It’s very a good sign, but I do have doubts about those figures. It’s all too easy to look at total demand and total renewable generation, while ignoring the fact that the country is a net exporter and thus produces more than 100% of its demand - with the remaining uncounted percentage not being green.
“Fossil free” isn’t exactly a recognised term, either, in which case fossil free =/= net zero =/= completely green.
Scotland is a country, but so is the UK, and the UK governs over Scotland.
It’s a similar mess with the transmission network. You have NGET owning the transmission lines in England and Wales, but SPT and SHET for Scotland, however all of these are overseen by NGESO, the system operator, who balance the generation and load. Just to make it even more confusing, the Wales and South West distributor WPD has been brought back into British ownership as part of the National Grid group, so you have NGED providing some distribution as well.
IIRC, France exports its excess nuclear power in the summer (little need for AC until recently), but imports during the winter (electric heat for the most part). Mostly to and from Germany, which uses some terribly dirty sources. Don’t know if that’s changed in the last few years, though.
The mix will fluctuate on a day-by-day basis. You could be 100% renewable on one day, wind solar, and hydroelectric (although that’s problematic in and of itself) with the inevitable nuclear for base load.
The next day you could be still and overcast and you’ve already used all of your water from the dam so you have to run more natural gas in the mix.
To pick any random day and to say that that date is representative of the year as a whole is silly, you need averages over the course of a year.
It’s very a good sign, but I do have doubts about those figures. It’s all too easy to look at total demand and total renewable generation, while ignoring the fact that the country is a net exporter and thus produces more than 100% of its demand - with the remaining uncounted percentage not being green.
“Fossil free” isn’t exactly a recognised term, either, in which case fossil free =/= net zero =/= completely green.
This data is plain wrong, at least for some countries.
96% for Portugal would be amazing, but that seemed excessive so I looked it up, renewables accounted for 73% only.
I mean, it not bad, but we could be 99% there by now if the governments weren’t pandering to utilities and fossil companies so much.
Edit: sorry forgot to link the source for power data
Yeah I agree. Scotland has a tiny population and isn’t actually a country. It’s a part of the larger UK that definitely has more fossil fuels.
Here is the UK grid: https://grid.iamkate.com/
Scotland is a country, but so is the UK, and the UK governs over Scotland.
It’s a similar mess with the transmission network. You have NGET owning the transmission lines in England and Wales, but SPT and SHET for Scotland, however all of these are overseen by NGESO, the system operator, who balance the generation and load. Just to make it even more confusing, the Wales and South West distributor WPD has been brought back into British ownership as part of the National Grid group, so you have NGED providing some distribution as well.
IIRC, France exports its excess nuclear power in the summer (little need for AC until recently), but imports during the winter (electric heat for the most part). Mostly to and from Germany, which uses some terribly dirty sources. Don’t know if that’s changed in the last few years, though.
They did import a lot that one year in summer when all their nuclear plants broke due to low river levels and some sort of maintenance issue.
The mix will fluctuate on a day-by-day basis. You could be 100% renewable on one day, wind solar, and hydroelectric (although that’s problematic in and of itself) with the inevitable nuclear for base load.
The next day you could be still and overcast and you’ve already used all of your water from the dam so you have to run more natural gas in the mix.
To pick any random day and to say that that date is representative of the year as a whole is silly, you need averages over the course of a year.