[testhest]

Wind is only useful up to a point, once it gets above 20% of generation capacity ensuing grid stability becomes expensive either through huge price swings or grid level energy storage.

[ceejayoz]

This talking point is years out of date. We’re doing grid-level energy storage already. Expect more.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08-06/what-australia-can-le...

> For the first time ever, California's batteries took over gas as the primary source for supplying evening power demand in April, providing "akin to the output from seven large nuclear reactors" one evening, according to the New York Times.

[Moldoteck]

It's not out of date. BESS has different utility in different weather areas. Germany would need the equivalent of 20-30y of global bess deployments to ditch fossils, not considering realistic power transfer or weather forecast. That's why even their pro ren Fraunhofer ISE recommended gas expansion

[akvadrako]

These batteries last a few minutes when they are fully charged. In the winter it's not unusual to have close to zero wind power for a few days and it could come after a few weeks of lower output, so they aren't fully charged.

You'll notice in your article they are almost always talking about power instead of energy because energy is the problem.

We still need about 100 - 1000x improvements to rely on batteries without reliable power plants, depending on how much the generation capacity is overbuilt.

[DrScientist]

Sure you need baseload/storage as part of the mix - however where do you get the 20% figure from?

For the past year in the UK the average is ~30% generation from wind. https://grid.iamkate.com/

So seems it's possible. Swings in generation are dealt with via inter-country interconnects, pumped storage and gas turbine generation. Nuclear adds a steady base.

[dvrj101]

Finland at 24% and increasing steadily.

[Moldoteck]

The argument was about the cost, UK having highest prices on the continent (depending how you count subsidies for others) but 20% seems too low anyway. Normal plants are still fine at 60% cf

[jncfhnb]

Oil is only useful up to a point, once your planetary ecosystem starts to collapse it gets a lot more expensive

[Filligree]

The oil stays cheap. It’s everything else that gets expensive.

[olau]

This is false. Take a look at Denmark. This argument was repeated there in the past for "above X", with X being 15%, 20%, 30%, 50%.

[svantana]

Not necessarily disagreeing, but Denmark's grid is integrated with europe. If the rest of europe catches up with Denmark in wind power, that will definitely be a challenge, since wind speeds are correlated across the continent. Not unsolvable, but it's an issue for sure.

[sfn42]

It's fairly rare that there is no wind at all, especially at wind turbine height, and if you have 100 different wind farms spread out across different regions you'll usually have a decent amount of them producing at any given moment. We can also use batteries of various kinds to handle peaks and valleys, not to mention solar, hydro, nuclear and some gas to pick up slack when necessary.

I don't think anyone is expecting wind farms to supply anywhere near 100% of energy production. Probably not even 50%.

[scott_s]

That's true of all renewable energy sources. So we should take advantage of all of them, as much as is feasible.

[dhx]

Not true. 100% variable renewable energy (VRE) grids are found to be economically viable almost anywhere on the planet.[1] These are grids which don't require any fossil fuel "firming".

From the IEA report: "Substantiated by in-depth case studies, this report infers that, almost anywhere on the planet, nearly 100% VRE power grids firmly supplying clean power and meeting demand 24/365 are not only possible but would be economically viable, provided that VRE resources are optimally transformed from unconstrained run-of-the weather generation into firm generation."[1]

However, propagandists routinely spread misinformation on firming. For example, they might cite the absolutely absurd LFSCOE which is funded by the energy sector's equivalent of the Center for Indoor Air Research[2][3][4].

[1] https://iea-pvps.org/key-topics/firm-power-generation/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#...

[3] https://www.desmog.com/2016/01/10/rice-university-s-baker-in...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Indoor_Air_Research