Wind Power Produces Just 4-14% Emissions of Fossil Fuels, Even With Manufacturing & Decommissioning

[Bob Wallace]

18. Yes, we will need storage...

and load/demand shifting.

Wind ramps slowly if you connect multiple wind farms over a modestly wide area. Individual solar arrays can go on and off line very quickly as clouds pass over, but connected arrays over a wider area tend to smooth things out.

I saw an interesting study a few days ago in which they showed that you can deal with the variability of a single solar array by adjusting the air flow in a commercial building. They had the software crank the fan speed up and down depending on solar output and the results were seamless to the occupants.

EVs should be a great help in dealing with supply variability. Cars sit parked about 90% of the time. That makes them a great place to stick supply peaks and later we might see them feeding power back to the grid. There's a program starting up in Denmark to give V2G storage a try.