This is a million dollar question! After all, the wind doesn’t blow all the time, and there’s no sunlight at night. Here’s the truth.
Detailed computer simulations, backed up by real-world experience with wind power, demonstrate that a transition to 100% energy production from renewable sources is possible within the next few decades. The baseload issue can be solved by reducing baseload demand,having some renewable energy sources that can supply baseload power and increasing the proportion of flexible peakload plant in the generating mix.
We do not currently use our energy very efficiently. For example, nighttime energy demand is much lower than during the day, and yet we waste a great deal of energy from coal and nuclear power plants, which cannot be powered up quickly. Some are kept running through the night heating water. These plants can be replaced with solar hot water and renewable electricity.
Baseload demand can be further reduced by increasing the energy efficiency of homes and other buildings.
Some renewable energy sources are just as reliable for baseload energy as fossil fuels. For example, bio-electricity generated from burning the residues of crops and plantation forests, concentrated solar thermal power with low-cost thermal storage, and hot-rock geothermal power.
In fact, bio-electricity from organic residues already contributes to both baseload and peak-load power in parts of Europe and the USA, and is poised for rapid growth. Concentrated solar thermal technology is advancing rapidly, and a 19.9-megawatt solar thermal plant opened in Spain in 2011 – Gemasolar, which stores energy in molten salt for up to 15 hours.
Wind power already supplies over 21% of Denmark’s electricity and 15% of Spain and Portugal’s. Although the output of a single wind farm fluctuates greatly, the fluctuations in the total output from a number of wind farms geographically distributed in different wind regimes are much smaller and partially predictable.
Studies have found that wind could supply 20-30% of electricity, given improved transmission links and a little low-cost flexible back-up.
In summary, approximately half of the goal is met through increased energy efficiency to first reduce energy demand and the other half by switching to renewable energy sources for electricity production.
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