Wind and solar: A comparison of Denmark & South Australia

The learnings from Denmark

Denmark’s wind and solar PV share of generation is much the same as South Australia, yet Denmark’s system is the most reliable in Europe and 3 times as reliable as NSW.

Denmark provides evidence that under the right circumstances high rates of wind penetration are completely achievable and at reasonable cost. More broadly, Europe produces 18% of its electricity from new renewable energy and this share is rising with 80% of new investment in renewables backed up by a range of laws and directives. Public support for Danish electricity policy in Denmark appears to be strong.

In our view ,there are a range of factors – some structural and some cultural – that explain Denmark’s success.  Both structure and culture are important.

Structurally, Denmark has the advantage over South Australia because:

  1. There are vastly better interconnectors and plenty of hydro generation. On a net basis Denmark doesn’t import more than about 10% of its energy but there is much more  flexibility in the import/export regime. (see figs 3 & 7). Because of exports running regularly thermal can run at steady capacity keeping the system smooth.
  2. Thermal generation can and is used for district heating in Demark, via combined heat and power [CHP] which lets the thermal power stations make money even though they lose money on generation. Each of the coal stations are gradually being converted to run on sustainable bio mass so that coal will be fully phased out by 2023.
  3. The larger size of the Danish market (3X the size of South Australia) means that a critical mass of thermal generation can be supported.

Culturally both the Danish network owner/operator [Energienet DK]  and the main thermal generator owner [Dongenergy] are fully committed to wind and decarbonization. Dongenergy  having been dominated by coal ten years ago will be completely coal free by 2023 and sees its future in building wind assets. Its much easier to manage the transition if everyone is on the same page.

Same problems but there are good answers old and new

Even with Denmark’s advantages, as the share of wind rises beyond 50% the same issues of flexibility, generation capacity, poor economics of the remaining thermal generation, frequency control and inertia are becoming more significant. As the problems arise so do the solutions.  That is normal in technology.

These issues were brought up when renewable energy was first introduced and are still those that confront the industry. Every time it’s completely legitimate to raise the issue, but at every step an answer is found.

There are a wide range of theoretical studies that show there are no technical problems with 100% renewable energy in large grids such as the USA and even Australia. A good 4 volume example is NREL 100% renewables USA. There are emerging technology answers such as “synthetic inertia” and yes battery storage to deal with frequency control and inertia issues.

It’s now fairly widely acknowledged that with better management South Australia wouldn’t have had any blackouts, storm or no storms. Of course there are serious issues in South Australia more to do with annual energy than power, but there are also answers.

Renewables generation with South Australian characteristics

Although Denmark has advantages over South Australia in the race to high renewables penetration it doesn’t have a great PV resource or the same potential for distributed generation and storage.

South Australia can build more transmission, but it can also, in our view, use its distributed energy potential to build up household PV and household storage, street and suburban level storage. This will clearly help with frequency control.

It’s likely that wind farms can also be used to provide synthetic inertia at roughly the same rate as thermal stations (see link below). In short, South Australia has the tools to fix its inertia and frequency control issues right in the tool box. It just needs to use them. After that it’s finding the cost effective way to use wind.  That done, South Australia’s long, long standing higher cost of electricity relative to other States will be gone.

Denmark’s wind & PV share is similar to South Australia

For all the discussion and headlines that renewables attracts, and the absolutely crucial importance from a global warming perspective of making progress as speedily as possible the fact remains wind and PV share of global electricity production is still quite small.

The chart below shows for selected regions wind and PV output as a share of total consumption. It’s a very small sample of all the markets we could have looked at, but at the same time includes two major grids in the USA, China and a couple of key countries in Europe.

We have selected just wind & PV as renewables often includes hydro. Hydro is completely dispatchable and is the most efficient “conventional” source of generation to meet demand or supply fluctuations. A big hydro resource is a massive help in integrating other renewables but not one we have in Australia, or directly in Denmark.

Picture1
Figure 1 South Australia compared to other grids. Source various

Picture1

About electricity in Denmark

Denmark has a similar share of its electricity consumption coming from renewables (very largely onshore and offshore wind) in a market that is “only” 3X larger than South Australia.

Some key features of Denmark’s electricity system.

  1. GDP has doubled over 30 years with electricity consumption staying constant.
  2. Denmark has the most reliable electricity supply in Europe, just ahead of Europe and much more reliable than the USA. In 2015 average outage per consumer was 22 minutes. For Ausgrid in Sydney the equivalent number was 71 minutes.
  3. Denmark has a 180% tax on new cars, waived if you buy an electric car and EVs get free parking.

So how do they do it?

Let’s start with a disclaimer. Experience has long taught that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. There are undoubtedly many subtleties and nuance of electricity production and demand in Denmark and Europe of which I’m totally ignorant. That said:

It’s only recently that Denmark got to the position where wind was more than 50% of domestic generation.

Figure 3 Denmark consumption and production. Source: Energienet
Figure 3 Denmark consumption and production. Source: Energienet

Points to note:

  1. Consumption has been flat but GDP has continued to grow. In the end this is one of the most important messages. Energy efficiency is a big deal. However if you are a private sector player looking for revenue growth, electricity supply in Denmark might not be the best business.
  2. Denmark is mostly a net importer of electricity and in recent years that gap has widened although forecasts have it closing again.
  3. Both small scale (< 25 Mw) and thermal output have declined in the past 10 years replaced by wind (and a touch of PV).

The basic pattern of hourly operation using data for the first two months of 2017 is shown below. The main point to note is the relative constancy of the thermal generation with imports/exports used to balance wind variability.

Figure 4 Hourly generation in Denmark Jan, Feb 2017. Source: Engienet
Figure 4 Hourly generation in Denmark Jan, Feb 2017. Source: Engienet

The decline of thermal has not been painless. The decline in thermal output has been and will continue to be difficult for thermal stations. The 2015 capacity factors are shown below.

Figure 5 Demark capacity & utilization. Source: Engienet
Figure 5 Demark capacity & utilization. Source: Engienet

Dong’s thermal generation makes  a loss on the electricity part of its business but is viable because of the CHP profits from the same power stations.

Figure 6 Dong thermal generation. Source: company
Figure 6 Dong thermal generation. Source: company

We look into Dong a bit more later. Suffice to say that there are over 3 GW of thermal capacity.

Imports and export capability have been crucial

Denmark has major transmission links with Sweden, Norway and Germany. When wind output is strong the excess is exported and replaces easily interrupted and easily dispatched hydro electricity.

The monthly pattern of imports(+)  and exports (-) in 2015 is

Figure 7 Monthly import/export electricity. Source: Engienet
Figure 7 Monthly import/export electricity. Source: Engienet

The Danish network operator has expressed concerns going forward

The 2015 Annual Report put it this way:

“In the medium to long term, there may be far fewer dispatchable power stations in Denmark to maintain the high level of security of electricity supply. The low electricity prices in northern Europe have major consequences for power station owners as the low prices cannot cover the costs of their electricity generation. The low electricity price is directly reflected in the total power station production, which has fallen by approx. 45% over the past five years. On account of the low prices, it is also difficult to attract investments in new electricity generation facilities which are not wind turbines with guaranteed subsidies in the form of mark-ups on the market rates for electricity. This is not just a challenge for the Danish market players, but also in other European countries.”

These concerns are reflected in the broader Nordic view

Denmark’s relative position in the broader Nordic system is seen below:

Figure 8 Nordic balances Source: Challenges and opportunities for the Nordic power system
Figure 8 Nordic balances Source: Challenges and opportunities for the Nordic power system

Four structural changes were identified:

  1. Closure of thermal plants;
  2. Tripling of wind’s share by 2025;
  3. Swedish nuclear power is being decommissioned;
  4. Interconnector capacity is rising by 50%.

These changes brought four familiar worries to the fore:

  1. System flexibility. The question is whether market designs to produce flexible capacity are being developed too late. (Hello Australia. This is where reverse auctions can help, as can batteries).
  2. Generation adequacy. To quote “Traditional adequacy methodologies are deterministic and therefore disregard capacity based on intermittent power sources. They also underestimate the value of transmission capacity, and do not cover the stochastic nature of component failure in the power system. In addition, the current adequacy assessments and mitigation measures do not fully value cross-border exchange
  3. Frequency control. Simply put in a traditional system when you only a few large plants frequency control becomes more difficult. More transmission is part of the answer. Here at ITK we also believe batteries can do a great job at frequency control, so much so that we think this will be a non issue.
  4. Inertia. Inertia is the fact that big thermal turbines are hard to stop or speed up in a hurry. As such they are good at momentarily maintaining The new development here is “synthetic inertia” provided by wind farms. An excellent, easy to read, uptodate discussion of where wind farms are at in regard to synthetic inertia can be found at Can synthetic inertia power grids?  Again though we think batteries are part of the answer here. In the end inertia is only required for frequency control, its not an end in itself.

Dong energy – a wind company that owns Denmark’s thermal assets

Dong energy is so interesting it deserves an article in itself. Dong’s current name came following the acquisition of 5 regional Danish electricity companies in 2006.  A small share in the company was listed in 2016.  Today the company has ebitda of about A$3 bn  and had a return on equity (aided by development profits) of 24% with the majority of profit coming from wind development and operation mainly in Europe but also in the rest of the world. 10 years ago the coal fired electricity dominated earnings. However by 2023 the company will be completely gone from coal. Dong is the main owner of thermal generation in Denmark. Its facilities are shown below.

Figure 9 Dong Danish thermal generation facilities. Source: company
Figure 9 Dong Danish thermal generation facilities. Source: company

Dong receives regulated profits from the CHP part of the business and the power stations produce more  heat when the wind is blowing and vice versa.

Dong sees its futre in renewables.

The need for Dong and most other generators to focus on renewables is shown in the following quote from Dong’s CEO in the 2016 annual report.

In Europe, new renewable energy accounted for 18% of total power generation in 2016. This proportion is expected to increase significantly in the coming years, as more than 80% of the generation capacity which will be built in Europe up until 2030 is expected to be green. This means that by 2030, 37% of the power generated in Europe is to come from new renewable energy

Price and cost

Renewable energy subsidies in Denmark are about 8bn kroner (about A$1.5 bn) per year and will probably rise further as the share of wind increases. That’s about A$45 MWh. Danish households pay about AUD$0.43 a KWh for electricity which is comparable to the standing tariff in South Australia. The Danish price has risen about 10-12% over the past five years. Retail competition was recently introduced with a recent switching rate of about 5%.

David Leitch is a regular contributor to Renew Economy and co-host of the weekly Energy Insiders Podcast. He is principal at ITK, specialising in analysis of electricity, gas and decarbonisation drawn from 33 years experience in stockbroking research & analysis for UBS, JPMorgan and predecessor firms.

Comments

33 responses to “Wind and solar: A comparison of Denmark & South Australia”

  1. Andy Saunders Avatar
    Andy Saunders

    Denmark has high taxes on electricity, so no wonder consumption is flat/efficiency is rising!

    And Denmark sits at a crossroads in the European electricity systems (actually it has two networks, one is part of the Nordic system, the other part of the German system), so has a very large amount of interconnect capacity. Also has a lot of hydro close by in Norway.

    There’s an argument for SA to have greater interconnect capacity (if renewables keep increasing penetration then those periods of negative prices will get longer and won’t help the NEM much if it can’t be exported). And to increase storage (whether via pumped hydro or battery).

    1. trackdaze Avatar
      trackdaze

      Australia has very high taxes on electricity too.

      In Queensland for instance half the cost is the network with the one shareholder being the state government.

      The major generators? Yep them too.

      1. AussieEngineer Avatar
        AussieEngineer

        Trackdaze has missed the point.

        Do the state-owned generators and distributors make a profit? How much? are their costs and charges comparable with their neighbours’? Again, by how much and why?

        Only after these questions have been answered can valid comparisons be made.

        Irrespective of the comparisons, charges for electricity related services, whether billed by private, public or mixed ownership entities are not taxes.

        Denmark has real taxes and plenty of them. They also have the highest retail tariffs in Europe, higher even than Germany, which is similarly known for its national focus on renewables.

        Both nations have a lot of work to do if their economies are not to suffer significantly due to their high cost electricity systems.

        1. trackdaze Avatar
          trackdaze

          The point is electricity in australia has gone from one of the cheapest in the world to one of the most expensive in a short timeframe.

          Now we throw the tea leafs on the ground and analyse in in great depth for as long as we want

          Gold plating grids, amd quasi commercial government businesses designed to give it all a facade of legitimacy while siphoning off billion $ dividends on the back of a captive market aint helping

        2. TatuSaloranta Avatar
          TatuSaloranta

          If you look at graphs provided wrt division of electricity consumption between industry and non-industry (individuals), you will notice that Denmark has much lower industrial energy usage than most of its neighbors (Norway, Sweden, Finland).
          This is both due to historical reasons (agriculture having been dominant historically, and lack of natural resources like minerals, forests that others have) and focus on transformation to renewables since 70s.

          So Danish industry is much less dependent on low energy prices than those of, say, Sweden or Finland. Or, even more so, Germany. And as to individuals, as much as people may sometimes complain, it really is not a big deal; either economically, or psychologically. Electricity prices are mostly used as a political tool, sometimes, by conservative politicians, but rarely show up on list of things average citizens is concerned about. Especially so when considering climate change is ranking quite high on the list.

          In short: as far as I know, I don’t think Denmark has an actual cost problem to solve. They may choose to balance progress to keep status quo, but have very little need to do anything to lower costs on any term.

    2. solarguy Avatar
      solarguy

      A reasonable assumption on SA having an interconnector, it will work well for the other states as well. All the states will need plenty of storage, days of it in fact. East coast lows can penetrate deep inland at times and I remember one lasting for about 14 days of nearly constant rain in the late eighties or early nineties I can’t recall exactly. Under those conditions PV still can provide output but much reduced, wind can be a saviour if it doesn’t turn into a rain depression over too much of an area.
      My concern in the future when we have a high penetration of EV’s is having enough power from generation and storage to meet the demand. Not to mention industry. I design PV grid and off grid systems. All off grid systems should be designed to have at least 2-3 days of storage, of mean average consumption, after that the genset comes into use. As inverters, chargers etc can fail, any off grid system needs to have a genset as back up, it’s the cheapest way and quickest way out of the shit, until replacements can be installed.
      So what I’m saying here is this: With a 100% RE grid we will need that back up to be from stored biogas or H2. The amount of which I can’t determine, but will have to be designed regionally, so that interconnectors won’t be pissing money up the wall.

      1. heinbloed Avatar
        heinbloed

        Agricultural nations love to use Ammonia, a fertilizer.

        This can be stored and used for power production in gas turbines, even simple petrol generators can take ammonia as an ad-mix.

        http://news.vattenfall.com/en/article/dutch-gas-plants-made-fossil-free

        https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-20/green-ammonia-made-with-wind-is-future-of-fertilizer-at-siemens

        1. Scottar Avatar
          Scottar

          What are the efficiency specifications? Scalability factors?

    3. TatuSaloranta Avatar
      TatuSaloranta

      I think that bigger reason really is culture: high taxation tends to be ineffective way to limit consumption for things people think they need anyway — from electricity to gasoline to tobacco and alcohol. Nordic countries (including Denmark) have tested this extensively with all of these…
      Partly this is because to really effect change one would have to make things so expensive it is a hard limit, people not being able to afford; and not just it being rational choice based on budgeting. Very few people are conscious of how they use their money, despite thinking they are. So higher price of electricity is talked about like weather is, but does not necessarily change behavior in and of itself. However: if those lead to cultural changes — like 70s oil crises did — they can eventually have significant effect.

      This is not to say that taxation is not useful: but I think its main benefit is wrt corporations (which are more rational, regarding money, and do follow economic laws much more than individuals), and in redistributing resources.
      Taxes collected have often more effect in enabling spending in otherwise underfunded areas; their being sucked away from areas (inhibitory part) may just be an icing on the cake.

  2. Ren Stimpy Avatar
    Ren Stimpy

    Denmark manufactures and exports wind turbines and components so they would be approaching the issue not just from an energy supply angle but an economy-wide angle.

    Here in Australia the horse has probably bolted for us to be a big player in solar manufacture as it will be hard to compete with far more established China, US and Japan, but we do have some promising energy storage manufacturing companies – agile and innovative companies with lots of jobs and growth potential (hint hint Mr Turnbull).

  3. solarguy Avatar
    solarguy

    Great article David. Thanks.

  4. Michael Murray Avatar
    Michael Murray

    Does Denmark really have “plenty of hydro generation”. I thought it was flat. Wikipedia says

    The electricity sector relies on fossil, nuclear and renewable energy: wind power, biogas, biomass and waste. No hydro power is produced domestically and other countries’ hydro and thermal power is used for buffering Denmark’s renewable generation.

    Presumably it has access to hydro power from the other Scandinavian countries.

    1. AussieEngineer Avatar
      AussieEngineer

      Correct. Norway purchases surplus wind power from Denmark, often at very low prices. It sells hydro, including pumped hydro, back to Denmark at peak prices during wind lulls and high demand periods.

      Norway is winning big time.

      1. Henrik Nielsen Avatar
        Henrik Nielsen

        And so it will be most years until Denmark can generate a lot more electricity from wind power.

      2. Henrik Nielsen Avatar
        Henrik Nielsen

        Double post. Sorry.

        1. AussieEngineer Avatar
          AussieEngineer

          How’s this for simplistic?
          Denmark sells cheap and buys back hydro power from Norway to meet 55% of its annual electricity load and charges its retail customers world-beating tariffs as a consequence.

          I know that the truth sometimes hurts, but worse pain is down the road for Europe unless the lessons being learned by high-wind South Australia are not heeded. No references necessary: Google “South Australia + electricity” and review a selection of articles about the current political fight centred on backup battery, gas or hydro power that is agreed to be necessary to avoid the massive blackout covering the whole of the state from 28 September 2016 and into the following month.

  5. heinbloed Avatar
    heinbloed

    Excellent report, thanks David Leitch!

  6. Andrew Lang Avatar
    Andrew Lang

    A good article and just a few things to add.
    * Denmark’s aim is to have 100% of its energy from renewables by 2050 with half from wind and half from biomass. Thi is all energy -electricity, heat and transport (including jet and marine fuels)
    *Progress toward the objective of having a major transition to EVs has been much slower than hoped, and even when the 180% tax on now conventional fuelled cars is waived the EVs have been still very expensive. Sweden has taken the other route of promotion of biofuelled vehicles, as is Finland, and both are very successful in this.
    *Denmark’s Energinet electricity system operator has total control over all parts of the system and can shut even wind turbines down if necessary to maintain supply balance
    *The trading of electricity in and out of Norway and Sweden/Finland is easy to see in realtime on the website http://www.energinet.dk/EN/El/Sider/Elsystemet-lige-nu.aspx.
    At present the wind output is 2394 MW and central power plants are producing 1255 MW (also heat) and the regional CHP plants (mostly biomass-fuelled) are producing 354 MW. Since it is nightime early Sunday the demand is close to 3000 MW (but high heat demand) and so there is significant export along interconnectors to scandinavian countries and some import from NE Germany. A net 1040 MW is being exported .
    *Other parts of this Energinet.dk website give gas use, and importantly give wholesale electricity prices. if you check the electrictiy prices when wind output is high teh price is generally at the low end of the trading range. Similarly when wind power out put is low the price is at the high end. This is a key issue for viability of this sort of system (see http://www.energinet.dk/EN/El/Sider/Det-nordiske-elsystem.aspx)
    * Germany is often using its interconnectors with Denmark to move power from the north west of Germany, though Denmark, to feed into some major north-south grid in the east of Germany. Germany has real problems at the present with moving its occasional peak production of wind power from north to south of the country.
    * Denmark now is putting almost all of its wind power production offshore and can there get capacity factors of up to 50% (also the population is increasingly against the visually obtrusive high capapcity turbines being on shore). This is another key issue with SA where even on the best sites capacity factors can be in the order of 35-37%.
    * in the CHP plants referred to in Denmark, many of these are fuelled by municipal solid waste and Denmark has one of the worlds highest per capita utilisations of this for energy. Many others are fuelled by straw or woody biomass. And most putrescible (wet organic) waste is going to anaerobic digesters where heat and usually electricity are also produced. So it is a normal situation that in Denmark more energy is being produced from biomass and waste than from the wind power sector that everyone is fixated on (though obviously it is justifiable in this article). It needs to be understood that electricity is only about 25% of Denmarks energy use.

  7. Scottar Avatar
    Scottar

    The problem of renewables is trying to effectively utilize low density, intermittent power. The US does not have the massive hydro availability like Sweden and Norway does. Trying to supplement renewable power with bio or fossil or nuclear is like trying to run a care off of 2 engines, 1st with renewable and 2nd with fossil, just better off using 24/7 high density fossil. Nuclear is even better, especially concerning EV’s.

    We did not put an man on the moon with solar nor wind, that took mostly fuel cells and chemical energy with some solar. But in space you require high grade PV panels (which translates to expensive) where sunlight is 300% more intense and 24/7. To go beyond the solar system or even the outer planets will require nuclear.

    1. John Saint-Smith Avatar
      John Saint-Smith

      You might be missing a fairly important point here.
      Nobody ever destroyed an ecosystem with low emissions technologies…

      1. Scottar Avatar
        Scottar

        Low emissions? Your just looking at the wrong end of the horse:

        http://sunweber.blogspot.com/2014/11/prove-this-wrong.html

        Prove This Wrong

        But nuclear would be the lowest overall.

    2. TatuSaloranta Avatar
      TatuSaloranta

      Nuclear is indeed problematic for its “too steady” output (although really big problem is the astronomical cost — indeed it’s only economical when going to stars…).

      But I disagree wrt biomass: since it is renewable (when done right, forestry/agricultural by-products, landfill gas) and can also be stored, it can quite easily be used as another kind of energy storage: only run biomass thermal plants for balancing variable generation by wind, solar, but do it for medium-/long-term beyond time frame where batteries work best.
      This because there is longer ramp-up time, and more overhead for start/stop.

      In fact I think biomass with power-to-gas is likely to be the “deep storage” needed to cover those ~10 days per year when “wind doesn’t blow”.

      Nuclear will have its place if humanity colonizes Mars and other places with yet worse renewable energy sources. But it is not needed for Earth. In alternate history where Chernobyl didn’t happen, NPPs would play more prominent role. But that train left the station in 80s, and fate sealed by Fukushima.

      1. Scottar Avatar
        Scottar

        The nuclear I’m talking about is 4th gen. And even with Chernobyl, which happened due to gross mismanagement of the then Soviets, the Flaw in the reactor design was corrected and the other 3 ran until decommission.

        Bio fuel has continuously failed to meet predictions.

        http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/issues/renewables/faqs-on-renewables

        Frequently Asked Questions About Renewables

        Today, we have more technologically advanced ways to convert biomass into transportation fuels. But despite decades of efforts to improve these technologies, we haven’t made much progress in improving the land efficiency of biofuel production and conversion.

        The main problem is low fuel density when compared to either coal or oil. Same goes for wind and solar in relation to the grid.

      2. AussieEngineer Avatar
        AussieEngineer

        Mate, if you still think that forest products are “green power” then you have a lot to learn.

        France has used, very successfully, load-following nuclear power to meet peaks and troughs in demand since at least 1980, so any affirmation that nuclear power is “too steady” is based on fiction.

        Since Fukushima resulted in precisely no deaths due to radiation , past or anticipated , the comment that nuclear power’s “fate is sealed” displays strongly counterfactual antinuclear sentiment.

        1. TatuSaloranta Avatar
          TatuSaloranta

          You offer nothing to support your claim forest products are not green so that is merely your opinion, not based on reality. I know enough about forestry from Nordic countries (Finland, Sweden) to know quite a bit wrt how process works from harvesting down to black liquor handling in paper mills. I am also aware of green-washing done with wood pellets, which is of course ridiculous. There is wide range of more or less good approaches, and those can not be summarized with simple “dude it’s BS”.

          As to France’s load-following I don’t think they adjust levels significantly but rather are nicely integrated to balance it with other EU countries.
          I do not claim it can not be made to work, but merely that it is not as flexible as FF plants like natural gas peakers; and that from system perspective its balancing requirements have similarities to wind, solar.

          Finally I said exactly nothing to imply that there were deaths from Fukushima, or significant health problems from any of accidents so far (Chernobyl’s effects were rather small in grand scheme of things). But from PR perspective catastrophes have sealed public sentiment so that nuclear is unworkable.
          This on top of tragically high costs for new plants; and similarly abysmally slow construction process: 10+ years for 3rd gen plants. If and when they get completed.

          1. Scottar Avatar
            Scottar

            Chernobyl happened due to mismanagement by the then USSR. They where doing experiments on a commercial plant, a big no-no with nuclear. The remaining 2 plants where re-engineered and suffered no problems till they ran out on their lifespan. There are plants being built today, particularly by Russia and China.

            You have been misinformed about radiation:

            http://www.hiroshimasyndrome.com/radiation-exposure-standards-by-ahane.html

        2. Steven Welzel Avatar
          Steven Welzel

          Fukushima has no deaths predicted from radiation?
          They have no idea the extent of the damage yet and we will find out in years, but those workers who went into the factory after were all old, intentionally keeping the younger workers out so by the time the radiation kills them they’ll have died of old age anyway giving the young workers a chance at a full life.

          1. AussieEngineer Avatar
            AussieEngineer

            Anybody who speaks of radiation deaths from Fukishima is challenging The Donald’s prowess when it comes to using made-up facts.

          2. AussieEngineer Avatar
            AussieEngineer

            Anybody who speaks of radiation deaths from Fukishima is challenging The Donald’s prowess when it comes to using made-up facts.

  8. bruce mountain Avatar
    bruce mountain

    David, thank you for this very interesting article. I checked you claim that prices in Denmark are comparable with those in SA (standing offer) using your exchange rate. Indeed this is right (if we take the median of the standing offers). They are slightly (8%) higher in SA if we used all market offers and assume the discounts are achieved on market offers but only 3% if we use market offers and assume discounts are not achieved.

  9. David K Clarke Avatar
    David K Clarke

    The link ‘NREL 100% renewables USA’ doesn’t work. Apparently the page has been moved.

    1. TatuSaloranta Avatar
      TatuSaloranta

      Maybe discrepancy between years chosen? I think that ratio varied quite a bit between 2014 and 2015 due to year-over-year wind production variation.
      Another possibility is that it’s due to difference between ratio of generation vs ratio of consumption; difference is non-trivial as Denmark has significant net import.

  10. AussieJoe Avatar
    AussieJoe

    Denmark and South Australia now have the highest electricity prices in the World. All thanks to uneconomic, highly subsidised, low efficiency wind power. Well done Denmark and South Australia. Gullible governments everywhere. And Denmark wants to reduce it’s subsidies because of the escalating energy prices. Get the facts right.

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