Portugal runs for four days on renewable energy alone | Hacker News Reader

Portugal runs for four days on renewable energy alone

theguardian.com

202 pointslucaspiller69 comments

If you wish, you can follow the daily statistics of the Portuguese grid at: http://www.centrodeinformacao.ren.pt/PT/Paginas/CIHomePage.a... (in Portuguese) or http://www.centrodeinformacao.ren.pt/EN/Pages/CIHomePage.asp... (in English).

The article lacks a crucial bit of context: particularly in the North and Center of Portugal, the last 8 months have been even rainier than usual (many areas already over 2000mm of rain in this period, instead of the 1000-1500mm that would be normal), favouring of course hydroelectric power generation, which accounts for a huge percentage of the renewable total.

Not to dismiss this great news, but the country is still a long way from being 100% renewable on a continuing basis. There's however a huge untapped potential in solar, so that goal is reachable if the investment happens (and grid storage becomes cheaper).

Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, Greece -- all these countries are advantaged on the renewable front, since they can use both hydro (lots of mountains and streams) and solar, two sources that complement each other very well: droughts generate solar, rains generate hydro.

I would also add that the energy cost in Portugal is one of the highest in europe, and one of the main reasons for its high cost was the investment in PPPs in renewable energy.

Source? I believe in EUR its the same as NL and cheaper than DE. The problem is salaries/min wage in PT are very low.

Take a look at http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/...

Eventually perusing the Eurostat database itself would give a better picture of the evolution.

Hydroelectric generation is not the major source of energy. Wind is, and I think it was that unusual amount of rain, coupled with stronger winds and the occasional good days of sun that contributed to this milestone.

Besides the sun, I think the ocean will be our safest bet. The technology seems to be lacking though.

Latest governments have no incentives whatsoever given that a large chunk of tax revenues is coming from the sale of fossil fuels.

Meanwhile the UK is dragging its heels by cutting the renewable subsidies -- a move which at this point can really only be ideologically motivated.

Yes, so much for the greenest government ever [1].

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/may/14/cameron-w...

If by ideology you mean "backhands from old-money oil companies", yeah totally.

And on nuclear too:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-17/u-k-china-...

The cost doesn't even include the implicit subsidy from the liability cap the government gives them. Fukushima-style cleanup costs falling on the taxpayer = free insurance.

Real-time(-ish) UK consumption details can be found here [1]. At the time of posting (late morning) wind is generating 7.9%, coal 4.1% and nuclear 22.1% of total demand. Unsurprisingly there appear to be no figures for solar.

[1] http://gridwatch.co.uk/

This is explained at: http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk

"As no solar PV to date is metered centrally, we cannot show real time figures on solar PV power yet. It appears only as a mid-day dip in overall demand, on the demand graph."

The French data does include solar: http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/france

Domestic solar isn't metered at all. The power can go out to your neighbours on the same substation, but how much of it does so is not metered - payments are based on an assumption that 50% of the power generated is 'exported' (i.e. not used by your home).

Are you sure? Where? The most popular approach is to use a household meter to keep track of the energy that is fed back to the grid (sometimes the meter will just run usage down, other times there will be 2 counts, 1 for usage and 1 for power sent to the grid).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_metering

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed-in_tariff

Here is the same (real time) data for the Nordic and Baltic regions:

http://www.statnett.no/en/Market-and-operations/Data-from-th...

The ideology of looking out of the window and seeing neither solar nor wind will work today?

Is it not a bit foolish to claim "neither solar nor wind will work today" when there are already 2 links in this thread showing how much energy wind is producing right now?

It really makes no sense to say that something can't happen, as it's happening.

If that's true then there is then there is not even no need for subsidies, but no need to any debate all.

If wind and solar are so much better for generating electricity, then the energy companies would be using wind and solar.

The idea that energy companies are going to just not use them out of spite is silly.

> when there are already 2 links in this thread showing how much energy wind is producing right now?

You should also see the links that show the premium that energy users are forced to pay as a consequence of the government's investment in wind and hydro.

If you care about the economy and competitiveness, paying a premium for something whose alternative is currently in a historically-low cost is something that does matter.

Warm feelings don't power farms and factories.

I am in England right now and have just looked out of the window. It is quite windy.

These cuts have been really damaging and I don't think people realized how "the greenest government ever" was actually all the work of the Lib Dems. The current treasury led agenda is very short term thinking and pandering to NIMBY voters.

There's been a lot of fuss about solar, but the UK isn't really that sunny, especially when we use the most energy. The real tragedy is Carbon Capture and Storage combined with biomass. That was looking really promising before it was scrapped, as it can actually remove CO2 from the atmosphere.

The Lib Dems were complete suckers and were treated as such by the electorate -- and that's the charitable version.

They were between a rock and a hard place, the electorate blamed Labour for the financial crisis (even though it was probably just as likely if the Tories had been in power) so they took what was the only option. Other than not making that promise on tuition fees I'm not sure what they could have done anything differently.

They could have conditioned a minority Lab government, which would have been much closer to their positions than the Con manifesto ever was. Or they could have left government when it became clear that they were being played on all sides. One or two years could have been forgiven, not five. They were never likely to get a majority government on their own; even solidifying support after carrying out massive cuts on social programs would have been impossible for anyone left of Cameron. So what were they holding on for? They were used as cannon fodder for five years, and for what?

They could have done many things differently. Anyway, it doesn't really matter at this point.

But after the financial crisis and with Gordon Brown at the helm Labour was deeply unpopular, I can see why aligning with them wasn't that attractive either.

If they had pulled out of the coalition after two years then they would just have been out of power for longer, I'm not sure their popularity would have bounced back.

The government behave in a very cynical way, although it isn't entirely ideological.

About 5 years ago I worked in wind development. It was common knowledge that the supply of good sites for larger scale (>5MW) production was becoming very limited. I think the government pretended to crack down when the opportunity was drying up naturally.

To build a wind farm you need good wind resource, a grid connection and a site that can get planning permission (not in an AONB etc). Most of the "low hanging fruit" already have planning permission for a scheme and just need to be built. The industry was running out of new sites at exactly the same time that the Government started to cut the subsidy. Without a big change to planning law the number of new sites would have dried up anyway.

This trend is also happening with solar farms. We are simply running out of suitable rural substations that can handle the demand. The government are shifting focus to more industrial sites that tend to have on-site substations with plenty of capacity. They may pretend that it is ideological but I doubt it somehow.

The energy industry is incredibly complex, and it is hard to understand the economics. The Government may actually want energy to be more expensive so that Hinkley C appears better value. The problem with having large amounts of cheap energy (onshore wind) is that it reduces the price of energy! It becomes even more complex when you consider the requirement for peaking generation.

Do you happen to know anything about offshore wind?

The government are more directly involved in offshore wind.

* The Government own the sea bed (via Crown Estates) and are effectively the landlord of the wind farm.

* The secretary of state has the final say on planning permission and can "act in the national interest". They can also reject the scheme based on politics or ideology.

* The subsidy for new schemes is based on a shadowy auction process (CfD) where the Government choose which schemes get money.

In a practical sense the Government are aggressively pushing offshore wind.

The economic effect is to restrict subsidy payments to very large producers and cut out smaller suppliers who could produce energy more cheaply. Of course offshore wind will be more predictable and much less contentious. It also has the potential to fund development of support services and port facilities.

That's pretty amazing. I'm actually here in Portugal, down in the Algarve & you don't actually see very many solar panels or wind turbines around. Though there is a big geothermal plant not too far from here.

That's probably a thermal-electric (gas/other type of fossil fuel burning station) To my knowledge there are no geo-thermal station in Portugal.

Just so you can improve your knowledge, Portugal as geo-thermal power plants in Azores.

Sorry had that edit open in a tab i ended up not submitting, you are of course correct =). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power_in_Portugal

> To my knowledge there are no geo-thermal station in Portugal.

There are,mainly in the Azores islands.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power_in_Portugal

I'm Portuguese but far from knowledgeable in matters of energy. Going north from Lisbon you'll start to see many wind turbines while in the freeway and inner roads.

You'll see a lot more in the centre of the country than in the south.

Afaik, mostly relevant sources of geothermal power in Portugal are in the Azores islands (wonderful place to visit, btw). Regarding wind power, the highest locations are on the northern part of the country (above Lisbon), so most wind turbines are there. Same thing for water dams, as it is natural that most rivers and streams are on mountain's valleys.

Only solar power is quite pervasive, as Portugal is known to have a very high average number of days of solar exposure. I live some 3/4 kms of a quite big solar power array that is the source of the majority of electrical power in the nearby houses. And in Alentejo (just north of Algarve), you can find the Amareleja power station which in 2008 was considered the largest solar power array in the world (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moura_Photovoltaic_Power_Stati...).

In the north they're everywhere.

As others said you'll find more wind and hydro power in the north. As far as solar power is concerned, there's not so much in Portugal, because it was expensive until some couple of years. Nowadays we have a remuneration scheme that allows you to consume directly from your solar panel, thus not increasing the accumulated tariff debt (it is currently at ~5billion€. Spain is worse at ~27billion€. They invested in solar power too early)

A pity.

Portuguese solar can take a big bite out of French peak demand. The sun sets on Marseilles, and everyone's coming home for dinner, but there's still some sun in PT.

IIRC, France has been very adamant in refusing to get its energy from spain and portugal due to political reasons. This became patently obvious in the EU's energy union negotiations, and in the way France insisted in forcing the so called Pyrenees power bottleneck (the only limitation to Spain and Portugal's ability to supply electrical energy to France)

http://www.reuters.com/article/france-spain-electricity-idUS...

Insane. The French prefer depending on Nigerois uranium instead of Portuguese solar? Unreal.

Learn a new thing every day.. Thanks

In Algarve, between Lagos and Aljezur there's quite a few wind turbines.

Curiously enough, this information has not been publicly relayed in the national media. I've only read about it on the international media.. It's indeed a pity that we don't know that sometimes our money is spend in a nice way.. :/

I'm portuguese and always found national media to be generally bad. Case in point, todays cover of http://www.jn.pt/ :

- soccer

- X murdered Y

- something about the police

- bad thing Z happened on freeways

- how the weather is going to be on the weekend

- world news: the weather in India is apparently very nice today

:-)

Oh, in Spain we also have those "it's cold in winter, it's hot in summer" 5-minute long news every week, with the apparently mandatory interview with some locals...

We get that in the UK, complete with the use of Fahrenheit in the summer and Celsius in the winter just so that they can use as big or a small a number as they want to.

It was. On publico.pt and on observador.pt, at least.

On a slightly related note: What our media totally skipped were the SpaceX landings. They were busy discussing the resignation of the minister of Culture because of some FB insults. Humph. Politics: a reality show that is, unfortunately, real.

On their internet websites. I was mainly referring to printed or TV media, for which each cm^2 of paper or 1 second of audio/video costs "something" and therefore is a measure of how much "importance" something has for everyone. I can only assume that trying to get away from petroleum-based products is not important for most of us (portuguese people)..

Pretty complete coverage here: http://observador.pt/seccao/ciencia/exploracao-espacial/spac... It's rather ironic how journalism is always bashed without research. Also, people tend to judge media based on what appears on their very socially skewed Facebook feeds.

No TV. Assumedly, on paper I only read Público, where the news did not appear. Observador is on my feed reader, but it's entirely natural I've skipped the news post.

News of this latest achievement:

http://sicnoticias.sapo.pt/pais/2016-05-15-Consumo-de-eletri...

http://www.jn.pt/nacional/interior/portugal-funcionou-quatro...

http://observador.pt/2016/05/18/portugal-usou-apenas-energia...

It's not more newsworthy because we already have 50-60% of total electrical energy being produced by renewables so peaking at 100%+ for a few days is getting easier and easier.

This is an encouraging story but the headline is very misleading. It would be more accurate to say, "Portugal's ELECTRICITY GENERATION runs for four days straight on renewable energy alone."

In Portugal (as in most Western European countries), electricity accounts for about 20% of energy consumption (source: Eurostat). Transport and heating are still almost totally dependant on non-renewable fossil fuels. So there's a long way to go.

living near the equator, it's hard for me to remember the great amount of energy that more northerly areas use just to keep their home environments liveable. heating is literally a negligible blip in my overall energy equation.

Yeah I'm in the Mid Atlantic and have been to the Northeast and it is definitely a massive amount of money+power that you need just to keep warm.

In France we use electricity for heating a lot. Something like a quarter to a third of all homes are heated using electricity.

France is above average in this respect — electricity accounts for about 25% of energy consumption.

>>Zero emission milestone reached as country is powered by just wind, solar and hydro-generated electricity for 107 hours.

Hydroelectric power isn't the clean renewable it is often made out to be. Its impact is very location-specific. Some dams need constant dredging. Some decimate downriver ecosystems. And the flooding of green forests, carbon sinks, isn't carbon-neutral. Each is different, but imho hydroelectric shouldn't be listed as "zero emission" alongside solar and wind.

There's emissions but they're not always proportional to power generation like you might see with coal.

Do they have any estimates on the carbon footprint?

Nuclear is the same as the cost of extracting fuel is non-zero.

I've seen lots of different numbers. If you are in a dry dessert, then the numbers are probably low. But if you are in something like the pacific coastal rain forest and you are looking to flood a few km2 of trees, then net emissions can be monstrous. I did read of one theory linking emissions to production. It goes that production is proportional to the amount and pressure of water flowing through the dam, which is related to the size of the flooded area behind the dam. When the reservoir is low, as a result of production during non-rainy seasons, the flooded/dead forests are exposed to the air where they rot, releasing methane and other nasties.

Soon enough, I will know if it is a windy or sunny day by looking at the AWS EC2 spot price.

We used to have the petro-dollar, now it's the solar-dollar :)

I'm all in for renewable energy, but it bothers me the lack of critical thinking about it. The words "renewable" and "green" are always viewed as something positive for humanity, but as everything in life, nothing is black or white.

Here is [1] and interesting article about how efficient energy could actually speed up the end of civilization.

[1] http://www.inscc.utah.edu/~tgarrett/Economics/Jevons_Paradox...

Very happy to read the good news.

Last time was about 11 hours some three years ago.

This time 4 days.

I'm crossing fingers for next time to reach two weeks.

If a country spends i.e. 100MW of electricity, how much does it need to be able to produce to be safe when the circumstances aren't favorable for max production? Or will we always need non-renewable sources for this issue?

"The Iberian peninsula is a great resource for renewables and wind energy, not just for the region but for the whole of Europe."

Sure, but the inept Spanish non-government will never do the right thing with this amazing opportunity.

>>> Sure, but the inept Spanish non-government will never do the right thing with this amazing opportunity

How come ? Spain has lots of both solar and wind plants that have been heavily subsidized by the government in the last 15 years.

We should probably add that coal plants were still running on hot standby, in case wind stops blowing.

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