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South Dakota produced 110% of its electricity demand with just renewables for a year (bsky.app)

submitted 6 days ago by [email protected] to c/technology

22 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Fascinating new EIA data

South Dakota produced 110% of its electricity demand with just Wind-Water-Solar for the full year Oct 1 '23-Sep 30 '24

77.5% Wind 30.1% Water 2.2% Solar

Also produced 16.8% gas, 11.7% coal

So SD produced 138% of demand, exporting 38%

https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/WWSBook/Countries100Pct.pdf

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[–] tb_ -1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

But were those renewables able to meet demand 100% of the time with sufficient battery backups?

[–] [email protected] 32 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Well it doesn't matter if it exports the surplus to other states and cuts their fossil fuel usage. It means that 100% of that renewable energy was cut from fossil fuels.

There is always a need to smooth out troughs. That can be through, selling, shifting demand (cheaper tarrifs during surplus), storage or as a last resort bridging gaps with other fuels.

Let's not let perfect get in the way of good. Every tonne of CO2 out the air gives us more time and a little more chance for at risk countries to stay above water.

[–] tb_ -1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

It's certainly good, but I think it'd be better if we had some additional clean way of covering our base load. Like nuclear.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Renewables + storage (batteries, etc.) can be more than enough. And you can get that in a much lower cost, at a much faster time than nuclear.
https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/NuclearVsWWS.pdf

The same person has also published studies and plans for 100% renewables in the USA and in the world.
USA
Grid reliability in the USA with 100% renewables
World

All of which he updates every couple of years.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 6 days ago

It does matter because you have to cover a lacune of 6-8 weeks from fossil sources. Typically these are gas turbine peaker plants at low duty cycle which need to be subsidized.