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Comment by doikor | Hacker News Reader

For solar you would have to build something like 100x or more overcapacity to get enough power for winter in Finland. Solar is effectively useless in Finland as it produces effectively nothing when we need it most (winter).

Wind can work but also partially has the same problem but to the same extent. Usually the colder it gets the less windy it gets. Basically in Finland during the winter it gets cold when there is no wind bringing warm air from the Atlantic (gulf stream) usually as a result of a high pressure zone parking itself over the country.

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Fortunately, HVDC transmission lines have been improving rapidly in cost and efficiency, making power delivered from far south a practical prospect.

It does mean you depend on processes you have little say in. Somebody else specifies and builds much of the transmission line, and all of the generating capacity.

Well at the moment this is not true. Sweden can't even saturate the existing transmissions lines between Finland and Sweden as the national grid in Sweden is not in good enough shape and will most likely take over a decade to be properly fixed. (Basically the lines between northern and southern Sweden are not good enough).

https://www.fingridlehti.fi/en/ja-kantaverkkokeskuksesta-soi... (this article is from summer about moving it the other way but the same happened now during the winter but other direction)

This is one of the reasons why the electricity prices hiked up as high as they did here. Basically Norway and Sweden do have some electricity available for cheaper then running reserve gas plants in Finland but they can't get that electricity from the south all the way up north.

And being that reliant on another nation is not good for the national safety of a country. Imagine if a significant portion (like lets say 30%) of the electricity used in US came from solar farms in Mexico (or even further south being transmitted through multiple countries). This would make US economy and national defense really vulnerable (both require massive amounts of energy to really function)

In other words, as I said in the very post you replied to,

> "It does mean you depend on processes you have little say in. Somebody else specifies and builds much of the transmission line, and all of the generating capacity."

Wind turbines in cold climates also require deicing. If you don't deice them, the performance drops dramatically. Deicing takes power too though, a few percent of the total turbine output depending on how often it's needed and how much downtime the turbine has.

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