Then and only then they use other power sources. Even if those sources are coal, so what? It’s not like the coal plants have to run 24/7 even when the wind is blowing.
It means you have to dimension your coal power plants so that they can cover the case where there is no wind and accept to not use them when there is plenty of wind.
And that does not sound economically good [1]:
"Fixed costs combined with lower running hours are devastating for coal power economics."
To be clear I am not advocating for using coal instead of renewables. However advertising a total amount of "clean" intermittent energy produced without talking about what happens the rest of the time is greenwashing.
I don’t think that “wind power makes coal more expensive” is a good argument against wind, especially as the majority appear to agree that coal is bad and we should have less of it. Also, didn’t the coal plants already exist before the wind turbines were built? So they’re already at the size for fallback supply?
I am not making an argument against wind.
I am making an argument against claims that amount of kWh generated by intermittent sources has the same economical value as the same amount generated by sources we can pilot to match the demand.
"the majority appear to agree that coal is bad and we should have less of it". The majority also agrees that they don't want their electricity bill to rise.
Coal plants need to be maintained and upgraded to match regulations. That's a cost after construction that you have to pay for even if you're not running the plant
> I am making an argument against claims that amount of kWh generated by intermittent sources has the same economical value as the same amount generated by sources we can pilot to match the demand.
In that case, I think we agree. I’m still anticipating alternative balancing solutions, but we agree on this.
As the capacity factor of wind is something like 30-40%, it's not "then and only then" those fossil plants will be running, it's most of the time. To reach 2C targets that's not nearly good enough.
Wind produced 37% of the country’s energy so far this year. That’s 37% not produced by coal. That it isn’t a complete solution should not be classified as a dealbreaker especially given it’s still growing and power supplies are multi-sourced anyway.
[1] https://www.carbontracker.org/understanding-operating-cost-c...