It's not as simple as having the capacity because power is used the instant it's produced.
Today: - Hydrostor just signed a near $1 Billion contract to build their first underground facility in California using advanced compressed air with water to help efficiency. See also: Green Gravity, Gravitricity, Terrament, Renewell, RheEnergise, and more.
Variable load sources often change transmission requirements on existing lines because there can be power draw increase between A and B where previous there was less generation at A.
With financing getting more expensive its almost certain that some of the more financially on the edge projects would get cancelled and since offshore wind is easily the most expensive, it’s unsurprising that in renewable energy those are the projects getting cancelled.
There are offshore wind farms with nearly equivalent capacity factors to some (aging) french nuclear power plants.
That's if you make up some number for fossil fuel externalities and count it as a subsidy. Pollution from fossil fuels is a very real and very big issue but it has been presented in such a way that people think governments are actually giving oil companies trillions of dollars in direct subsidies. No other business has had this kind of math applied to it. The fossil fuel industry is taxed heavily from when the oil comes out of the ground to people pumping gas into their cars, it is a huge tax revenue generator.
I really want to emphasizes the "make up a number" part. Trying to understand the physical part of climate change is already a monstrous task with big uncertainty. From there trying to to estimate economic effects is basically impossible.
The calculation depends on how good the specific location is for wind/solar but outside of unusually poor areas, like the UK, solar is easily the cheapest option.
if you want a public markets proxy, look at invesco's solar etf; down by around half. sedg is down 75%
existing infrastructure is more maintenance than construction
I found: Natural gas: ~1200 USD/kW, Solar: ~1500 USD/kW, Wind: ~1500 USD/kW
Let us say that solar and wind is about 25% more expensive to build. All types have high up front costs, so interest rates will affect nearly equally. However, operations for solar and wind must be way cheaper over 10/20/30 year time frame. To be fair, I never read anything about maintenance costs for solar and wind. It certainly isn't zero, as the wind turbine will need periodic servicing, and the solar panels need to be cleaned.
Indeed. Those costs are never counted (e.g. how do you service and repair offshore wind farms in the middle of the North Sea). As the costs of decommissioning and replacements are never counted either. Neither are the costs of overprovisioning required for renewables.
They sell to the grid at a price that makes them a profit. How did you think this all worked?
This link is to one from a couple of years ago that I found on the web, but you can look up the latest one in their PDF:
https://reneweconomy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/lazar...
Some things are affected more than others, especially nuclear, but it doesn't really swap relative positions to any great degree.