Comment by scratcheee
11 hours ago
Yes, and I think that’s actually intentional, they’re rewarding renewables way over the odds without needing to give politically controversial benefits. The rewards are just an inherent result of the existing system. This is why renewables are growing rapidly in the uk.
Of course we’ll need a way to resolve fluctuations both rapid and slower. Rapid fluctuations are handled by pumped hydro and increasingly by batteries.
The slow fluctuations (day/night all the way to summer/winter and good/bad weather patterns) are much trickier, I think it’s still unclear how well handle them, but it will certainly be partly handled by having an excess of renewables, though we’ll likely need some other solutions too, nuclear is probably one of them.
The irony is that your comment should be entirely inverted. Renewables are not rewarded way over the odds - in fact the ruling party banned onshore wind entirely and i remember them banning at least one offshore wind farm. Luckily it is very cheap to build.
Now Hinkley Point C is another story. It's a hugely expensive boondoggle which is taking decades to construct at enormous cost and the reward at the end is that they are rewarded with a strike price that is 3x that of solar and wind. That is an obsecene subsidy forced on to customers for a power source that cant even do load following and doesnt help with fluctuations in supply and demand.
The slow fluctuations on cold, windless nights or when nuke plants are down for unplanned maintenance are going to be managed with gas.
Maybe one day it'll be gas synthesized with electricity from solar+wind overproduction on a day like today. The roundtrip is expensive, but will still be cheaper than nuclear power on a windy, summer day.