Reply #35: You don't get it

[Nederland]

You are making the same mistake that Lovin's makes. There is a difference between capacity factor and intermittency. They are not the same thing. The problem with wind is not it's low capacity factor. The problem with wind is its high intermittency. High intermittency is what makes wind problematic once its percentage of the grid gets above 20%. Let's walk through a simple example slowly so you can understand the problem:

Consider a grid that looks like this (Plant Type, Grid Percentage, Unplanned Outage Percentage):

Coal, 50%, 4.2%
Nuclear, 20%, 2.5%
Gas, 25%, 2.8%
Wind, 5%, 70%

The aggregate unplanned outage percentage of this grid is 6.8%.

Now let's see what happens when you increase the percentage of power supplied by wind:

Coal, 40%, 4.2%
Nuclear, 10%, 2.5%
Gas, 15%, 2.8%
Wind, 35%, 70%

The aggregate unplanned outage percentage of this wind heavy grid is 26.85%.

THAT'S the problem. Get it?