Do our politicians realize that wind and solar are intermittent power sources?

Something I have wondered for a long time: do the politicians who want to go for 100% wind & solar realize that these power sources are intermittent and therefor balancing and/or storage is needed in the transition? When I look at the competencies of the Minister of Energy, his crew and the energy experts among the politicians, then I fear for the worse. The need for balancing/storage is completely absent in the discussion. We only hear that we need more wind and solar in our energy mix, but never about measures to overcome intermittency.

My initial guess was that they don’t realize it, that they consider intermittent energy sources to be dispatchable energy sources and go from there. Then I saw this tweet from the spokes woman of the Minister of Energy. It seems a statement of the Minister himself:

‘The real challenge is storage. There is not always wind and the sun is not always shining. I strongly believe in innovation and I am counting on the enterprises to help us find solutions to make the #energy transition together’ @Barttommelein #BeneluxBCAD #Abudhabi pic.twitter.com/Ui43FPdEmk

— Margot Neyskens (@MargotNeyskens) January 15, 2018

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Building a nuclear power plant for less than one coffee a day?

The European branch of Politico is suggesting a new way of presenting the cost of EU membership: “The Cappuccino Index“.

Politico ranked the countries according to how much citizens pay for the EU and came to the conclusion that the contribution of the EU countries to the EU is less than the price of a daily cup of coffee by its citizens during one year. The highest value came from Luxembourg with a contribution to the EU of €1.47 per capita per day, closely followed by Belgium with €1.46.

This index seem to be inspired by the new EU campaign, stating that the EU costs its citizens less than a cup of coffee a day. This probably in the context of their intention to increase the EU budget and looking for ways of making it a bit more acceptable to the public, but that aside.

Renewables covered 100% of energy consumption in Germany (for about 45 minutes)

A curious infographic from the twitter timeline of the Flemish greens (translated from Dutch):

Historic

For the first time, renewable energy delivered 100% of electricity consumption in Germany

Ook ons land is klaar voor 100 % schone energie. Ook jij kan het verschil maken. Teken & deel onze oproep en stap over naar een groene energieleverancier via https://t.co/HE3II1ekec #hetkananders pic.twitter.com/9bGu7h633R

— Groen (@groen) January 8, 2018

That struck me by surprise. I was quite busy in the last few days with another project, so I clearly missed the news.

My first reaction was: 100% delivered by renewables, sure, but how many minutes? The second question: when did this happen? There was no date on that infographic, so it was not very clear when this actually happened. I guess it was somewhat before the tweet was posted (January 8), so I went to the Agorameter website and it showed by default the last 3 days (from January 6 until 9). I removed the conventional sources from the graph and to my surprise, I saw no period in which the production of renewable energy equaled consumption.

Not even close.

Who cares about a lack of PV in December when there is plenty of wind and more sun to come in the coming months?

On the last day of 2017, our Minister of Energy (who is fiercely promoting solar energy) posted a tweet to thank all people who installed solar panel on their during 2017. He got a prompt reaction from someone asking how much electricity those solar panels produced in December. The Minister of Energy replied with this remarkable tweet:

December 2017 was inderdaad een historische zonarme maand. Maar er was wel wind en in de komende maanden komt de zon ruimschoots compenseren 🌞 #GelukkigNieuwjaar

— Bart Tommelein (@Barttommelein) January 1, 2018

Translated from Dutch:

December 2017 was indeed historically low on sunshine. But there was wind and the sun will compensate plentifully in the coming months #HappyNewYear

Basically, solar energy production sucked really bad in the previous month, but, hey, there was more wind and there is more solar energy to come in the coming months anyway.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I would glad to laugh if it was a joke, but his guy is our Minister of Energy and I am afraid that he was serious about it.