Comment by SamBam
3 years ago
I really feel like you misunderstood the article. Perhaps you went into it with a different assumption of what it was going to say.
The article is saying that if we built more transmission lines, or increased storage capacity, or had localized pricing, that more of the power generated would get used, and we wouldn't need to turn on the fossil-powered plants as much.
More wind wasted is precisely equal to more fossil fuel burnt right now.
Further, the article described why simply building more production doesn't solve things, because most of it would be built in Scotland, and we wouldn't be able to bring in any more power into the grid where it's needed then we do now.
The thing is that some of those options (especially building more storage) might actually be more expensive and less practical than just building even more wind and letting a lot of the power from it be "wasted".
That assumes the problem of building wind far away from usage changes, right now most new wind is still being built in Scotland, and the problem will get worse not better without also investing in transmission