Parts of Australia have embraced renewables, specifically Wind & Solar. You can tell what % is W&S by how high their electric bills are. More W&S = higher bills. Why? Because when those don't work properly, which is often, they have to import electricity from neighboring districts. At the highest possible premiums since their W&S isn't working either!
They "plan to have" various "grid storage" eventually, but every time they field test these they are abject failures.
An example was a "pumped water" test site. They'd use excess W&S power to pump water from down low to up high, then send that higher water down to generate power when needed. Sounds great!
It cost (these numbers are iirc, of course, but not off by much) 3x as much as "estimated" to construct the test equipment. All their "estimates" turned out to have been made by policy makers, not engineers. The water turned out to be 2x as energy demanding to pump us as estimated, and produced 1/4 as much power when sent down.
Had the large-scale plan been carried out? Each gW/h would easily cost 20X the estimate and provide a few hours of back-up, not days! And this was one of the best sites available.
Parts of Australia have embraced renewables, specifically Wind & Solar. You can tell what % is W&S by how high their electric bills are. More W&S = higher bills. Why? Because when those don't work properly, which is often, they have to import electricity from neighboring districts. At the highest possible premiums since their W&S isn't working either!
They "plan to have" various "grid storage" eventually, but every time they field test these they are abject failures.
An example was a "pumped water" test site. They'd use excess W&S power to pump water from down low to up high, then send that higher water down to generate power when needed. Sounds great!
It cost (these numbers are iirc, of course, but not off by much) 3x as much as "estimated" to construct the test equipment. All their "estimates" turned out to have been made by policy makers, not engineers. The water turned out to be 2x as energy demanding to pump us as estimated, and produced 1/4 as much power when sent down.
Had the large-scale plan been carried out? Each gW/h would easily cost 20X the estimate and provide a few hours of back-up, not days! And this was one of the best sites available.