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Originally Posted by JSH
The theoretical limit is 100% solar.
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I think there must be a limit, according to some theory or another, for the grid stability portion
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The issue with solar or wind energy feeding into our current electric grid is that the power generation is not consistent. Clouds shade panels and the wind doesn't blow at a constant speed. That compares to a gas plant where generation can be ramped up or down at will to meet the demand. The current grid doesn't have a way to store extra energy and feed it back when needed. There are ways to do this but right now we don't.
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Agreed.
- Pumped hydro is one method that is relatively simple to do, but you already need a hydro dam. In low demand periods, you pump the water back up the grade and into the reservoir (using cheap baseload electricity from coal plants that don't ramp up or down quickly, or excess wind, excess solar)
- grid-storage. Flow batteries, rotating mass storage, etc to store the extra energy until it is needed. The battery or mass storage also doubles as power factor correction and makes the local grid more stable and energy efficient.
Those are the ones I read about. I'm sure there are others.