated by climate change might, say, topple power lines in storms or incinerate them in wildfires. Paul Deane, a renewable energy researcher at University College Cork in Ireland who was not involved in the study, calls the results good news — with a word of caution. “To understand that Europe is relatively resilient to these climate change impacts in terms of weather-driven resources, that’s quite good,” he says. But, he adds, “it doesn’t mean the power system gets a clean bill of health.”

To figure out how a renewable electrical system would fare in a warming world, the researchers used historical data and climate projections to figure out how supply and demand could shift. They created a virtual grid spanning the entirety of Europe and estimated how many wind turbines and solar panels would be needed to satisfy historical electricity demand. Previous research suggested that in an ideal renewable grid for Europe, roughly 80 percent of the electricity would come from wind power on average, and 20 percent from solar. So that’s the ratio they used.

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Read more: https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/6/18253359/climate-change-electricity-grid-wind-solar-photovoltaic-power-renewable-energy-europe

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Related: 21st Century Climate Change Impacts on Key Properties of a Large-Scale Renewable-Based Electricity System (Joule)

[NNadir]

1. As late as 2019, the most common word used to describe so called "renewable energy" is "could."

If it "could have" it "would have."

It hasn't; it isn't; it won't.

We are at more than 412 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere. People have been saying what so called "renewable energy" "could" do for half a century.

When we're at 450 ppm, will we still here "could?"

I'll be we do.

We don't give a shit about reality.