Thanks Benoit this is interesting.
Are you saying that cheap renewables is contingent on displacement of another energy form?
Im not sure I agree with the reasons for increasing energy prices caused by the saturation of solar. We all know that it is difficult for our conventional baseload power to operate efficiently as a consequence, but the cost rises are largely driven by other external factors, limited national fuel supply and inflated costs (gas, oil, coal etc). This is partly because of higher prices received overseas that drives up the national retail price (Japan was paying 7 times what we were for gas at one point). Also added into the mix is a global shortfall in oil and gas supply with the Russia Ukraine war, essentially Europe is now forced to buy elsewhere - this is largely the cause of Germanies energy crisis (rise in power prices), along with a number of other environmental factors such as greater demands on heating through colder winters in recent years, less reliance on hydro because of lower than average rainfalls etc. Its not renewables thats to blame.
Our conventional baseload power is shutting down because its no longer feasible, harder on the bottom line. As I think you said, they've raised their costs to justify their commitments, remain competetive and keep the doors open, but the challenge is and will continue to be unrelenting with more uptake of solar. Really, the existance of our conventional baseload is the problem I beleive, and I dont think replacing this with nuclear is the solution, as we will run into the same issues. Especially with nuclear being even more expensive than our current baseload, and further vulnerable to inflationary factors.
There are plenty of measures for dealing with over saturation of the grid with solar, like you say uptake of storage, chemical or hydro. Solar hydrogen generation is another, as Ive said before, also serving as a byproduct for commercialising/ export.
All of which, we have really made very low/ insignificant investments to date - 10 years (most of which has been the retailer investment). Unfortunately the recently diposed, relatively anti renwable governemnt that served the vast majority of that time frame (10 years) was lacklustre on their energy policies, served mainly to keep coal and gas alive as long as possible, similar to what we are again seeing with the coalition promoting an impossible strategy.
Nuclear in Australia will not happen in the next 15 years thats for certain. Its doubtful we will even get our nuclear subs in that time frame. Im not sure who the pro reactor mob thinks will build the reactors?! Westinghouse, Rolls Royce etc? They certainly will not happen here, more than certain will be overseas and imported. As we all know there is likely a large demand going forward with other countries committing to builds, further causing inflation on critical components. Australia will be well behind the que, and the tax payer, us, our children, and our grandchildren will be footing the bill for generations to come.
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