‘Energy independent’ Uruguay runs on 100% renewables for four straight months - eviltoast

“with wind the single-biggest contributor… Power production costs have declined “by almost half” … And the clean energy sector has created 50,000 new jobs… Ask me what was the impact on the electricity sector in Uruguay after this tragic war in Europe — zero.”

    • Robust Mirror@aussie.zone
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      1 year ago

      They also have hydropower which provides a constant base load, and basically they have just heavily optimised their distribution of power to be very efficient. In emergencies they are also able to import power from neighbouring countries.

      • mihies@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        There are, but none is feasible today when it comes to mass storage. Or is there one?

        • remus989@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          There is actually. Pumped Storage hydro uses the energy as it’s generated from renewables and uses it to pump water up into a reservoir. Once you have the water pumped, it’s just a matter of letting the water back out through turbines. Their efficiency is somewhere around 80% which is pretty good.

          • mihies@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            For that you need both suitable hills and water. Also it’s not that huge, it certainly depends on the reservoir capacity. If it was a feasible solution, then you’d see them everywhere, but you don’t. Ask Germans about it.

    • foo@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      How often is there no wind anywhere?

      How cloudy does it have to be so you can’t generate power?

      Is it possible to store power?