Off the grid: power in Portugal

[Roy Hersh]

A very intriguing article to say the least:

http://www.macauhub.com.mo/en/2015/12/3 ... nsumption/

[Andy Velebil]

Bring on the wind!

[Eric Menchen]

Very impressive. But I think this statement is incorrect:

... meant that for the first time wind production exceeded national power consumption.

Earlier the story notes that their wind production exceeded the electric consumption. I expect when you throw natural gas, diesel, etc. into the equation, the wind did not exceed all forms of power. Using the CIA Factbook estimate of Portugal using 5.143 billion cu m of natural gas in 2010, their average use of natural gas is equivalent to 6,145 MW, and I would suspect the 29th of December was a higher than average day.

[Bradley Bogdan]

The article also seems to imply that Portugal can now, or in the near future, be powered solely by renewables. I suspect that that's misleading once you factor in the consistency of wind generation, distance from renewable generation sites to major use centers and time patterns of demand. All that aside though, it sounds like they're much closer to being at 100% renewable electricity generation than most places, so props!


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[Andy Velebil]

Guys, can we leave real facts out of this?

[Christian Gollnick]

Yup - I think it's pretty cool that Portugal focuses so much on renewable energy. Who knows - maybe that is still because of Salazar and his promoting of an absolutely independent Portugal. While I like renewable energy I must say that these big wind-turbines on the Douro hills are a real eyes-ore... However, I guess they are much nicer than nuclear power-plants would be... even if those could over the years add some interesting grape-varieties to our little valley...

[Bradley Bogdan]

Yup - I think it's pretty cool that Portugal focuses so much on renewable energy. Who knows - maybe that is still because of Salazar and his promoting of an absolutely independent Portugal. While I like renewable energy I must say that these big wind-turbines on the Douro hills are a real eyes-ore... However, I guess they are much nicer than nuclear power-plants would be... even if those could over the years add some interesting grape-varieties to our little valley...

I think expanding port to include a new "glow in the dark" category could spur real growth!



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