Last year, China generated 834 terawatt-hours of solar power.
Which is more than the G7 countries generated, and more than the US and EU combined. In fact the only country group that generates more solar power than China is the OECD, all 38 countries of it.
Data: @ember-energy.org
Source: https://bsky.app/profile/nathanielbullard.com/post/3lsbbsg6ohk2j
Not really enough information. I will assume that by “installed solar power” you mean peak generation when the sun is shining, and that instead of peak use, you mean 40% of average use, i.e. let’s suppose that at an average moment the country consumes 100GW and, if the sun is shining, generates 40GW from solar.
Assume further the sun is up for half the year and the sky is clear for half the year, meaning the total amount of your yearly electricity you can generate with solar is 10% assuming typical weather. Then you would be able to reliably power the country with a combination of nuclear totalling 90% of average use (90GW) and enough storage that you can ride out cloudy periods.
Yes, something like that. Now, while you can theoretically install that many solar panels, the kicker is that you don’t have nowhere enough storage. And even if you had that 10%, you could increase solar all you want, but the nuclear would be still running at 90MW because of the storage, or better, the lack of it. And because you would have a surplus of cheap solar power energy during the day - assuming more solar panels than 10%, it would erode more expensive nuclear one to become even more expensive. Basically if we solve storage, we can get rid of nuclear, but not before.
I mean the UK has 6% of its energy over the year come from solar, and 30% from wind, and installations are only accelerating, so this amount of installed solar is far from unrealistic.
Installing storage approximately doubles the LCOE of solar energy, so this is also feasible from a cost point of view as we get rid of dispatchable gas turbines.
I am not saying we should get rid of nuclear. I am saying we should keep some nuclear, also once we have got less gas and more storage. Does this resolve some things in this discussion for you?
Yep. No issues there. The core problem is storage here. And until we have a solid plan how to deliver with proven technology present today, we have to build new and run existing nuclear power plants. The other option is gambling.