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Sure, power on for 24/7/365 from Solar + Wind + Battery alone is hard; and 99% uptime is more expensive than 95% because of the batteries needed.

However when talking about rural communities that might not have power at all, or run a diesel generator in the evenings, that 95% from clean sources is a good start.




The problem of rural communities having no power is, I think mostly a non issue across most of europe.

Having most of the electrical grid already it makes no sense to scale it back or not connect the few not connected communities

I'm not arguing against renewable I'm arguing against the idea that in most of europe it would be better to use small grids instead of an european wide big grid.

Hydrostorage is cheap if it provides enough energy for more than one small community, having the ability to balance energy production and needs across europe is easier than being at the mercy of local weather.

A good example for that is austria, where the grid has a problem where a better connection between east and west is not finished/buid because of discussions about environmental impact.

This leads to overproduction in one place which can't be transferred to places that need electricity.

https://kommunal.at/wir-haben-ein-strom-problem




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