We have all heard the fossil fuel refrain that wind and solar are just too expensive for mainstream use, and can never be built up enough to supply cheap and reliable electricity.
Many have also heard the comment-turned-slogan that nuclear power was going to be "too cheap to meter."
Well, now we’re seeing a merging of both, as Bloomberg reports: “Chile Has So Much Solar Energy It’s Giving It Away for Free.” Thanks to a gung-ho approach to solar, Chile’s central grid has quadrupled its solar power since 2013, resulting in a stretch of 113 days where spot prices were zero.
Before getting too excited, read the full article, which explains that this is mainly because of Chile’s bifurcated power grid, in which the central and northern grids not being connected. The northern grid is where prices have reached zero, but that’s not where most of the demand for power comes from. So, in the north, where the Atacama Desert provides the perfect conditions for solar, there’s been so much energy produced that its driven down prices there. It's kept separate from the population centers in the south, however, due to “at least seven or eight points in the transmission lines that are collapsed and blocked,” according to Energy Minister Maximo Pacheco.
While it’s not exactly a clear-cut win for renewables, it does disprove the notion that solar power is inherently incapable of producing significant quantities of cheap, reliable electricity.
So it’s now-clear that nuclear won’t be our savior, and we can say “So long!” to so-lar naysaying.
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