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gandalfian ◴[] No.43623573[source]
And yet sometimes I wonder. In the Uk you need most of your energy in the cold dark winter. So if you require enough non solar renewables to get you through the winter with net zero and those renewables are still available in the summer time are large scale solar not a bit redundant? Sunnier countries that have high electricity demand for air conditioning during the sunny periods would seem to have a better match mind.
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ZeroGravitas ◴[] No.43623643[source]
The UK plans are mostly wind e.g. from the latest carbon budget:

> Low-carbon supply: by 2040, our Balanced Pathway sees offshore wind grow six-fold from 15 GW of capacity in 2023 to 88 GW by 2040. Onshore wind capacity doubles to 32 GW by 2040 and solar capacity increases to 82 GW

And once you multiply by capacity factor the solar and onshore wind are about equal so solar will be less than a third of modern renewables.

Plus UK wind peaks in the winter.

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1. Gibbon1 ◴[] No.43623676[source]
I think Scotland is already a net exporter of electricity due to wind.