> This is not only untrue, it is the opposite of true. Centralized power sources mean you can build generation facility close to places with energy demand (usually population centers). People keep touting decentralized grids as some sort of advantage over centralized grids. It's the complete opposite. A decentralized grid needs more transmission infrastructure to connect large areas often far away from where energy is actually consumed. Renewable projects are often blocked because transmission infrastructure can't support them.
This all seems backwards. Decentralized power generation means building the power sources where there is energy demand. Centralized power generation means building them somewhere and needing to use the grid to send the power everywhere else. Centralized power generation usually means large power plants generating power for entire cities, usually built a long way from those cities due to economics, logistics or pollution concern. Decentralized power generation usually means solar or wind farms built near enough to the population centers that residents protest against the perceived eyesore. Decentralized power generation in some cases means no grid at all in the cases dealing with remote locations (often served with diesel generators, the traditional decentralized power generation tech). Renewables change this somewhat, as you do need a grid connecting it all to deal with intermittent power generation, but it is the same capacity as needed to transmit the same power from some centralized power source 250km away.
> Decentralized power generation means building the power sources where there is energy demand. Centralized power generation means building them somewhere and needing to use the grid to send the power everywhere else.
You've got this backwards. Most energy demand is centralized in population centers. Thus, it's easiest to centralize power production next to those centers of energy demand. Centralized power production means generating the energy close to the locations with large energy demand. Decentralized production means generating that power across a large area and transporting it to the population centers with large energy demand.
The problem is that wind and solar have to be distributed because they're depending on using large amounts of land, as well as having the right weather. If you're delivering power to a city you can pick and choose where you build a gas or nuclear plant. You can't choose where the wind blows or which parts of the country get the most sunlight.
The largest power plant in Australia, Loy Yang, and a few others, are all located about 190km from Melbourne (pop 4.9 million). The power plants were built there not because they are close to a population center, but because that is where the coal mines are and because it is far enough away from the population centers for pollution to not be a problem. Similarly Gas plants get built near the ports, to minimize transport costs. Compare this with rooftop solar, which has very high uptake across all of Australia, including the regions like Melbourne in the darker southern latitudes. Or the wind farms, which are able to be built all over the place with no need to be stuck near some resource like coal. Turns out that wind is everywhere, and by spreading generation out you get more consistency of generation. You can build wind as close to population centers as the population allows, and people are literally building solar on their own roofs.
Cherry picking one specific plant does little to address the fundamental differences between geographically dependent and independent sources of energy. If you look at a map of gas or nuclear plants you'll see them located right next to population centers more often than not. Centralized energy production matching the centralized energy demand.
By comparison wind has to be built out in windy areas, which are often far away. Wind blows in many places, but it's only economical to build wind turbines where it blows particularly strong. Similarly with solar power [1]. Rooftop solar is a trivial amount of energy. Realistic projections of a mostly solar grid have us transporting huge amounts of energy thousands of miles from sunny arid places to urban centers where that energy is in demand.
> By comparison wind has to be built out in windy areas, which are often far away.
That's not what people mean when they say "decentralised power generation". They are thinking of power generated where it is used. That doesn't mean the nuclear power plant or coal at a safe 50km away you are alluding to. Only one thing can do it - solar, producing power 10 metres from where it is used. Right now solar doesn't work either because you need storage. The only storage that works for domestic solar is batteries and they are too expensive right now.
It's likely batteries will always be too expensive for bulk grid storage. But retail customers pay about 3 times the grid price. If batteries half in price solar + storage become price competitive with grid generation. We don't have decentralised generation now, but if that happens it will pop up like weeds everywhere.
As it happens, I have a house battery. And as it happens, it flooded here last week, cutting mains power. We were the only house in the street for a while with the lights on. Our 5kWh battery and 7kW solar system surprised me. Normal activities were curtailed, obviously. But even when it was pissing down rain in the middle of a downpour causing a once in 50 year flood, with the solar working at 15% capacity it was still enough to drive everything bar heating and aircon. Turns out the bulk of our electricity consumption can but turned off with only minor inconvenience.
We are paying $100/mo for electricity now. If I installed another 10kWh of battery, that would drop close to $0, and I could sell power too. Which made me look up current battery prices. To my surprise, a 10kWh battery only costs $5,000. You do the math - the age or truly decentralised generation isn't too far away.
Mind you, having nuclear as a backup would be nice. Up till now it's been far, far too expensive. No one in their right mind would fund a new conventional nuclear plant, which is why no one has been building them. This is the first proposal I've seen in a while that came in at what might be a workable price. I wish it luck, but they haven't built the first one yet, and history generally isn't kind to the producers of cost estimates for the first off the block large engineering efforts.
This all seems backwards. Decentralized power generation means building the power sources where there is energy demand. Centralized power generation means building them somewhere and needing to use the grid to send the power everywhere else. Centralized power generation usually means large power plants generating power for entire cities, usually built a long way from those cities due to economics, logistics or pollution concern. Decentralized power generation usually means solar or wind farms built near enough to the population centers that residents protest against the perceived eyesore. Decentralized power generation in some cases means no grid at all in the cases dealing with remote locations (often served with diesel generators, the traditional decentralized power generation tech). Renewables change this somewhat, as you do need a grid connecting it all to deal with intermittent power generation, but it is the same capacity as needed to transmit the same power from some centralized power source 250km away.