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The future of electricity is wind and solar, new report says. Canada is lagging behind (www.cbc.ca)
submitted 5 months ago by to c/canada@lemmy.ca
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Renewable energy met all new demand for electricity in 2025, according to a new review of global power generation, halting the growth of fossil fuel-powered generation and highlighting the promise of clean sources like wind and solar.

The authoritative Global Electricity Review released annually by Ember, an international energy research organization, says clean sources — especially solar — are growing fast enough and are cheap enough that they are stopping new fossil fuel-powered electricity generation. Electricity from solar and wind increased while there was no change to the amount of electricity produced from burning fossil fuels.

“We're really talking about a large-scale change in how the energy system works. And solar is among the most scalable technologies that can deliver fast change,” said Nicolas Fulghum, senior data analyst at Ember.

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[–] 5 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Definitely, solar seems to be the best of all options. However, having multiple sources of power as redundancy increases stability, and helps with overlapping coverage. By this I mean, tidal can work regardless of sunshine levels/during night time, so it can cover the off hours of solar production.

Additionally, the coastal regions tend to be more wet and cloudy than other areas, so solar may not be as effective compared to say the prairies.

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    Genuinely it isn't a problem on today's grid. Just build solar and the storage methods will come through time. In the meantime existing fossil fuel infrastructure can fill in the gaps.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Makes sense, thanks!

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago

    The U.S. and Canada share 2 power grids, so their economics is about the same. Demand for new connections in the U.S. is really high, but regulations slow how many can be built. It limits how expensive electricity has gotten, at least somewhat. So unfortunately all that renewables have done is let us use more electricity.

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