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German power mix may get dirtier for 1st non-nuclear winter
(www.reuters.com)
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There's a big push in Germany to install heat pumps. If people doing that are getting dual air conditioner/heater systems installed, it may be that it'll increase summer demand for electricity, and that'll mitigate some of that.
As things stand, Europe's peak electricity demand is during winter, due to electricity-powered heating.
In the US, peak electricity demand is during summer, due to air conditioning.
What you'd ideally like is, if your generation is non-dispatchable, for demand to more-or-less track when power is available. In general, solar is going to tend to be generating at the right times if your peak load is from air conditioning, and the wrong times if your peak load is from heating.
European adoption of air conditioning is increasing.
https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/08/02/europe-reluctantly-turns-to-air-conditioning-as-heatwaves-bite-data-shows
What I don't know is what the total impact will be.
Lol... So your bright solution to demand peaks in winter is becoming so wasteful that you manage to need even more in summer?
We're headed for a warmer climate in Europe, that's for sure. So time will help us
Not really sure. Depends on if/when the gulf stream collapses.
We are headed for a more extreme climate thats on average a few degrees warmer. While the heating period may get shorter, the peak load due to heating in extreme winters will increase. Thats the exact opposite of what you want in an all renewable grid.
Winters will be warmer on average, meaning less heating needed. Unless the gulf stream collapsed, which would change everything in Europe