All renewable energies have their advantages, as well as their drawbacks, but what if we compare solar energy against other renewables?
For example, in hydropower and wind power there is a big difference compared to solar power.
Many of these differences can be seen in a general way in many countries that have them installed, but if we look towards Spain, this difference is even greater.
hydraulic energy
Speaking a bit about each energy mentioned, I can say that in the case of hydraulic energy by having enough operational reservoirs to produce this energy we can reach nothing less than the figure of 20.000 MW.
But, there is always a but, it is as I mentioned, the magic word here is "operative" because not all reservoirs can work And I am not referring to maintenance or operation problems (which will also be there) but to water, that natural and scarce resource that is needed to produce that energy.
With crops close to the reservoir that take water for irrigation, the basic needs and droughts typical of our country or at least in part, make many reservoirs unable to start up.
This means that with this energy cannot be counted constantly Due to the fact that the conditions of precipitation and water storage required to carry out the waterfalls and produce the necessary energy have to be met.
Wind power
On the other hand we have the eolic energy, having a large infrastructure capacity of this energy we are capable of produce approximately 40% of the total necessary, which would be equivalent to 23.000MW, and thus be able to supply a large part of the Spanish territory.
Again here is another magic word that you surely already have in mind, "wind", indeed, in a day without wind nothing is produced and with which we only have a few wind turbines without doing anything.
Solar Energy
However, and I no longer extend myself with the previous renewables, we have the solar energy.
It does not matter where your production plants are located, in any geographical point of Spain energy will be produced every day of the year.
Spain is the country of the Sun and we have to take advantage of that in some way.
Here you will tell me, is there not a magic word in solar energy like “cloudy”?
Sure yes, but Although it is cloudy, the incidence of light continues to arrive And solar plants can take advantage of that energy too, obviously they will produce less capacity than on a sunny day, but they do.
And "night"? in this case we can say that if it is true that solar energy is not of much use at night, I mean that it is not produced, but it is also true that during this period the energy demand is very low.
If you wonder why solar energy has not been developed more and earlier compared to wind energy, I will tell you that for the costs.
We all look into our pockets and if we only focus on that, the costs of one and the other energy are very different.
It has been fought to diminish them And they have dropped in recent years when it comes to solar energy but still the cost is higher than that of wind energy.
It seems like it is more profitable to implement wind energy than solar energy despite seeing the great advantage that has been mentioned before in that many days wind energy will not produce anything due to lack of wind while solar energy is more constant in its production.
In addition, we go into politics in a very subtle way, I do not want to go into the maximum with this subject for various reasons so I will only give you small brush strokes.
Knowing Spain, if the cost of solar energy were lower than that of wind, It seems to me that the wind power would continue to win due Because the very idea of having continuous energy production is one of the main reasons why solar energy sometimes stagnates.
The clear example has it Murcia that has been paralyzed for years despite having a privileged area for the installation of such energy.
It seems that everything is going forward and the standstill has bottomed out, but the obstacles that have been put in place for that are impressive.
A country where, no matter how unfair it may seem, Does not admit willingly use these energies to the "self-consumption" and to be able to reduce the alarming numbers for many families of the invoice.
So far I have come with this last reflection and only to say that although it seems that I only like the Sun (if it is accompanied by a much better picnic) it is not like that, I bet on all and absolutely all renewable energies, some are better than Others, although it depends on where they are located and you have to have all these energies to be able to supply them all.
Because the future is in renewables
Very well explained and, of course, very much in agreement with what has been commented.
We all know the political issue ... although later, it is not known why, it is not reflected in the ballot box. Anyway, we are still sheep to what the shepherds say
Thank you very much Carlos, I'm glad you liked it.
The main issue is that and in the end renewables and other actions to improve our quality of life are left far behind.
The shepherds, as you say, are not very good at their work and Spain notices that a lot.
A greeting.
Comparing with wind power in terms of producing more or less is not rigorous. It is interesting to provide the comparison of some numbers such as the average plant factor of one and the other in Spain. Besides, there are factors that are not usually taken into account when they are compared, such as the land they occupy and the uses compatible with it with the installation.
I have only focused on the comparison of electricity production because it is what we can actually "see" if it comes home to us for energy consumption.
Of course we can compare these energies and the rest with other factors to take into account, such as the terrain, production costs, the impact they cause, advantages and disadvantages and a long etc.
The problem, that you only have to focus on one because if we talk about everything, it gives us to write a book.
Greetings Mario, thank you for your comment.