You realise that's about 875,000 shipping containers full, right.

Yes. It is a LOT of solar panels.

I like to point out that, at the end of 2024, the entire world's power grids were only about 10,000 gigawatts. So adding even 650GW a year of solar is a fairly big ask, even though it only generates on the daytime.

Yes. There's 50GW of buffer, and no doubt some of that will turn up in southeast Asia, where solar uptake is most affected by the Strait of Hormuz-related energy crisis.

China could make a terawatt of solar panels this year, no problem, but global demand is estimated around 650 gigawatts. If you want 350 gigawatts of solar panels, pretty sure I know some people you can talk to.

China's government tells companies "for the love of all that is good please stop making so many solar panels".

www.miit.gov.cn/gyhxxhb/jgsj...

Absolutely absurd that in the year 2026 there is no solar panel emoji OR wind turbine emoji

Rare sighting of a column chart taking a dip at Hove Beach.

#dataviz

The amazing thing about an e-reader is that it's more an "emergency library".

Anyway it would be an odd world if we were all alike, and *extremely* odd if everyone was like me.

Nonetheless, a good book is always worth having with you.

Like, I understand the maxim, I agree with it to an extent, but specifically re: flights I simply do not want the stress of the optimal strategy.

(Trains have far less uncertainty, so turning up 10 minutes before a long distance train goes is fine).

Like, I am either outbound on business and would miss the reason for travel, or I am homeward bound and just want to get home.

A good book is there for you even in insalubrious places, and airports are usually heated and safe.

Nobody asked for my position on the "how early should you arrive at airports" discussion, but: admittedly I fly as little as possible, but when I do, I'd much rather curl up in a corner with my Kindle for 60-90 minutes than stress about missing my flight.

Andrew I don't keep ducks. I keep geese! There is a difference!

That's kind of my point. You can't; but it doesn't mean nobody should.

Please don't buy my book for that! I am not sure how much it will help.

But the World Scientific publishing website is good for me. Also: libraries.

What bewilders me here is:
- solar farms in the UK are no longer easy money. There's no FiT and the CfDs are competitive.
- most take merchant risk, and may lose money. This is generally unacceptable to the public.
- it's fine to profit from providing real solutions (eg to high energy prices).

Okay but nothing is stopping communities setting up their own solar farms? Except that it's not actually that easy a business and it carries extremely real investment risk, that communities are ill-suited to bear.

It's okay to make money being part of the solution.

I wish I had a good example, sorry!

This is actually really surprising (and good).

Only in hours when gas is the marginal generator, which isn't true when there's a lot of wind or solar.

Also suspect those free nights are wind, not gas.

UK doesn't have much solar yet.

Well, for that you need a price signal, for which you need a transparent and working market.

BNEF estimates the LCOE of a daily cycled utility-scale battery in China at $52/MWh, which means that has to be the arbitrage, which means *you need a working power market with sufficient volatility to give you that arbitrage*.

Meanwhile official data on curtailment (4-10% nationwide for solar) seems to exclude economic curtailment which is probably around 15%. Very unclear, but also pretty bad for solar plant owners.

I think there's a conviction that obviously nobody would let the power market prices go very low or very high (also nobody seems to publish them?), and if true this does seem to defeat the object of the exercise.

We all know that China is pushing renewables developers to sell on the nascent local power markets, to make renewables and storage dispatch smarter.

However they mutter something about coal-fired benchmarks when I ask what this means for solar plant revenues.

UK households to be urged to use more power this summer as renewables soar Incentives to absorb surplus wind and solar energy could help balance the grid and lower bills

It's easy to forget that most people don't know that power will be free (or even sometimes negatively priced) when it's very sunny.

I have also been arguing with the China team about what a power market even means.

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Ehh that's a bit heavy-handed. I would like a little more imagination about what a good, low-carbon future could look like though and what conflicts would occur in it.

I quite like ASOIAF so don't read it as a pure diss!

But I love that Novik tried, even if I prefer her shorter books (Uprooted and The Summer War are lovely).