Wind and solar could power the world's major countries most of the time


Date:
November 5, 2021
Source:
University of California - Irvine
Summary:
With the eyes of the world on the United Nations COP26 climate
summit in Glasgow, Scotland, strategies for decarbonizing energy
infrastructure are a trending topic. Yet critics of renewables
question the dependability of systems that rely on intermittent
resources.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
With the eyes of the world on the United Nations COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, strategies for decarbonizing energy infrastructure are
a trending topic. Yet critics of renewables question the dependability
of systems that rely on intermittent resources. A recent study led
by researchers at the University of California, Irvine tackles the
reliability question head-on.


==========================================================================
In a paper published recently in Nature Communications, the authors,
including experts from China's Tsinghua University, the Carnegie
Institution for Science and Caltech, said that most of the current
electricity demand in advanced, industrialized nations can be met by
some combination of wind and solar power.

But that positive finding comes with the caveat that extra efforts are
going to be necessary to completely satisfy the countries' requirements.

Most reliable systems, which are dominated by wind power, are capable of meeting electricity requirements in the countries studied 72 to 91 percent
of the time, even without energy storage, according to the study. With
the addition of 12 hours of energy storage capacity, systems become
dominated by solar power and can satisfy demand 83 to 94 percent of hours.

"Wind and solar could meet more than 80 percent of demand in many places without crazy amounts of storage or excess generating capacity, which is
the critical point," said co-author Steve Davis, UCI professor of Earth
system science. "But depending on the country, there may be many multi-day periods throughout the year when some demand will need to be met by energy storage and other non-fossil energy sources in a zero-carbon future."
The team analyzed 39 years' worth of hourly energy demand data from
42 major countries to evaluate the adequacy of wind and solar power
resources to serve their needs. They found that a full conversion to sustainable power resources can be easier for larger, lower-latitude
countries, which can rely on solar power availability throughout the year.

The researchers highlighted Germany as an example of a relatively smaller country, in terms of land mass, at higher latitude which will make it more challenging to meet its electricity needs with wind and solar resources.

"Historic data show that countries that are farther from the equator
can occasionally experience periods called 'dark doldrums' during which
there is very limited solar and wind power availability," said lead
author Dan Tong, assistant professor of Earth system science at Tsinghua University. "One recent occurrence of this phenomenon in Germany lasted
for two weeks, forcing Germans to resort to dispatchable generation, which
in many cases is provided by fossil fuel-burning plants." Among the
approaches the researchers suggested to alleviate this problem are a
building up generating capacity that exceeds annual demand, developing
long- term storage capabilities and pooling resources of multiple nations
on a continental land mass.

"Europe provides a good example," said Tong, who began her work on this
study as a post-doctoral scholar in UCI's Department of Earth System
Science. "A lot of consistency and reliability could be provided by a
system that includes solar resources from Spain, Italy and Greece with bountiful wind available in the Netherlands, Denmark and the Baltic
region." The researchers found that a wind and solar power system
could provide about 85 percent of the total electricity demand of the
United States, and that amount could also be increased through capacity overbuilding, addition of batteries and other storage methods, and
connecting with other national partners on the North American continent.

"Around the world, there are some definite geophysical constraints
on our ability to produce net-zero carbon electricity," said
Davis. "It comes down to the difference between the difficult and
the impossible. It will be hard to completely eliminate fossil
fuels from our power generation mix, but we can achieve that goal
when technologies, economics and socio-political will are aligned." ========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
University_of_California_-_Irvine. Note: Content may be edited for style
and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Dan Tong, David J. Farnham, Lei Duan, Qiang Zhang, Nathan S. Lewis,
Ken
Caldeira, Steven J. Davis. Geophysical constraints on
the reliability of solar and wind power worldwide. Nature
Communications, 2021; 12 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-26355-z ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/11/211105134636.htm

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