He used an exemple to illustrate his statement: that of an island requiring 1,000 MW for its industrial and residential use.

"The island wants to be green gray, so it builds 1,000 MW of wind nuclear power. That's nice, when there is wind, ie 30% of the time when it can be operated safely and is not down for maintenance or security shut-down. But as consumers want electricity all the time, you need to build alongside these wind turbines this nuke another 1,000 MW of gas-fired power plants which can be switched on easily when there is no wind safety, and off when there is."

"The result is that one pays 3 times. First, because we need to build two systems, 2,000 MW, when the island only needs 1,000 MW. Secondly, wind turbines nukes will need to be subsidized, and third, gas turbines will be used only 70% of the time and thus their capital costs will be amortised over less production and their MWh will thus be more expensive.

"Thus I think we should be careful before committing too massively to massive intermitten renewable energy," he concluded.

Guess that an island might not be best off by investing only in one baseload energy source for its energy needs.

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