Why Not Just Build a Bunch of Batteries?

Can the electricity grid just run on solar and batteries? Probably not.

Last week I published a story about the challenges facing wind energy. That type of in-depth explainer is generally reserved for our paid subscribers. But I wanted it to reach as many people as possible, so I opened it up to everyone.

Today’s newsletter is a bonus issue for our paid subscribers (and anyone that wants to try out a paid subscription).

In this newsletter we’ll cover:

• Why a grid with wind and solar is better than one that relies on a single renewable technology

• What a recent storm tells us about the need for clean firm resources and long duration storage

• Why we probably shouldn’t run the grid on solar and a bunch of batteries

Why we need wind energy

Since I started writing the Distilled newsletter two years ago, I’ve repeatedly sounded the alarm bells about the wind industry’s challenges. My stories have been met with criticism from fossil fuel trade groups, clean energy opponents, and conservative think tanks.

None of that has surprised me. What has been surprising, however, is the pushback I’ve received from clean energy supporters.

Some clean energy supporters have responded to my stories about wind energy by arguing that it doesn’t really matter if we’re building wind or solar. They’re both low cost, carbon-free generation technologies. The only thing that matters is that we’re building some kind of carbon-free power.

This is a naive perspective though. In order to see why, let’s look at wind and solar’s hourly generation profiles.