Wind and solar are attracting the most funding

Re:Wind and solar are attracting the most funding by Animats on Wednesday April 06, 2016 @05:45PM (#11442407)

"Also the variance between median days and calm days for wind is far less extreme than generally assumed."

Actually, the variance is worse than assumed by enthusiasts. Here's today's output from wind, hour by hour, for the entire CAISO area, which is about 400 miles across and covers most of California.[1] Today was a bad day; about 10x variation between peak wind and minimum wind. 5:1 is typical; a good day is 2:1.

You can also see similar data for PJM, which covers the Northeastern US.[2] Today's wind variation is about 2:1.

There's a myth that, with enough transmission distance, fluctuations in wind will average out. The two largest power grids in the US aren't seeing that. Maybe for the whole planet, but not for any area one can reasonably interconnect.

[1] http://content.caiso.com/green/renewrpt/DailyRenewablesWatch... [2] https://dataviewer.pjm.com/dataviewer/pages/public/windpower...

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Re:Wind and solar are attracting the most funding by Retric on Wednesday April 06, 2016 @07:21PM (#11443169)

At grid scale Peaks are unimportant, it's median and minimum numbers that matter. The grid needs to meet demand anything past that point is useless. Remember wind and solar don't use fuel they just need infrastructure. Hydro does use 'fuel' but can act as defacto storage by ramping up when there is a gap between supply and demand.

Also of note you can smooth out or shift solar by shifting power east-west without involving storage.

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Re:Wind and solar are attracting the most funding by DasIch on Wednesday April 06, 2016 @07:17PM (#11443136)

You could create much larger power grids, that smooth out these fluctuations, even if they don't eliminate them entirely.

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