Trending Topics – Mind the “storage” gap: how much flexibility do we need in a high renewables future?

Permalink to Trending Topics – Mind the “storage” gap: how much flexibility do we need in a high renewables future?

Imagine that we have built enough wind and solar power plants to supply 100 percent of the electricity a region like California or Germany consumes in a year. Sure, the wind and sun aren’t always available, so this system would need flexible resources that can fill in the gaps. Filling this gap is one of the principal flexibility challenges of a low-carbon grid. But what will that flexibility cost?