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The issue with solar and wind is that when they're being initiated in the project stage, they're advertised as the equivalent of some amount of average power (or even maximum power, if the project initiators want to be disingenuous about it), when the required amount of construction to match baseload capacity would easily be 3-4x that number.

There really is no one-size-fits-all solution, except for having an energy mix of renewables, with existing thermal power on standby.



With the caveat that the standby is likely only going to be required during winter in case of prolonged dark and windless weather.

Everything else will be covered by renewables + battery.


> With the caveat that the standby is likely only going to be required during winter in case of prolonged dark and windless weather

Which had already happened a few times across big parts of Europe, with weeks of overcast and low wind weather.

Specifically for Spain, a better backup wil probably be more interconnects with France and their stable nuclear power.


Which is basically every winter in Northern Europe at least, and is usually when electricity demand is the highest (very cold days tend to have the least wind).

The UK was very very close to a blackout last winter for this exact reason. If Denmark weren't able to suspend maintenance on part of their grid to max out the Viking HVDC (it was running at half capacity) there would have been loss of supply. Potentially contained to one region and temporarily but it's hard to say for sure.

What's worse is the communication from NESO (now government owned, very recently) was downright misleading to how close it came.




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