Doh, I was hoping they had extended the record.
Still, this is exceptionally commendable. Most of the time, when other countries have claimed they ran only on renewables, they have neglected the fact that they are net exporters and were running combustion generation across some of their network. The total renewable generation was greater than the total demand, but some of their generation was combustion and the excess passed off to other countries, with a bit of number fiddling to say that they were 100% green. With this, Portugal didn’t run any combustible generation, and they still exported to other countries.
Well, portuguese here, that record period can be mostly attributed to hydropower as we’ve seen unusually high levels of rainfall over that period that we haven’t seen in a while. And because we decided to try and ditch stuff like coal in a rush, there was an uncomfortable while where our grid very much depended on electricity imports, which don’t come from clean sources, we just outsourced the problem.
Renewable capacity is still growing however, but with climate change making droughts here more frequent, the main hydrofallback may not become as much of an option
Norway ran on 100% renewables for like 80 years, but no one cares.
Only reason we’re not at 100% anymore is because politicians don’t find it a priority to be self-sufficient and it’s much better to sell Norwegian renewable electricity to Europe for a profit, then buy back dirty electricity and let the consumers in Norway pay a cable transit tax to the government.
See, now you get to sell the energy twice, and both times at a higher rate.
You can’t compare other countries with the likes of Norway or Iceland. For most countries, hydro isn’t enough to meet the needs. Not to mention the fact that it isn’t truly renewable. What happens when climate change makes water more scarce?
The true renewable production became possible only recently with the advances in PV, wind and battery tech.
Yeah I’d agree with you, I think the reason Norway isn’t 100% renewable has a little more to do with growing demand, as well as seasonal variation. Saying that, I’m sure this could have been addressed if the government had properly encouraged development of more clean generation.
Yes!
