alt Hacker NewsHasn't Germany and the UK been investing in renewables for years now? They must be feeling pretty happy about that decision right now unlike oil obsessed countries like the US.
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Yes, but it is not enough. It helps a lot when sunny, and weekend mid-day gross market prices for electricity hover just above zero, but there's not enough batteries, flexibility, and other renewables to avoid price spikes in the morning and evening peak, when hydro and gas plants are still covering a lot.
A quarter of a century ago, the first quarter of 2001, Britain used 39 TWh of coal electrical generation, 36 TWh of gas and 21 TWh of nuclear.
Today we're lot more energy efficient†, and the renewables made more than 25 TWh, but nuclear is now less than 10 TWh, we of course no longer burn coal, which leaves 30 TWh of gas still and we have a lot more imports (because we have a lot more interconnect, which is also a form of energy security)
† For example back then we mostly used incandescent light bulbs! And a lot of people still used CRT televisions back then!
Partly, though both have had periods of right wing governments trying to make this problem worse to benefit their oil and gas industry backers.
And now the same people are saying that the answer is more oil and gas.
If so they must have very low domestic electricity prices (according to many people who continue to claim renewables = lower prices!)
Oh, wait, they don't. At all
For electricity generation, the UK is currently generating 50% via renewables. It goes up and down each day of course, storage is not a solved problem yet.
Nice visualisations of the current status: https://grid.iamkate.com/
Electricity is only a part of the whole energy sector, but it's relevant to this thread about EVs.