Random Renewables Thread

His username was EamonnResearch.

There is a thread on here somewhere where he requested data from solar systems.

Was in Portugal the last 2 weeks and same story. Almost all houses had solar thermal though and some houses had PV panels alright, but fewer than here in Ireland. I guess they don't really need to as the percentage renewables in Portugal is already extremely high, often 100%. Probably because of the location. There are large solar PV farms, they have substantial hydro and wind too. Not an EV to be seen though...

Yeah I guess for France having lots of (subsidised) nuclear power just means they don't have the same focus on microgeneration

Also I suppose that French cities are a lot denser than Irish ones so not the same benefits

I find the lack of air conditioning in houses bizarre. I know that the heat waves have only gotten really bad in the past decade or so. But hot summers in northern France aren't exactly a new concept

I suppose the locals are better adapted to the climate, us Paddy's are famously bad at warm weather 😂

Still, the human body has the same limits everywhere, so I suspect it's more a case of knowing how to manage it than actual tolerance for the heat. On top of that, I know several Spaniards and Italians who prefer living in Ireland because the summers are cooler, so it isn't like there's some magic gene the Irish are missing

Except for the ability to handle 30 seconds of open sunlight without looking like a red pepper afterwards, we definitely missed that one 🥵

Yeah I reckon you nailed it. I think management of the heat is a lot better here than back home. I remember in Spain and Italy every apartment I was ever in had shutter screens inside all the windows to allow ventilation without solar gains

And as you say the afternoon is very quiet on the continent in summer, people sort of hide indoors out of the sun

Historical side note, apparently the siesta in Spain isn't actually supposed to be a nap. Farmers in fields would wear a hat with a really long brim at the back and just sit with their back to the sun for an hour or so after lunch

At least that's what the Catalonian dude I used to work with told me about his grandfather. He was very much Catalonian, I called him Spanish once and was treated to a particularly varied selection of Spanish swear words in response 🤣

I think EDF has sunk too much money into the EPR to give up now. If they do the exces will probably be hanged

After seeing the total lack of rooftop solar in France I'm even less convinced about nuclear than ever. I think it just ends up blocking money that can be used for renewables which deliver much quicker and more reliably

Remember in most heatwaves in France in the past few years that about half their reactors need to shut down because the water they're outputting to the river is too hot and causing a mass fish die off

I think it's had it's day but beyond a few specialised applications isn't really worth the money anymore

Random side question, does anyone know what the deal is with the doubled up power lines in HV cables?

I've noticed that on a lot of the pylons each "line" is actually two cables wutn probably a 10cm air gap between them. They're joined every few metres with a spacer, can't tell if it's insulated or a conductor (and I certainly wasn't going to try and get closer 😂)

Is there something clever going on there like a primary and backup scenario? Or is it just a cheap way to double your capacity through the same set of pylons?

Actually "only" 33.1c for Ireland .... :-)

Ireland records hottest day for 135 years as temperatures hit 33.1 degrees in Dublin – The Irish Times

I remember that day as I took a snap on my car dashboard.

Nuts - and yeah, as someone who's seen (1st hand) glaciers melting over the past 2 decades, it's not just the summer temps that get my attention. There's one area in Chamonix where you used to be able to ski down from the glacier, and get the lift. Now they had to install 2 additional sets of 50 steps so you can get up to the lift as where the snow used to be......all gone, and we're talking about snow that was there for 100's of years.

Could be an El Nino coming as well

What we know about the 2023 El Niño and its effect on weather - Vox

Supervalu in Harold's cross.

Google Earth

Aiguille du Midi - that's the one alright, you ski down the valley blanche glacier, and then at the bottom you used to be able to walk up about 20-30 steps to the lift from the snowpack. Now it's something like 130 steps after they had to extend the stairway as there was no other way out for people. Here's a snap I took from the top.

I was just over 4,000m according to my watch, but that works off atmospheric pressure, I think your figure of 3800m is closer to the truth. Same story across most of the alps. Glaciers disappearing with gusto. By the way, the walk down to the run was....."interesting" too as I recall. You drop a glove, or a ski and it's bye-bye ski ! :-)

Yeah, I'd heard the debate about that temp reading back in 1885 being nonsense too and that the one last year is probably the hottest. I think it's academic anyway and that within the next 5-10 years (maybe even this summer for all I know) it'll be beaten again and it will remove all uncertainly. Sadly not a good thing.

I mean statistically any record can be broken in any year, and that's just normal weather pattern. Flukes happen., but when you have the consistency of records being matched or broken, year after year.....that's something else.

I remember Pavilions Swords got planning permission a couple of years to put a couple thousand solar panels on the roof. Don't think they've installed them yet though

Well I think for EDF and the French government, the EPR was supposed to be the next generation reactor that would revitalise the nuclear industry

I think it's revitalised the nuclear construction industry, not so much the generation industry 😂

So that's why I regard it as a sunk cost, not just financially but politically. If the project fails then it'll probably kill any chance of the French exporting their nuclear design and expertise for a long while yet

I agree that given a design for a large scale energy grid (something Europe sized, not our tiny Irish grid) then nuclear will inevitably form part of the mix. Hence my comment about how it's more suited to stickier areas when renewables can't do the job

However, if I were choosing where to invest my money in power generation, and the choice is renewables or nuclear, then as long as the answer for renewables being suitable is anywhere between "yes" and "barely" the I'd pick renewables every time

IMO even a poorly optimised renewables generator is better because the cost of installation and construction timeline are much lower

Also, one a side note, I managed to find the webpage showing outages in the French grid. Might be interesting to see how much downtime is involved with nuclear

There was several reactor's offline for planned maintenance over the last few months from the looks of it

The latest Chinese wind generators already in production are 18MW, a single wind farm off the west coast with just 350 or so of these would generate Ireland's entire current electricity consumption. We should really decide to get about 1000 of these installed in 3 phases ASAP.

Ireland has one of the highest capacity factors for wind in the world at 50% at most of the west coast. These biggest size turbines are perfect, as the bigger they are, the cheaper they are per kWh

They should never even reach land. Straight shipped by boat from wherever it was manufactured to the site in the ocean where it will be erected.