The Base Debate Holding Renewables Hostage (Business Spectator)
The Myth: Since renewable energy is intermittent, it is too unreliable to be the major source of electricity supply. Large penetrations of renewable energy into the grid must await either the development of baseload renewable power stations or a vast amount of storage.
The refutation: Computer simulation modeling of electricity systems with 80-100 per cent renewable electricity (RE) refutes this traditional assumption.
The simple conception of balancing baseload demand with baseload supply over a 24-hour period is outdated in the context of a RE future. It was appropriate when inflexible baseload power stations, coal or nuclear, were the only choice for 24-hour power. However, when large penetrations of RE are integrated into the grid, baseload power stations are not needed and their inflexibility becomes a liability. The computer simulations show that baseload demand can be supplied reliably by a mix of RE sources, none of which is, strictly speaking, a baseload power station, as shown in the figure above.
Read More......
