Wind and solar are intermittent energy sources, dependent on the weather. Where I live, solar panels produce electricity around 14% of the time. Wind turbines produce electricity less than half the time. So how can these be viable sources of energy? That is, primary sources on which an economy can depend for baseload power, not expensive and irrelevant add-ons.
The answer from liberals is always “batteries.” Batteries will store electricity during the relatively unusual times when electricity is being produced, and then dispense it 24/7. So, can we see one of these giant batteries? No, they don’t actually exist. They are purely hypothetical.
The European Institute for Climate and Energy did the math, as to Germany. You can read that analysis here, if you speak German. Watts Up With That has an English version:
Germany currently has a battery capacity of approximately 26 gigawatt-hours (GWh), the majority of which (approx. 20 GWh) consists of private home storage systems.
I.e., the batteries we all use every day.
Only large-scale storage systems (approx. 4.3 GWh) are considered truly “grid-serving.” Currently, these could cover only about 5% of summer electricity demand for 1.5 hours.
Energy expert Staffan Reveman presented a plausibility calculation for making Germany self-sufficient (without fossil fuel plants or imports). The results are sobering.
10 hour buffer
To achieve just 10 hours of buffer, a capacity of 600 GWh would be required – 24 times the current inventory and representing a material weight of approx. 3 million tonnes.
10 days of buffer
To bridge a ten-day “Dunkelflaute” (dark doldrums) in winter with a 50 GW load, 12,000 GWh would be needed. This is 470 times the current total capacity and 2,800 times the current large-scale storage. Such a battery would weigh 60 million tons. A modern factory (like CATL in Thuringia) would theoretically need 857 years to produce this amount.
Sure, that’s totally doable. And it isn’t the end of the problem:
Constant replacement
A central drawback is the limited durability of batteries (approx. 10–15 years). To operate a system of 12,000 GWh permanently, batteries would need to be replaced conbtinuusly. Reveman calculates that approximately 57 mega-factories would need to produce continuously just to maintain this inventory.
Astronomical cost
A simulation for the Traunstein district showed that self-sufficient supply via wind, solar, and batteries would increase wholesale electricity costs from 6 cents to 217 cents per kwh.
Moreover, a 240-hour battery (12,000 GWh) would require an area of approx. 600 square kilometers (roughly two-thirds the size of Berlin).
So this hypothetical monster battery would increase the cost of electricity by 36 times, meaning that pretty much every German would be poor, and no one would even think about trying to manufacture any product in that country.
Liberals have a faith in the power of words that is typical of primitive cultures. They seriously seem to believe that if they pass a law that says, for example, all electricity most come from wind or solar power by 2035, it will happen. It’s the law! Unfortunately, the laws of physics are not impressed. The entire “green” edifice is a house of cards that is rapidly crumbling.
