Solar power to the rescue as Europe’s energy system weathers extreme heat::Solar power helps meet energy demand for cooling.
Solar provides power when and where we need it most for AC, it’s like magic.
Magic. One day I can hopefully afford magic.
Meh, got it a decade ago.
Pge decided to change time of use to be most expensive after the sun went down, and a dozen other things to massively screw everybody, now they’re trying to make it worse.
It’s not worth it when they’re fighting you the whole way.
So now they’re making you invest in battery banks too
Have an old e-golf I’m going to make into a battery and detach.
Fuck them with a chainsaw.
But, but, it’s contributing to the entropy of the universe!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
BRUSSELS/LONDON, Aug 7 (Reuters) - A major increase in solar power generation in southern Europe played a leading role in averting energy shortages during the heatwaves of recent weeks when temperatures broke records and drove unprecedented demand for air conditioning.
Solar power is particularly suited to coping with summer heat as the sun’s radiation is strongest around the hottest part of the day, when electricity demand for cooling is also at its highest.
“The very significant growth in solar basically compensates for the peaks that are caused by air conditioning,” Kristian Ruby, secretary general of electricity industry group Eurelectric, said of the situation in Spain.
“Without the additional solar, the system stability impact would have turned out much worse,” Refinitiv power analyst Nathalie Gerl said.
Catania, below Mount Etna in eastern Sicily, has faced power and water supply cuts that local officials blamed in part on the heat.
In a letter to the European Commission last week, industry groups including SolarPower Europe urged policymakers to speed up investments in energy grids and promote projects that couple solar with energy storage, to ensure solar power expands quickly enough to meet climate change goals.
I’m a bot and I’m open source!
As per the intro, this whole article is only about southern Europe with extreme heat. Same for the solar output, which across Europe fell in July 2023 compared to 2022. It’s just higher in southern countries compared to 2022.
In most of Europe, this summer is cold, wet and windy. So for most of Europe, without that much sun in summer, it’s the very windy conditions causing the cold summer, that pumps most of the renewable electricity. Just last week, wind generated 22% more electricity compared to the week in 2022.
So overall it’s split and respectively the other renewable technology having large gains, depending on where in Europe you look.
