Eli5: How do countries run out of electricity? We have solar, wind, ocean, fossil fuels type of power, but some parts of countries will not have power for some time?

Question

Eli5: How do countries run out of electricity? We have solar, wind, ocean, fossil fuels type of power, but some parts of countries will not have power for some time?

In: 3

Answer 1

In the UK we, along with most of Europe to some extent relied upon Russian fossil fuels to power out non-renewables.

Currently 15% of the UK’s national grid is generated from fossil fuels. Luckily the UK bought alot from Norway to secure some supply however when this runs out the grid will shrink by 4gw roughly equivalent to 2.9million homes without power.

Edit: Because most renewable are weather dependant they can’t be reliable enough to run the entire grid. There always needs to be some steady and on demand source.

Sources:

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9523/

https://grid.iamkate.com/

https://www.quora.com/How-many-homes-can-one-gigawatt-in-energy-capacity-provide-for