I currently work in data science for an Australian power company. Renewables are the reason why we had electricity spot prices of A$14500/mwh three days in a row, rolling blackouts and the grid being nationalized for several hours.
Because of the unregulated attachment of intermittent power sources South Australia has no base load generation any more, this is coal or nuclear stations. Victoria had an incident with one coal plant shutting down on Tesday which was the first $14500 spot price hike. Then because of weather and plant maintenance the same thing happened for two more days in a row with the power regulator stepping in when the rolling blackouts started on Friday telling everyone to run everything at full blast.
A renewable only grid will cost an order of magnitude more to run than one based on coal or nuclear, if not more.
The above is hugely simplified for obvious reasons and only my opinion and not that of my employer.
Because of the unregulated attachment of intermittent power sources South Australia has no base load generation any more, this is coal or nuclear stations. Victoria had an incident with one coal plant shutting down on Tesday which was the first $14500 spot price hike. Then because of weather and plant maintenance the same thing happened for two more days in a row with the power regulator stepping in when the rolling blackouts started on Friday telling everyone to run everything at full blast.
A renewable only grid will cost an order of magnitude more to run than one based on coal or nuclear, if not more.
The above is hugely simplified for obvious reasons and only my opinion and not that of my employer.