(maps https://www.spenergynetworks.co.uk/pages/cross_border_projec... - it's an odd area, mostly beautiful in that stark empty way a lot of Scotland is, but there's really not a lot of human use already there apart from marginal sheep farming because the land is too steep to till.)
> It cooperates with a 53-hectare ground-mounted PV system operated by Solizer in direct proximity, which is supposed to deliver a peak output of 72 MW (MWp). Due to changes in tender conditions, large solar power projects and battery storage systems are increasingly being planned together.
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As obliquely referenced with the "changes in tender conditions", solar overproduction now causes negative midday electricity prices on a near daily basis in Germany from April through to October so long as it's not super cloudy.
Therefore, anyone with a solar installation that doesn't get a special constant feed-in rate for their electricity (no longer available for commercial entities) would actually pay money to feed their solar into the grid.
Therefore it's absolutely vital for new solar in Germany to have batteries on-site so they can sell later in the day, otherwise they're simply unprofitable.
For solar as well, the time you need the battery is usually when the solar ain't solarin
I have a solution: higher energy prices for those opposing NIMBYs and cheaper for YIMBYs .
So many issues in politics would be solved if the voters of certain policies were the only ones affected by them instead of writing cheques everyone else has to cash.
With batteries one could argue building them in a more distributed way might make more sense for overall resiliancy.
A fleet of like 70 nuclear plants at maybe 50 location could likely power all of Germany. For batteries you would likely go to 100 to 1000s of locations.
But that said, using the existing connections in some places does make sense.
But, there are other issues: Atomic power keeps rising in cost. The plant was decomissioned and to turn it back on, you would basically have to rebuild it from the ground up - with people and knowledge that does not exist. Also, you would need the fuel from some place - as with oil and gas, you are depended on that place, since you can't easily switch uranium.
We would need about 55 power plants in Germany. At its height, Germany had 38 plants, all of that trash is still not solved. And we are not even thinking about the lawsuits that the reactivation or building of new plants would entail. People are suing against solar farms, what do you think a Nimby would be triggered by a nuclear plant?
In addition, none of these plants can be insured, all the risk is with the tax payer. As russia currently shows, you are also creating about 50 targets that to destroy a country. You don't even have to send a rocket, a few drones with grenades will make sure the plant has to shut down.
Personally, I do not want them. I remember Tchernobyl and the fallout afterwards. We have alternatives, like these battery storages, and can use water, wind, solar and hydrogen to not create potential nuclear issues, i am fine with that.
< For batteries you would likely go to 100 to 1000s of locations.
Yes, ideally de-centralized and build where power is generated. A battery park can be set up almost anywhere, a power plant not so much.
Nevertheless, I like the idea of using these old plant sites for storage, they have pretty good connections to the grid, so it makes a lot of sense. Can't use that space for anything else, really.
Which it can only do if it consumes more power than the plant was going to deliver. They don't supply power, they can only displace time of use against generation.
> Atomic power keeps rising in cost.
Why? And why won't those same factors increase all energy generation and delivery costs?
> You don't even have to send a rocket, a few drones with grenades will make sure the plant has to shut down.
Batteries are immune to grenades?
> A battery park can be set up almost anywhere
You know, the thing you want next to a battery, or any energy generation and storage system, is going to be a Fire Department.
Sourcing uranium is not an issue. In fact per kwh nuclear requires least amount of materials and hence, imports https://ourworldindata.org/low-carbon-technologies-need-far-... Heck Germany can even extract it from seawater in worst case. Nowadays it's not that much more expensive vs land mining. But soon Sweden will be a player too, along Canada/Australia
Npp in germany were insured by law with insuring pools. On top, operators had full asset liability, again, per law. Closest catastrophe event would be TMI. Cleanup there is merely 1bn...
Russian war shows nuclear is great regardless. Ukraine's grid still has power even though most ren infra got destroyed/captured because most was deployed in south with better weather. Germany is in similar situation with northern offshore parks
You remember chernobyl which is expected to kill at most 4k ppl or much less per UNCSEAR but you are probably fine with german car industry which kills same amount of persons in merely 2y from impacts, right? You are fine with coal still operating which killed even more? You are fine with gas being used for firming? (habeck, reiche, fraunhofer) Phaseout was a terrible decision https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10640-025-01002-z
France has decentralized grid with centralized multiunit locations. This reduces heavily grid investment needs. There's a reason Germany spends 10x vs France on transmission and curtailment
I mean it wont. it only stores power. The problem for germany is that they still have shitty coal plants. If they'd kept the nuclear and yeeted the coal, they'd have a much cleaner grid. they could have been able to turn off half thier gas and entirely oil free
How did UK and France solve it? Just ask them and do what they did?
> People are suing against solar farms, what do you think a Nimby would be triggered by a nuclear plant?
Simple. You make it against the law to sue a giant energy projects because energy is a national/existential issue like defense. There, problem solved.
Why do we act like there isn't a switch we can flip when needed to make our problems go away, and instead need to succumb to the whims of a few anti-intellectual nimbys who got brainwashed by anti nuclear propaganda, because "they can sue"?
>Personally, I do not want them. I remember Tchernobyl and the fallout afterwards
Do you also remember the other power plants in the world that didn't blow up?
Imagine if prehistoric humans stopped using fire because someone burned his house down once and "they remember the fire".
Even if it is possible I have no confidence that Germany is able to come up with a solution to nuclear waste. The federal states that are proponents of nuclear energy like Bavaria refuse to even examine whether a nuclear waste repository could be located in their territory.
Not that far away from the former nuclear plant in the article the "Schacht Asse" [1] is located where the problem of nuclear waste im Germany becomes painfully obvious.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asse_II_mine
Edit: Grammar
Nuclear 'waste' has plenty of solution and all these 'but the repositoy' is just what anti-nuclear people use to scare people that don't know any better. Nuclear 'waste' doesn't need a repository, its perfectly fine to just store it above ground for as long as needed.
The Asse mine is completely irrelevant to the discussion as this is not how anything is done anymore for a long time and many countries have proven capable of managing waste fine, including Germany since then. The fact is, basically nobody has died from waste managment.
Asse risk is overplayed, even if nothing was done, the likelyhood is that in the next few 100 years nobody would die because of it it. They are removing it because maybe in a few 100 years there could be a slight impact on ground water. Even the is if you make some worst case assumtions. Spend the billions it would cost to empty the mine on gold and put it into the ground. People in few 100 years can dig up and spend on what they think is their most important problem. In the incredibly unlikely case that its radiation, they can use their technology to do what they think is best.
Nuclear waste storage is politically killed centrally. Look even at formulation in the law which demands "best" location. Germany could solve this problem in a second if it allowed storing waste in facilities where toxic chemicals are stored like Herfa Neurode.
Asse was an experimental facility that didnt have a plan of what to do if experiment goes sideways. It has nothing to do with final repositories like Onkalo. Still, it killed noone. Nor will it. Most of the waste there is from medical and research sectors and is LLW.
Given how much renewable is already deployed, battery makes sense.
So I think both would be best.
An NPP doesn't benefit that much from a battery. They're generally used to provide base load which fits their constant supply profile. Peaks and quick variations can be supplied by more flexible renewables together with a battery to buffer it.
Of course these days, you can feed the pumped hydro or batteries with much cheaper renewables.
Sure if it's the same price.
