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Comment by nixass | Hacker News Reader

I love how these articles pop up only after we exited couple of months long depressing, cloudy, rainy and snowy season into full blast sunshine for last two weeks or so.

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Seasons do change, yes.

Correct, and the author of that piece should be aware of that fact

Yes, this is why you get on average single digit output from solar in Sweden during the worst winter months while consumption doubles. The math comes down that on average, the expected amount of solar that can be used for consumption is around 25% for an 100% capacity installation. The period with highest production is the period of lowest consumption. Average grid prices also follow this trend, with the highest point being winter and the lowest point being summer.

Germany has slightly better numbers from being a bit more south, and they also primarily use gas for heating rather than electricity, which reduces seasons effects on consumption.

  The period with highest production is the period of lowest consumption.

Not in Australia it isn't.

I’m in New Zealand and the high production period covers peak usage too.

How similar is the climate of Australia with northern Europe? Countries which spend more energy on AC than heating has a much better utilization of solar.

Not terribly. Australia is located about 7km from the surface of the sun, with people crackling audibly as the walk down the street and dogs bursting into flames if they don't get to shade on time, at which point the dropbears kill them. Europe gets decent summer sun but it's pretty cloudy in winter.

Every spring the numbers go up compared to the year before. That's interesting, no?

It's not interesting, it's expected.

I can't imagine how I and hundreds of millions of others can heat their homes during cold nights without fossils or a 30cm thick XPS insulation, about which hardly anyone talks about. I have solar on the roof and batteries and they are totally dead for 2.5 months in a row in a sunny country.

How can millions of car batteries be managed efficiently without heavy environmental damage? EVs don't scale for all even with serious infra (recycling, on spot change, fast chargers).

The only viable solution is to continue burning and burning, if we don't want to severely degrade our quality of life: now fossils, a little woodchips like Sweden and in the end biofuels, synthetic fuels and hydrogen. And let anyone use nuclear at their own taste. Solar/batteries cannot extend beyond a small window and wind is not reliable.

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