alt Hacker NewsCanada is blessed with cheap energy, the abundance of hydro surely helps to bridge any intermittency other renewables have. I lived there 10 years back, your energy is less than half the cost of mine in Scotland. In Scotland's case we're part of the UK and the rest of the UK is less blessed with the geography for hydro. The incumbent Scottish government also has an anti stance to nuclear.
I hope the incentives for cleaner energy continue to stack up. With the surge in demand from AI surely productivity will be more tightly coupled with energy usage and cost.
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Related to UK energy I read this interesting article on transmission congestion between Scotland and England and how this is increasing energy costs due to curtailment of renewables.
https://ukerc.ac.uk/news/transmission-network-unavailability...
TL;DR - Until new interconnectors between Scotland and England are finished in 2029, there will be significant curtailment of Scottish wind power which increases costs.
This is also an interesting site for seeing curtailment per wind farm - https://windtable.co.uk/data?farm=Seagreen
Everything that I learned about energy in Scotland comes from Still Game, so I must ask -- how many bars?
There is enough wind potential in Europe to power the world [1]. Combined with interconnects to Europe and battery storage, there is no reason power costs can't be driven down. To not do so is a lack of will. Scotland currently generates a surplus of renewables [2], exported. kieranmaine's sibling comment citations dives into the lack of will part.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38722022 (citations)
[2] In Scotland, Renewable Power Has Outstripped Demand - https://e360.yale.edu/digest/scotland-renewable-energy-100-p... - January 30th, 2024
(at the rate it takes to deploy transmission, might as well start dropping TBMs in the ground and let them grind towards each other from interconnect landings, potentially faster than the approval grind, complaints from locals about land use and right of ways, etc)
In Scotland one issue is that the UK electricity market is national (unlike in eg norway). So even if local supply is very high and interconnects are not large enough to export to england - we must pay the higher national rate. As octopus ceo suggested if the UK energy market has regional pricing then electricity in scotland would often be a lot cheaper and in some cases industrial demand would move there. But that would disadvantage the SE of England so will never happen.
Conversely, standing charges ARE regionalised - because that does advantage the SE of England. Oh well!