Renewable energy could offer viable power source by 2030

A well-designed combination of wind power, solar power and storage in batteries and fuel cells would nearly always exceed electricity demands while keeping costs low, the scientists found.

‘These results break the conventional wisdom that renewable energy is too unreliable and expensive,’ said co-author Willett Kempton, professor in the School of Marine Science and Policy in UD’s College of Earth, Ocean and Environment. ‘The key is to get the right combination of electricity sources and storage — which we did by an exhaustive search — and to calculate costs correctly.’

According to a statement, the authors developed a computer model to consider 28 billion combinations of renewable energy sources and storage mechanisms, each tested over four years of historical hourly weather data and electricity demands. The model incorporated data from within a large regional grid called PJM Interconnection, which includes 13 states from New Jersey to Illinois and represents a fifth of the US’s total electric grid.