Baseload from renewables ?

with added battery storage of course

Some analysts argue that generating base load using renewables is not possible - but a project in Australia has done it

It used to be said that renewables cannot provide 24/7 electricity. A project in Australia says otherwise. Yes, it's for an isolated mine (Olympic Dam), but a combination of wind and batteries is expected to meet half of Olympic Dam’s forecast electricity needs from 2025. Another step toward 70-80% renewables on the grid.

I discussed the outlook for a new form of baseload electricity generation in a blog for The Sustainable Investor, as part of the series on the different ways we need to change how we think about electricity use in a renewable world.

Many commentators explain away countries and/or regions that do operate at close to 100% renewables as being the "hydro or nuclear power exceptions". Now, to be true, there is some truth in this, having abundant hydro does make things a lot easier. And this data shows that as of 2021, 17 countries operated at over 90% renewables, again with most using a large element of hydro.  But as this study showed, it can be done with wind and solar (normally both, not just one).

There are a number of solutions to the intermittency of renewables, including using interconnectors to bring in complementary renewable electricity from elsewhere, using battery storage to bridge periods of up to 8 hours (although normally only up to 4 hours), smarter grids or demand management, and the most challenging from a cost perspective, the small amount of long-term storage needed. The Australian project focused on using batteries.

It's too easy to focus on the "oh my god, how do we get to 100% renewables without fossil fuels" rather than the much easier (and largely already solvable question) of "how do we get to 70-80%".  Lets worry about the last 10-20% later.

Many commentators say that variable renewables cannot power the electricity grid without fossil fuels (mostly gas) as they cannot provide what they call baseload power, by which they mean 24/7. When we started in this industry, many said that renewables could not be more than 10% of load, that went up to 20% and now 50% plus is generally accepted. The next step is to get to 80-90% (beyond that is currently expensive) - which means adding in interconnectors, short/mid duration storage and demand management. Some countries are there already, mostly using hydro. This is the big investment theme of the next decade.