It sounds like the biggest issue is transmission, you need high capacity transmission lines between the north and south. That way, you could not only use more than the 30% currently, but expand that capacity. Also, transmission between neighbouring countries could help.
What we would need is a better connection between north and south but that hasn’t been a priority until now and it’s 30 years too late.
The best time to plant a tree…
Nuclear takes a hell of a lot of subsidised state money, and that pot of money only ever grows. Renewables don’t need state money, they’re profitable on their own. Renewables will grow readily if the transmission infrastructure is there, and moreso if the planning process capacity is expanded (hire more civil servants), let alone if rates were subsidised anywhere near the same level as nuclear.
The best case scenario would be the government itself building state-owned renewable infrastructure, where the profit from selling cheap electricity on the commercial market would come directly back to the community. Most wind farms are owned by one company and managed & operated by another, with the turbine manufacturer providing turbine services. There’s no reason the government couldn’t be the owning company.
It sounds like the biggest issue is transmission, you need high capacity transmission lines between the north and south. That way, you could not only use more than the 30% currently, but expand that capacity. Also, transmission between neighbouring countries could help.
Currently we sell the surplus in the north to Finland and Norway as well as to Denmark and Germany in the south when we are over capacity.
What we would need is a better connection between north and south but that hasn’t been a priority until now and it’s 30 years too late.
The best time to plant a tree…
Nuclear takes a hell of a lot of subsidised state money, and that pot of money only ever grows. Renewables don’t need state money, they’re profitable on their own. Renewables will grow readily if the transmission infrastructure is there, and moreso if the planning process capacity is expanded (hire more civil servants), let alone if rates were subsidised anywhere near the same level as nuclear.
The best case scenario would be the government itself building state-owned renewable infrastructure, where the profit from selling cheap electricity on the commercial market would come directly back to the community. Most wind farms are owned by one company and managed & operated by another, with the turbine manufacturer providing turbine services. There’s no reason the government couldn’t be the owning company.