Kyushu Electric restricts renewable energy supplies for first time

Too much power and an out of date transmission system？

They need to get this nonsense sorted ASAP. They are literally leaving available solar power capacity on the table to favor nuclear. I get that there are grid management difficulties at work, but this shouldn't be so hard to resolve without doing something so ludicrous.

Is this not a problem of not having a way to store electricity from renewable sources? Solar power output is variable over short term periods, so there is a need for conventional sources at night and when there is little sunshine. Nuclear plants can't be switched off quickly.

Marcelito The nuclear energy is predictable what the renewables not are. We have tto have a realistic view of the dangerousity with nuclear. People from Norway which were evacuated by specifik extra flights as effect of the Fukushima disaster were evacuated to areas with higher radiation than in Fukushima. British experts have said the evacuation of Japanese people wasn´t needed at all.

The actual radiation level with yeardoses of 120 milliSievert do increase the risk for lungcancer with one percent while smoking do increase the risk to 1 500 percent.

The car traffic is more risky for the health than nuclear is.

Albaleo. The electric production from renewable specially sun power is very minimal. A guy in Sweden have mounted sunpower on every existing roofs of his Ranch and get an income of €120 pro month.

To replace a normal nuclear plant of 1 000 MW it´s needed 600 000 such solar plants.

That means even stooring of sun power will give a minimum of supply to the total effect in the country net. Even though it can impact the momental balance between production and consumption which at every single time have to be equal and of cource a stooring can effect. But the stooring amount will not have much capacity. Sorry.

Normally sunpower gives an income of say €8 pro month with installation costs of €4 500. That means not very economically for your private economy.

@Carl-Åke, thanks for the response.

I'm in Scotland where wind power is more significant than solar power. I'm no expert, but I think the production is more than minimal. One figure I read says 50% of Scotland's electric power now comes from renewables. That probably includes hydro, but wind has the biggest share. But we still need to maintain a 100% backup with conventional power stations, including two nuclear plants, for those days when the wind doesn't blow. We also pay wind farms to stop producing on those days when there is over-supply. It seems wasteful. I think a reliable method of storage would be a great step forward.

Albaleo The Swedish Svenska Kraftnät with the effective useable windpower as effect of installed rate effect is 6 percent in summer and 11 percent in winter. That means a lot of ineffectiveness with windpower. As the windpower also do need backup-power that will also be unsatifactured circumstances.

That´s ok to be engaged in wind- and sunpower but I think we have much more possibilities to force the development of gen IV and Thorium reactors for the future. During the meantime we can built gen III+.

In the end if you have 5 000 MW nuclear you must have 45 500 MW installed windpower to get the same result in winter. In summer it´s even worse. Do correct me if I am wrong.

The way to store solar power is through plugin EVs. Most cars are parked in the daytime when solar peaks and can be recharged. They can put power back into the grid at night if needed. Japan had a lead with hybrids but has fallen far behind in PEVs since the government pushed Toyota to hydrogen.

@Carl-Åke

Do correct me if I am wrong.

I can't correct you as I know so little. :-)

I'm not against nuclear power except for the cost. The cost of renewable sources is hard to determine. Producing electricity seems easy; managing it seems very difficult.

@happywhere

The way to store solar power is through plugin EVs.

I think there may be issues with supply and demand patterns for vehicles. But the general idea of charging batteries with excess power sounds sensible. Is anyone working on easily swappable batteries for vehicles?

since the government pushed Toyota to hydrogen

Is that the case? Among all Japanese companies, Toyota seems the least likely to come under government pressure. I think they like to make their own mistakes.