Renewables: Plug & Pray?

We are made to believe by PR articles and mainstream media pundits that “renewables” are just plug and play. Like computer screens. That all we need to do is to shut down old fossil fuel power plants and replace them with wind and solar. We are constantly bombarded with simplistic statements like “renewables are now cheaper than fossil fuel power plants”, as if such a simple one to one comparison could be made. All this hand waving, however, completely disregards the fact that the real life utilization of solar panels and wind mills are much lower than their nameplate suggests, and that they are a whole lot less useful in maintaining a stable grid than their polluting predecessors. It’s clearly not a plug&play game… Much rather, as it is played today, it’s all plug&pray. There is a saying in contemporary German company culture: ‘Zahlen-Fakten-Daten’ — literally meaning: numbers, facts and data. It’s usually uttered during management reviews when someone makes a bold statement or starts to wax lyrical about an idea. It is meant to channel energies back to the task at hand and to request the necessary data to make a sound decision. So let’s see if statements pertaining the relative cheapness and usefulness of “renewables” really stand this test. The <a href="https://www.energyinst.org/statistical-review" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">latest report</a> from the Energy Institute titled Statistical Review of World Energy (previously compiled by BP) provides us with just that: a ton of numbers and some rather inconvenient facts. Let’s start with the capacity factor: a ratio of actual electrical energy output over a given period of time to the theoretical maximum electrical energy output over that period. In case of a fossil fuel or nuclear power plant this factor is limited by actual demand and availability. Let’s say your plant provides electricity 24/7 at maximum output for 90 days, but then it is down for maintenance for 10 days. In this case your capacity factor equals your availability of 90%. For gas turbines this availability (and thus their maximum capacity) ranges between 80–99%, which is pretty good by any standard (with most other thermal power plants like nuclear or coal standing somewhere between 70 and 90%). <a href="https://thehonestsorcerer.medium.com/renewables-plug-pray-753752880b58">Website</a>