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Short answer is no, slightly longer answer is that even if you have "solid" winds they're often not enough to make up for the loss of solar. Additionally, cloudy and low-wind periods are common enough that without grid-stabilization tech we'd expect regular blackouts through many countries throughout the world.

All that said, I'm quite hopeful for grid stabilization tech coming online in the next decade.

Source: I've spent the last few years working on renewables R&D




Can you elaborate on grid stabilization tech? I haven't heard about this before.


Sure, so in my mind there are two kinds of grid stabilization, I'll call them short term and long term.

Roughly speaking, short term stabilization helps deal with fluctuations in demand over the course of a day. The Hornsdale Power Reserve[0] is a good example, it's basically a big bank of Lithium Ion batteries. This allows us to handle, say, everyone in Australia turning on their AC when they get home without needing blackouts to reduce load. At night, excess power generation can then refill the batteries.

Unfortunately this is not a workable solution if total demand per day exceeds total power production per day for more extended periods (think weeks). This is precisely the problem that can occur with solar or wind. Lithium Ion Batteries are not suitable for storing large amounts of charge over longer periods. We would instead like a battery that can perform longer term storage of power at an affordable price during winder and sunnier periods.

I'm currently excited by the approach taken by Form Energy[1] for what is called a Rust Battery. If they get it working this essentially allows us to trap and release energy through an extremely cheap and scalable chemical process. During a sunny summer you could potentially store enough excess power to get you through a very cloudy winter.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Power_Reserve [1] https://formenergy.com/




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