KlaxonCow wrote:
The original National Grid video was 8 years ago, and things have progressed a very long way since then, it seems.
Including that, well, it's a different bloke being interviewed (at home because, of course, coronavirus lockdown), as they now have a dedicated "Energy Intelligence Manager" because now, and increasingly, renewables are contributing vastly more to the Grid - they have occasionally become the majority power source - and this is the way all their future planning is going.
Because, actually, it's not just "reducing carbon emissions", but renewables + grid-level storage (perhaps via more house batteries for people's homes) honestly makes their job way easier to balance supply and demand, when they can instantly "nudge" things back to 50Hz from battery storage.
In a sense, I no longer need to advocate for this stuff so forcefully any more, the Grid is already convinced and just working its way over to the new infrastructure, and pretty much every car manufacturer is now releasing EVs and hybrids (and if battery prices keep dropping this rapidly, it honestly won't be long before EVs are not just in price parity with ICE cars, but actually end up cheaper than them).
We're not there yet, of course. But the forces are already in motion. Because, as I've been trying to say all along, this is simply superior technology with masses of benefits that we'll be better off with a renewable infrastructure, even if we didn't have climate change and "carbon emissions" to be worried about. But we do have that - and, one day, the impending death of fossil fuels and uranium - so, at that point, it becomes a "no choice" / "no brainer" and the sooner we get it sorted, the sooner it's done.
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