Implications of diurnal and seasonal variations in renewable energy generation for large scale energy storage

• DOI: 10.1063/1.4874845
• Publication Date: 2014-05-07T00:32:03Z
• Authors: F. M. Mulder
• Keywords: Grid parity; Lagging; Solar Power; Stand-alone power system

Large scale implementation of solar and wind powered renewable electricity generation will use up to continent sized connected grids built distribute the locally fluctuating power. Systematic power output variation then become manifest since has an evident diurnal period, but also surface winds—which are driven by temperatures—follow a periodic behavior lagging about 4 h in time. On ordinary day strong varying results when combining on such grid. Comparison with possible demand patterns indicates that coping systematically require large energy storage conversion for timescales capacities at least half day. Seasonal versatile, high quality, generally applicable, equally essential wide insolation varies factor ∼3, e.g., Europe Northern Africa together. A first order model estimating required magnitudes is presented, taking into account potential seasonal patterns. few scalable methods briefly indicated.