Abstract for: Changing Minds about the Reliability of Renewables

Changing Minds about the Reliability of Renewables Solar and Wind are growing fast around the world, and costs have dropped below $20/MWh, but they remain difficult to rely on - the sun doesn't always shine, and the wind stops occasionally. The recent Texas ERCOT failure and resulting $45 billion costs from the big freeze (plus over 120 deaths) resulted in the fossil fuel related proponents arguing against renewables as ‘unreliable’ and thus a 'cause' for the grid being forced to do massive load shedding, while in fact natural gas supply and power generation were actually more of the problem. There appears to be a solution to intermittency, that would provide reliable power for $31/MWh LCOE - enabling the coal plants to be shuttered and additional gas power gen to be avoided. New thinking about combining Wind, Solar, and Hydro is needed to operate these ‘as a system’ instead of thinking about these as independent things. To realize the potential of renewables, new tools for changing hearts and minds are needed. A simple model that combines wind, solar, and storage will be discussed during the WIP session.