Seems like you might be talking about home rooftop panels. Large-scale power plants solve that problem by using thermal energy storage - usually molten salt.
If you're using molten salt anyways, have I got an idea for you: Thorium salt fission reactors! Nuclear is king: No emissions, high energy, high safety, low public health costs, reliable, 24/7 energy, all-seasonal, and long-lasting!
Those cities are not run on 100% renewables. They have the capacity to run entirely on renewables, if the wind blew constantly & it was sunny overnight. In reality they depend heavily on outside electricity. Perhaps over a year they "balance out" input & output? But there'd be days & weeks with little or no power without outside sources.
There is no current battery tech to store power for 4+ months until needed. Add to that how the current "battery farms" tend to go up in flames on a regular basis, just like EV batteries.
Oslo and Reykjavik are unique in their access to ample geothermal. A few towns in Cali are too, up in the mountains.
You're never going to have four months without sunlight or wind. Power plants don't need battery banks. Battery banks are for portable stuff like cars. Solar plants simply heat nitrate salts to as high as 600 C, and then that energy is released throughout the night, boiling water and running turbines. Calibrated correctly, you can have 24/7 output on just nine hours of sunlight a day.
It's not optimal to try to run a city or country on a single renewable source - which is why you want multiple kinds of plants, each filling in any gaps left by the others. Solar, wind, hydroelectric, geothermal, tidal, and biomass.
Seems like you might be talking about home rooftop panels. Large-scale power plants solve that problem by using thermal energy storage - usually molten salt.
If you're using molten salt anyways, have I got an idea for you: Thorium salt fission reactors! Nuclear is king: No emissions, high energy, high safety, low public health costs, reliable, 24/7 energy, all-seasonal, and long-lasting!
Sure, Thorium seems to have a lot of promise, although I've read that certain groups are really overhyping it past what it can actually accomplish.
Most experts think that our ultimate energy solution is going to have to be balanced and multi-sourced.
Cool, which cities are powered exclusively by solar/renewables?
Burlington, VT, Georgetown, TX, and Basel, Switzerland are powered entirely by renewables with an emphasis on solar.
The biggest renewable-exclusive cities are Oslo and Reykjavík, though in their cases it's mostly geothermal.
Those cities are not run on 100% renewables. They have the capacity to run entirely on renewables, if the wind blew constantly & it was sunny overnight. In reality they depend heavily on outside electricity. Perhaps over a year they "balance out" input & output? But there'd be days & weeks with little or no power without outside sources.
There is no current battery tech to store power for 4+ months until needed. Add to that how the current "battery farms" tend to go up in flames on a regular basis, just like EV batteries.
Oslo and Reykjavik are unique in their access to ample geothermal. A few towns in Cali are too, up in the mountains.
You're never going to have four months without sunlight or wind. Power plants don't need battery banks. Battery banks are for portable stuff like cars. Solar plants simply heat nitrate salts to as high as 600 C, and then that energy is released throughout the night, boiling water and running turbines. Calibrated correctly, you can have 24/7 output on just nine hours of sunlight a day.
It's not optimal to try to run a city or country on a single renewable source - which is why you want multiple kinds of plants, each filling in any gaps left by the others. Solar, wind, hydroelectric, geothermal, tidal, and biomass.
vermont? really nigga? a mountainous new england state? a region famous for its sunny weather?