Michaux on Germany

He’s at it again. He just cannot help himself!

Michaux loves to pretend he discovered winter’s effect on renewable production. Then – the irony – he quotes studies about how renewables impact an isolated German renewable energy grid! Is he really so uninformed that he does not know that is where the very term Dunkelflaute came from in the first place? It’s short for “When the sun isn’t shining and when the wind isn’t blowing”. AKA an ‘energy drought’ or ‘Dark Lull’ can all just be called Dunkelflaute. Because the German’s have been studying this for decades!

Here is Craig Morris 6 years ago – writing back in 2017. Note: Craig sounds tired of the whole thing already. He’s debunking a German economist called Flassbeck who – like Simon Michaux – thinks he discovered winter! Craig unpacks how many different studies going back many previous years have already addressed this. And Craig is writing in 2017. But don’t forget everyone – Simon Michaux discovered winter – no one else is thinking about this! (Double facepalm.) So – what can the Germans do about winter?

Well, before we get to that there’s one important point to make. An obvious point. Germany is cold in winter. We get it. It’s also 5,700 km North of the equator. But where do most people on earth actually live? They are between 20 to 40 degrees North of the equator – some 2,000 to 4,000 km’s-ish. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – there is no winter at the equator! If you want more solar less impacted by winter, build closer to the equator and pipe it back home. HVDC only loses 3% per 1000 km, which means these latitudes would only lose 6 to 12% of their electricity. Bottom line? Most people on earth don’t experience that much winter – or if they do – have neighbours that don’t.

What’s great? Michaux’s favourite study admits as much! They very paper that suggests Germany may need 12 WEEKS of storage also suggests maybe they should trade with their neighbours?

Ruhnau & Qvist 2021 – Page 6 “On the one hand, the fact that we model Germany as an island may lead to an overestimation of cost.”

Page 11: “Geographical scope. Some limitations of the present study and possibilities for further research may be highlighted. First, for simplicity and comparability this study narrowly focuses on Germany, ignoring both international trade and intra-national grid constraints. While geographical smoothing within Europe will certainly reduce challenges and costs related to wind and solar variability, the effect on optimal storage deployment is not trivial due to the trade-off with renewable overcapacity.”

So what would happen if Germany traded with some of her partners? Alexander Roth, et al 2023:-

“Geographical balancing of wind power decreases storage needs in a 100% renewable European power sector” says that adding HVDC interconnectors to the core 12 European countries CUTS STORAGE REQUIREMENTS 30%.

But even this is too limited! Why model just 12 ‘core’ European countries going all-renewable when the European grid already has 24 countries in it!

But even THIS is too limited! The European grid itself is part of and co-ordinates something slightly larger, called the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E). And ENTSO have a 100% renewables plan that involves bringing all 35 countries together into a giant system-of-systems super-grid. (PDF.)

Let’s not forget that Germany is not completely its own ‘electricity island’ right now. Germany exports 70Twh and imports 50 Twh a year these days. The German grid uses about 500 Twh annually – so they already export 14% and import 10% of their grid. That will grow as the ENTSO super-grid becomes ever more interconnected and flexible.

Youtuber “Real Engineering” – 2020 explains plans for the European super-grid. It’s estimated the EU will save $12 to $40 BILLION annually by integrating their super-grid. It just makes sense. It’s just the plan!

What is even more hilarious is when Simon goes on to rant about Berlin alone as an example of how much storage we will ALL need. Remember – most of the human race lives within easy powerline distance of the equator which has no winter.

The fact that he just cherry-picked a city of 3.6 million out of what is ACTUALLY becoming a super-grid for over 532 million people is one thing. The fact that he tries to “paint the whole world Berlin” – when most of us live near or have neighbours that live near the equator – well it just reminds me of the hilarious time he tried to “paint the whole world Singapore!”