[sdunwoody]

Solar doesn't work that well the further you get from the equator.

Nortern Europe? Freezing in the winter (so lots of heating necessitating more electricity), and generally poor weather, plus the daylight hours can be incredibly short.

I'm not sure how solar works in places like this unless you massively overbuild (not exactly appealing, efficient, or environmentally friendly), and/or rely on electricity transported over vast distances (which I understand is not particularly viable).

[zionic]

>Solar doesn't work that well the further you get from the equator.

This simply isn't true outside of artic zones. While it's true the panels become less efficient in a $/kw basis, the cost of panels is already so low that the increase is negligible.

These dark, barren areas also tend to have a surplus of surface area so adding an extra 20-30% in panels to account for the disparity isn't an issue.

[sdunwoody]

Let's take the UK as an example.

Densely populated, so there's not lots of "dark barren" land.

Energy consumption rises considerably in the winter, just as sunlight hours reduce, and the weather gets cloudier.

Even assuming there was lots of free surface area, I would assume that the extra number of panels would far exceed 20-30% when you consider the disparity in energy consumption alongside when it happens (after the sun sets, and before it rises).

The only way it would work is with a very large surplus of panels (quite how large I can only guess, but 20-30% seems incredibly optimistic to me), alongside a very significant storage mechanism. And even then, I'm not sure if that would insure against a severe cold patch coinciding with a few days of cloudly, dark weather.

[pydry]

UK is better off with a combination of offshore wind, onshore wind, solar and pumped storage.

Solar is still good to have coz the spells of low wind tend to coincide with having lots of sun and coz if youre putting up a roof, the costs of adding some panels up there while youre at it are fairly minimal.

What the UK really needs is to fix its near universally shit insulation, though. In terms of "green" ROI nothing else comes close to making buildings hold more heat.

[thehappypm]

Northern Europe thankfully has alternatives like hydro, geothermal, their own oil reserves..

[sdunwoody]

Some countries yes, but what about others? The UK, Ireland, the Baltics (I was thinking of the Netherlands and Belgium too, although they don't strictly fit in the definition apparently) - not all of these countries have oil reserves or good sources of hyrdo/geothermal electricity.

[tialaramex]

The UK currently has about 15GW of grid wind power (and maybe 4-5GW privately owned that is not attached to the grid it's just used to avoid buying grid electricity). There is no reason whatsoever that can't be 45GW, and more, except that until now it was not politically desirable apparently.

It's very windy here. On the mainland, especially in summer, it might be calmer for days or even weeks so you would need a lot of storage, but you probably can power the UK on wind if that's what you were determined to do, and when it's really blowing (much of the winter) you can export that cheap wind power too, offsetting the price of buying some of say Spain's solar power or France's nukes when the wind is calm.

Most of today so far for example grid wind was steadily about 13GW. Here on the mainland it seems pretty calm, but I guess out in the ocean it is plenty windy enough to turn those blades and make electricity.

[sdunwoody]

I think we're very fortunate in the UK to have a great mix of wind/solar/tidal to utilise for power generation (although I don't think solar is as appropriate for our situation as wind or tidal). TBH I really wish our politicans would actually do more to advance both wind and tidal generation in this country.

But it still doesn't significantly help countries like Belgium or the Netherlands, or even Germany.

I'm actually very interested to see how Germany tried to decarbonise over the next couple of decades, as I think they've managed to get most of the low hanging fruit (for example, from what I've read, I don't think there's really anymore space for them to install offshore turbines without quite significant difficulties).

[gameswithgo]

When going for serious global scale stuff you put the panels in sunny places and run gigantic cables to the places it isn't sunny. Again, possible to do but massive scale infrastructure projects that take time, money, and political will.

[sdunwoody]

I'm not an expert at all when it comes to this sort of stuff, but don't you lose quite a high percentage of the electricity generated when you move it over the vast distances needed for that to work?

[zionic]

>but don't you lose quite a high percentage of the electricity generated when you move it over the vast distances needed for that to work?

No. 1-2MV DC transmission lines can move power 3000+ miles at >97% efficiency.

This isn't directed at you, but I'm starting to get super frustrated with this myth that transporting electricity is inefficient. I see it almost everywhere these discussions take place and I don't know why.

[sdunwoody]

No offence taken, I'm happy to learn! It seems like I need to go and do more reading about this.

I suppose efficiency aside, the next big problem(s) would be of a political nature? Having no control over your power supply (which is hosted in a foreign nation) is quite a big geopolitical risk?

[gameswithgo]

You lose some but it is manageable, there are already private projects to do things like this, including undersea cables!