Dunkelflaute

From an energy point-of-view, December 2024 generally looks like this. Let the numbers speak for themselves. All plots are 24-7-365 publicly available for free. One just needs to look… We highlighted a few notable data. Happy new year from the Brigid team (working through the holidays).

A lot of installed power times zero is zero. More installed power times zero is still zero. This refers to the useful effect. The cost however is rising beyond imagination. The energy island cost is now estimated to rise from 2.2 to 8+ billion EUR. And that’s just a wire. Weirdly a common argument against building new NPPs is the rising cost. Did not think this through?
Please explain, how any of this will work after the NPP’s are closed down. Or natural gas supplies are stalling. Or both. Popularly stated: a “perfect storm”. Or in reality: complete black out. And this is just about the current electricity production, ignoring the future needs, and all other energy use, such as (non-electric) heating, transport, industry, …
And again, us and our German NPP killers are amongst the worst students of the club. But hey, morale is high. Rumour has it that one third of us Belgians shall receive 130 EUR government funding to buy a better fridge.
Compared to what we need (because we actually are using it), the PV production is futile: less than 1% of total requirements.
How plots can be (deliberately?) deceiving. Maybe it’s just lazy web developers…
Another tricky graph. In our opinion, the water blob required for cooking your evening dinner is really a negative plot. It is a 20% pure energy loss.
Energy = Power integrated over time. That’s the area under the skinny green curve. Narrow peaks, widely spaced. Not much to talk about. Oh, and the holes are filled up with batteries. Which are also empty.
Price evolution of “natural” gas. Conclusion in todays news paper: compared to the complete disaster last year (the “finger” in the middle), it’s not soo-oo bad. My local bakery went out of business because the gas cost of the oven exceeded its turnover. That is, not profit, turnover.