A near 100% renewables grid is well within reach, and with little storage

Fossil gas short term, green ammonia long term. With enormous amounts of clean energy and air source carbon capture, you can carbon budget for last resort combustion generation. You might have to burn something to keep the lights on, you’re just on the hook to pay Climeworks or someone else to pull that carbon back out of the atmosphere (which will be done with clean energy) and that cost is built in the per MWh spot price.

https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/projects/low-carbon-e...

Not if we figure out vehicle-to-grid.

Cloud doesn't mean solar stops working - the decrease is 30-60% depending on thickness, but there's still very meaningful generation.

That's what is different about this new study. It uses real time supply/demand figures instead of annualized averages. It meets 98.8% of demand with renewables and fills in with fossil power the rest of the time. To quote from the article:

Key results from the 52 weeks of simulations are summarised as follows:

- Renewables met 98.8% of demand over the year, with the remaining 1.2% met by ‘Other’ (fossils)

- ‘Other’ generation peaked at 6.59 GW on the night of July 12. Over the year its average capacity factor was 4.3%.

- Hydro met 6.9% of demand. This was lower than my target of 7.5%, and also less than actual hydro generation of 8%. This means that dam storage levels in my simulation would have ended the year higher than they did in the real world.

- 17% of the wind and solar generation was in excess of requirements and ended up being curtailed.

- 11% of wind and solar generation went into storage. Storage discharge met 10% of demand.

- 82% of demand was directly powered by wind and solar without having to pass through storage or be curtailed.

Is it really though? How many gigawatts of gas peaker plants and all the associated infrastructure sit around waiting for the tens or hundred hours they're needed?

Turns out, it's a lot - and it costs the ratepayers:

https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/just-how-much-b...

> Wood Mackenzie calculates the average peaker plant capacity factor will sit between 5 and 6 percent over the next two decades. That amounts to a low number of hours for storage to replicate.

In New York City, ratepayers are paying billions of dollars for polluting gas peakers that sit idle.

https://www.cleanegroup.org/ceg-projects/phase-out-peakers/

* An estimated $4.5 billion in ratepayers funds have gone to support the continued operation of the city’s peaker plants – most of which operate no more than a few hundred hours each year.

* Even though the power plants don’t run often, they can be significant contributors to local air pollution – accounting for more than 10 percent of nitrous oxide (NOx) emissions on high ozone days.

Luckily we have the technology to both start replacing gas peakers with storage, and roll out demand response and load shedding to reduce peak demand.

For example, my employer is a big power user. On a couple days in the summer during peak heat, the utility requests curtailment. The plant managers can respond by switching HVAC operation plans, shift some loads to the overnight - the utility saves money on peak generation, and the company saves a ton of demand charges. Win-win.