Comment by AnthonyMouse
10 hours ago
> No it isn't.
In the US Northeast solar generates around four times as much in July as December. This is sufficiently bad when what you need is more power in the winter. Paris is a little worse. Sweden is significantly worse.
> Wires still might be worth it, but these are all close enough to the equator that you can just over provision locally without issue if you prefer.
If I need 25% more output in the month when solar has 75% less output, how much do I have to over-provision?
> Solar panels work better in the cold.
Places that need more electricity in the winter because they're cold are cold in the winter because they're further away from the equator.
> This is sufficiently bad when what you need is more power in the winter.
Nope, it isn't. Solar is cheap and the costs are continuing to fall quickly. Generating 5x more power in the summer than needed is perfectly fine and just a nice added bonus.
Wires are probably a good idea to reduce that number, but with how solar panels are dropping in price traditional forms of electricity generation (nuclear, fossil fuels, etc) just won't be competitive at that multiplier even without them.
> Places that need more electricity in the winter because they're cold are cold in the winter because they're further away from the equator.
Temperature has a lot to do with ocean currents. NY and Sweden overlap in how cold they are (taking the right parts of both). The southernmost point of Sweden is at 55.3 degrees north, the northermost point of NY is at 45.0 degrees north. They aren't even close to overlapping in how far north they are.