Wind and solar enough to keep lights on

This is the claim of an international team of researchers led by the University of California, Irvine (UCI) whose conclusions are detailed in Nature Communications. 

The authors, including experts from China’s Tsinghua University, the Carnegie Institution for Science and Caltech, caution that extra efforts will be necessary to completely satisfy the countries’ requirements.

According to UCI, the most reliable systems, which are dominated by wind power, can meet electricity requirements in the countries studied 72 to 91 per cent of the time, even without energy storage. With the addition of 12 hours of energy storage capacity, systems become dominated by solar power and can satisfy demand 83 to 94 per cent of hours, the study found.

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“Wind and solar could meet more than 80 per cent of demand in many places without crazy amounts of storage or excess generating capacity, which is the critical point,” said co-author Steve Davis, UCI professor of Earth system science. “But depending on the country, there may be many multi-day periods throughout the year when some demand will need to be met by energy storage and other non-fossil energy sources in a zero-carbon future.”