Turn Your Lights On, It’s Friday!
By Paul Homewood
5 hours done, 8755 to go!
By Euronews Green with Reuters • Updated: 11/10/2022
Renewable energy met all of Greece’s electricity needs for the first time ever last week, the country’s independent power transmission operator IPTO announced.
For at least five hours on Friday, renewables accounted for 100 per cent of Greece’s power generation, reaching a record high of 3,106 megawatt hours.
Solar, wind and hydro represented 46 per cent of the nation’s power mix in the eight months to August this year, up from 42 per cent in the same period in 2021, according to Greece-based environmental think-tank The Green Tank.
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As ever with these renewable puff pieces, they don’t tell you the rest of the story.
On Friday 7th, it was very windy, and wind power was running at around 2.4 GW for most of the day:
http://energodock.com/greece/electricity-generation
However, just two days later that wind disappeared almost entirely, and for the next week gas and lignite were needed to supply most of Greece’s electricity.
Greece typically imports only about a tenth of its electricity needs, mostly from Slovenia, Bulgaria and Italy. Clearly then it would not be able to rely on imports when wind power is seriously curtailed.
It is of little benefit having renewables supplying all of your power for five hours, if produce little for the rest of the week!
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
So that’s electricity needs. What percentage was it of Greece’s total energy needs? Will euronews green or Reuters tell us that?
‘Major milestone for Greek energy as renewables power 100% of electricity demand’
M’kay. All you Greek gas and coal power stations can close now.
‘This also clearly demonstrates that the electricity system can be powered by renewables without compromising reliability.’
Wut?
‘Major milestone for Greek energy as renewables power 100% of electricity demand’…..except for transportation where the renewables are biofuels…90% fossil fuel and 10% renewable ethanol.
For most of its long history Greece ran totally on renewable energy.
Kept people busy.
I suppose trireme crews were renewable…
What happens to that vast acreage of solar panels when they have to be, er, renewed?
So, when does Greece become a manufacturing and exporting powerhouse with all that cheap energy? Will the world start sending it’s aluminum ore to Greece to be processed?
Of course, the Euro news headline should have been: ‘Solar manages to provide just 25% of electricity needs on one day. Doh.
Paul
Have you seen this https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/10/16/solar-sensitivity/ and this https://dailysceptic.org/2022/10/16/scientists-discover-massive-recent-slowdown-in-melting-of-antarctica-doomsday-glacier/ ?
Hope you are enjoying your holiday.
Kind regards Mike
Have you seen this…
https://www.livescience.com/46194-volcanoes-melt-antarctic-glaciers.html
Alarmists were always making it up about Thwaites.
THe second part of this sentence makes no sense at all.
“For at least five hours on Friday, renewables accounted for 100 per cent of Greece’s power generation, reaching a record high of 3,106 megawatt hours.”
THis is such a daft and pointless statement. HOw much has it cost to do this at the lowest demand levels during daylight? The only level of renewable generation that really matters is the lowest. Because then all the energy has to come from fossil or nuclear energy.
During those 5 hours, what was providing for system stability? Spinning FF generators? Pairing synchronous condensers with grid-following inverters? Interconnectors? All three? Others?
Dave,
I understand that Greece has fairly substantial hydro capacity, so would provide such service. I think I saw a figure somewhere of 3 gigawatts of hydro capacity?
Thanks, Iain.
The Green faction hopes that publicity will convince the public that renewables are winning, hence the meaningless claim.
So “renewables supply a fraction of energy needs in a small country for part of a day — tomorrow the world”.
Don’t be harshing the Green Greeks renewable buzz, man. Hey five hours is quite a feat. People still burn lignite? Sounds a bit primitive. Fear not, it will be windy again some day soon, so back off already.
Average for month was ….. ?
It’s always one of at least these 6 tricks for Renewables:
1. Potential: mention faceplate or capacity (24/7) rather than actual (26%, say, of 24 hrs X 30 days total usage),
2. Lump hydro in with solar and wind to show how “renewables” provide stable electricity,
3. Compare costs/watt-hr charged, not costs charged minus taxes on fossil fuel for gas/oil/coal energy while adding subsidies/no taxes (for EVs).
4. No mention of lifetime large solar or wind equivalent produced energy facility vs coal gas or nuclear and therefore ROEI.
5. State renewables “cheapest” energy producer, meaning running/maintenance costs, ignoring additional associated waiting backup costs when displacing offset NG, coal or oil.
6. Not mentioning new grid transmission costs due to distance from current grid.
It’s like the electricity costs promoted for driving an EV ignore the taxes loaded on gasoline/diesel/propane fuels to pay for the roads etc that at some point EVs will have to pay to keep the infrastructure going.
Spoilsport, bringing facts into the equation?
How will that cover the usage at night, snow, rain, dust, clouds and any other thing that will get in the way of the sunlight?
According to BP’s Statistical Review of Global Energy, 2022, Greece’s dependence on fossil fuel was roughly at 83% during 2020. Its per capita energy consumption was 99 GJ/capita, compared with UK’s 107 and Belgium’s 236. Iceland’s was a massive 612
O /T windmills at 2 GW
What they going to do with all those solar panels at end of life ?
Truly bizarre report. If CO2 emissions per kWh are so important why not compare those of Greece over the last 12 months with other countries?
Greek emissions average 345g CO2 per kWh. The UK is at 280g, France at under 100g, or the Canadian province of Ontario (population 4 million greater than Greece) at just 45g. Why is a very poor performing country like Greece seen as some form of exemplar when in fact it is crap? Weird reporting option.
Got to pick cherries, if you want to make cherry pie!
Looks good in the Green Puffs, but pretty poor in the real World.