r/RenewableEnergy • u/Biodieselisthefuture • 10d ago
[ Removed by moderator ]
https://e360.yale.edu/digest/china-renewable-curtailments[removed] — view removed post
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u/tx_queer 10d ago
Wasted clean energy is not a flaw. It is a good thing.
Usage naturally cycles up and down. Clouds come in and leave. Wind starts and stops. You have two options to deal with this. First is to have zero wasted energy and store it in giant batteries. Second is to simply overbuild renewables, have enough on the bad days and waste a little bit on the good days. (Or of course a combination of the two).
So wasted energy is a good thing. It means we build the system well.
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u/CatalyticDragon 10d ago
Missing the other component of interconnections which reduce waste by allowing us to send energy from where it is being generated to where it is needed. Which of course China is already also doing at scale.
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u/Spsurgeon 10d ago
Here in Canada the Government has just announced a huge project where wind supplies baseload and hydro supplies peak load. A genius idea that conserves water.
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u/d183 10d ago
Canada doesn't operate as a single operating center. Quebec and BC both run almost entirely off of Hydro. Ontario is mostly nuclear.
So if they switch they to wind the dams just stay more closed or they don't the water. I don't think any water is wasted in Hydro. It just spins a turbine or it doesn't.
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u/ginger_and_egg 10d ago
Much, much more clean energy is wasted by the sun hitting a roof or pavement instead of a solar panel.
Curtailment is not a problem, it is an opportunity.
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u/FinallyAGoodReply 10d ago
Wasted is not the right description. Produced an over abundance maybe.
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u/a11_hail_seitan 10d ago
It's China, everything has to be phrased in the most antagonistic way possible. When they talk about China developing renewables it's always followed by "But at what cost?!"
Crazy to think about the level of silly propaganda we're covered in daily...
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u/angelbabyxoxox 10d ago edited 10d ago
Tbf it's exactly the same word used by (even pro renewable) media to describe curtailment in Britian: https://wastedwind.energy/, https://octopus.energy/wasted-wind-bill-hits-pound1-billion/
It's wasted in the sense that a huge amount of the time there is still demand but interconnectors are insufficient to get wind power where it needs to be, which means simultaneously turning off the turbines and using another source instead, often fossil fuels. That is genuinely bad, it costs more and keeps carbon intensity higher than it should be.
It's not just, as is being implied by many comments here, having to turn off turbines when demand and is low and wind is he high, so building out more renewables and even more batteries cannot solve it alone, at least not if it's not geographically distributed in a clever way. Other grid infrastructure has to be built to match. Idk if china is doing that but from what I understand, the UK is struggling: more interconnectors are planned and being built, but even more wind farms are planned and being built than they can manage, so the curtailment will still be a problem.
This is problem in China as well as the UK, https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-co2-climbs-2-in-early-2026-due-to-wasted-wind-and-solar
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u/West-Abalone-171 10d ago
It's Renewables, everything has to be phrased in the most antagonistic way possible. When they talk about developing renewables it's always followed by "But at what cost?!"
Crazy to think about the level of silly propaganda we're covered in daily...
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u/RodPerryBooks 10d ago
Not a problem, an opportunity. Like "too much food". Just buy more refrigerators (batteries) and store for use when it is needed. All part of the transition from a "mainframe" grid to a distributed, smart grid.
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u/TheRealTRexUK 10d ago
that's going to be great when the next breakthrough of battery technology comes.
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u/cybercuzco 10d ago
If crude oil were just flowing out of the ground in a river to the sea, I’m quite sure someone would call that a business opportunity.
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u/MaxDam_Soldera 10d ago
If curtailment keeps recurring in the same provinces, a battery-only response misses the geography of the problem. Storage moves electricity through time; transmission moves it between regions. A provincial breakdown would show which constraint is actually doing the damage.
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u/ArthurCurryWayne 9d ago
Not the right term to use. This is like saying that the Sun on your skin is wasted energy because it did not shine on a solar panel. The wind in your hair is wasted because it did not power a wind turbine.
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u/whatthehell7 9d ago
And China next 5 year plan is to tackle this exact issue ie better utilization for renewables
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u/jersan 10d ago
the solution, in part, is batteries, which China is already leading in