{"id":353468,"date":"2024-12-06T16:47:06","date_gmt":"2024-12-06T15:47:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=353468"},"modified":"2024-12-06T16:52:12","modified_gmt":"2024-12-06T15:52:12","slug":"wind-and-solar-cant-support-the-grid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=353468","title":{"rendered":"Wind and Solar Can\u2019t Support the Grid"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Climate Etc.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

by Planning Engineer (Russ Schussler)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In October of 2025, the isolated small city of Broken Hill in New South Wales, Australia with a 36 MW load (including the large nearby mines) could not be reliably served by 200 MW of wind, a 53 MW solar array, significant residential solar, and a large 50 MW battery all supplemented by diesel generators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many people falsely believe that wind, solar and batteries have been demonstrated to provide grid support and deliver energy independently in large real word applications. Few people realize that we are a long way<\/a> away from having wind, solar and batteries support a large power system without significant amounts of conventional spinning generation (nuclear, gas, coal, hydro, geothermal) on-line to support the grid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Broken Hill Outage \u2013 Wind, Solar and Battery Can Not Support the Grid<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The recent outages occurring in Broken Hill help illustrate the inability of wind, solar and batteries to support electric grids without significant help from machines rotating in synchronism with the grid. (Note \u2013 wind power is produced by rotation but not in synchronism with the grid).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Around 20,000 people live in the Broken Hill area. Over $650 million in investment made Broken Hill home to a 200 MW wind plant, a 53 MW solar array, and a large battery<\/a> that could provide 50 MW of power for 100 MWh through advanced grid forming inverters. Broken Hill is home to over 6,000 small-scale solar systems providing a per capita energy small solar production level almost twice the Australian average.  The area also contains two poorly maintained diesel-powered gas turbine generators in the area, one which was off-line for maintenance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Broken Hill became renewable energy industry\u2019s Potemkin Village<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

 In 2018, Broken Hill City Council announced its goal to become Australia\u2019s first carbon-free city by 2030. Three years ago, then mayor Darriea Turley welcomed the announcement that AGL was proceeding with plans to build a grid-scale battery, which the company claimed would be a reliable backup power source for 10,000 homes. \u201cThis is a great opportunity for Broken Hill and renewable energies,\u201d Turley told the ABC. \u201cWhat they will see is when there is an outage, the battery would click into operation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In October of 2024<\/a> this area was separated from the larger grid when the interconnecting transmission towers went down in a bad storm. Loads in Broken Hill are limited to  about 20 MW of mining load and 17 MW that serve the local town for a combined load of 36 MW. The over 300 MWs of renewable energy from wind, solar and battery storage, along with a diesel generator were not able to provide reliable power to support the town alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A 25 MW gas PLANT OR a 25 MW hydro plant would have done a much better job than the combined efforts of 200 MW of wind, 53 MW of solar, the 34 MW of distributed solar and 50 MW battery. The consequences for Broken Hill were serious. The Australian ran an article entitled:\u00a0Broken Hill: Powerless and left to live like mushrooms<\/a>\u00a0where it described the situation:<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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The power comes on from time to time but goes out just as quickly. It gives us just enough time to power our phones and read emails from energy providers sent the day before, alerting us to the fact the power was about to go out. They also warn we don\u2019t have much time, and to avoid using unnecessary electrical devices \u2013 air conditioners, fridges or fans that need a power point.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In theory the area could be served, but in reality as noted by Jo Nova<\/a> , \u201cThe fridges in the pharmacies failed, so all medications had to be destroyed and emergency replacements sent in. Schools have been closed. Freezers of meat are long gone\u2026  Emergency trucks are bringing in food finally <\/a>\u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Haven\u2019t I Seen Many Reports Where Large Systems Ran Just on Wind and Solar?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is common to see articles describing how wind and solar served all or nearly all of areas load during some time period. These descriptions are all misleading. They may accurately describe how many kWhs of energy wind and solar produce as well as how many kWhs of load were served, but they do not provide information on all the conventional rotating machinery that was also deployed to support the grid with needed essential reliability services. They imply (or sometimes falsely state) that just \u201crenewables\u201d served the load, but in fact benefits from conventional rotating machinery connected on-line where needed in order to support the grid and maintain stability. Broken Hill produced much more \u201crenewable\u201d energy then it used and exported large amounts. But despite the huge green resources, Broken Hill has remained dependent on the interconnected grid to support its own small load.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It means nothing to talk about how much wind and solar has contributed  if you don\u2019t also share how much rotating machinery was also interconnected on-line. So, the question remains, \u201chas anyone demonstrated that wind, solar and batteries alone can effectively supply reliable service to a general load of any significance?\u201d  I\u2019ve never come across anything like that, perhaps because what\u2019s been done so far is nothing to brag about. Partial and misleading information makes for better press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Advocates and Academics Tend to Ignore the Real Problem<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As described here<\/a>, academics and advocates don\u2019t usually get around to the crucial question as to whether the grid can survive without rotating machines<\/a>. The first question Academics address is \u201ccan wind and solar provide the needed kWh?\u201d  If their studies suggest this is nominally possible, they jump to the conclusion that such resources can replace conventional generation. Clearly in Broken Hill, the resources there were sufficiently large to provide energy\/kWhs far in excess of the demand. But having enough kWhs is not enough to reliably serve loads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Academics sometimes go a little deeper sometimes and address a second question which is the intermittency of energy production associated with wind and solar<\/a>. Looking at when energy is needed and when it is produced, the claim is that batteries paired with these resources can support the grid by providing energy when it was needed. In Broken Hill, the problem does not seem to be intermittency. Wind and solar energy were available in abundance during the<\/em><\/strong>  blackouts. The energy just could not be reliably integrated with the grid. Having enough kWhs at the right time and place is not enough to reliably serve loads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The real problem is that wind, solar and batteries do not readily provide essential reliability services<\/a>. Wind, solar and batteries provide energy through an electronic inverter. In practice, they lean on and are supported by conventional rotating machines. Essential Reliability Services include the ability to ramp up and down, frequency support, inertia and voltage support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The question of essential reliability services is the sticking point for integrating large amounts of wind, solar and batteries. It is common to see cost comparisons between \u201crenewables\u201d and conventional generation, invariably suggesting that wind and solar may be cheaper. But when you add in the large overbuild needed to deal with intermittency, add in the costs of batteries to deal with intermittency and also the significant amounts of rotating generation needed for grid reliably, the costs of  \u201cinverter based renewable\u201d generation greatly exceed the competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bigger Picture<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last  year Chris Morris and I looked at \u201cworld leading<\/a>\u201d efforts in Australia to transition towards greater levels of wind and solar. We observed<\/a>:  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cMany are looking towards Australia and seeing bold, innovative steps to increase the penetration levels of wind and solar resources. A grid revolution around the corner? Or just the madness of crowds?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Australia has spent large sums of money to make solar and wind work better with the grid<\/a> and improve reliability. Recent outages and grid performance in Australia indicate that many  great challenges are still ahead before a grid powered primarily by wind, solar and batteries can provide reliable power. The physics of the grid require more than the kWh\u2019s of energy from wind, solar and batteries, even with state of the art inverter technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For over a decade now<\/a>,  I have explained many of the problems encountered in attempting to add increasing levels of  generation from wind and solar resources. I will briefly highlight some of the problems with links that can be followed for more detailed descriptions and further links and even greater detail. Unlike conventional rotating generation, wind and solar do not readily supply inertia and other essential reliability services<\/a>. As penetration of  wind and solar resources increase, grid reliability<\/a> decreases. The challenges of increasing wind and solar increase exponentially<\/a> as you increase their share of generation. Policy makers, academics and others seeking to increase wind and solar are focusing on the wrong problems<\/a> and failing to study the real operational problems<\/a> inherent in inverter based generation from wind and solar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Proponents of increasing wind and solar seek to counter such concerns by noting that with technical advances wind, solar and batteries can be made to perform \u201csimilarly\u201d to conventional rotating generation resources and provide pseudo inertia and some degree of reliability services. Using the term \u201csimilarly\u201d rather loosely, looking far ahead to the future and ignoring the great cost of such efforts, it is true that wind and solar will be able at some time to perform similarly to conventional generators. But similar is not good enough and that time is not now or in the near term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most academics and policy makers focus exclusively  on the issue of intermittency, which can be solved usually at very high costs. Those who venture beyond to the real challenges undertaken by a smaller community of \u201cexperts\u201d are often misled not distinguishing between what is \u201cpossible\u201d and what is \u201cprobable\u201d, as I described here<\/a>: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

(E)ngineers, academics and scientists jointly grapple with the critical such as providing synthetic or virtual inertia<\/a> through inverter technology to aid the Texas grid. There is some hope that advanced computer controls can be developed so that asynchronous resources perform similarly enough to maintain the grid at higher penetration levels. It should be recognized that the talk is of possibilities not probabilities. Here<\/a> the National Renewable Energy Laboratory concludes \u201cOngoing research points to the possibility of maintaining grid frequency even in systems with very low or no inertia\u201d. The unsaid part of that statement is that it may not even be possible to maintain grid frequencies with low inertia. It\u2019s also certainly in the mix at this point, based on the statement from National Renewable Laboratory, that in the next 20 years the best we may be able to do at higher penetration levels of asynchronous renewables is maintain frequency in a highly inferior manner with a boatload of reliability problems, with increasing blackouts at untenably high prices.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Grid supporting inverters and the capabilities of emulation today are far from what is needed. Hopes for the future may be admirable, but here is a huge gap between what might one day be, and what is practical and proven to be workable today<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is Often a Big Difference Between Theory and Practice<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In theory the battery should have worked at Broken Hill. It was reported:<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There has been confusion, in particular, about the Broken Hill battery, which owner AGL says on its website <\/a>is capable of establishing a micro-grid in such circumstances, and could \u2013 at least in theory \u2013 have kept the lights on with the help of the huge 200 MW Silverton wind farm about 10 kms away and the 53 MW Broken Hill solar farm just across the road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many have touted that micro grids will make it easier to utilize wind and solar. Such is not the case, wind and solar work best connected and leaning on a large grid.  See this posting to better understand  Microgrids<\/a>  and the fuzzy thinking surrounding them.  In any case, microgrids are not a way to skip past the challenges and basic needs of all grid, as the problems are based in physics and  that remain unchanged. Coordinating a microgrid is extremely challenging as can be seen in how the plentiful  rooftop solar worked against the overall reliability of the system and required curtailment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Australian called the blackout a \u201cgreen power warning<\/a>\u201d. Mayor Tom Kennedy cautioned that policy makers, should learn from this experience how useful those resources are \u201calmost useless\u201d without baseload power. Solar panels were not only useless, but  actually hindered efforts to establish reliability such that customers were urged to turn them off. \u201c(Wind and solar) are worse than useless (in a crisis like this), because it\u2019s detrimental to having a consistent power supply\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nick Cater<\/a> wrote in the Australian<\/a>: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Some $650m worth of renewable energy investment within a 25km radius of Broken Hill has proved to be dysfunctional. The technical challenges of operating a grid on renewable energy alone appear insurmountable using the current technology.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Australia has been much hyped recently as a pioneer in renewables, but the cracks are showing. There are many other stories of emerging problems that could be shared. Germany<\/a> was the leader before. All that hype has crumbled, showing the Energiewende<\/a> as a pipe dream with a poison pill. There is a simple point that is being widely ignored: wind, solar and batteries do not support the grid much. There are many tricks employed to help proponents and policy makers overlook this simple fact but eventually reality will hammer the point home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many excuses for this outage will likely  emerge. I\u2019ve heard that changing the battery setting made it more effective than it was initially. Undoubtedly inverter-based technology will continue to improve and wind and solar with the proper settings and equipment will be able to better  contribute. While inverter-based generation with computer control may one day provide a lot of options, such technology will also provide tremendous complexity and challenges as well. Who will know how to make so many elements with unlimited potential operating characteristics behave well together across a multitude of potential unknown and unpredictable situations? Experience with the grid has come from many decades of study and practice. As the penetration of inverter-based resources increases I suspect every outage study after the fact will continue to find that the inverter setting could have been better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many can argue that the grid at Broken Hill could or should have worked better (although the failure was likely beyond their worst fears). That\u2019s typically true for any grid during any outage. To quote Nick Cater<\/a> again., \u201cIf wind, solar and storage can\u2019t keep the beer cold in a small city like Broken Hill, how will it perform when called upon to power the rest of the country?\u201d  Policy makers pushing for standalone power systems built primarily on wind, solar and batteries are lurching towards disaster and will only avoid calamity to the extent that they are unsuccessful in their goals of removing conventional rotating machinery or are able to lean on the despised conventional technology of their interconnected neighbors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks to Chris Morris for his help and assistance with this piece<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In October of 2025, the isolated small city of Broken Hill in New South Wales, Australia with a 36 MW load (including the large nearby mines) could not be reliably served by 200 MW of wind, a 53 MW solar array, significant residential solar, and a large 50 MW battery all supplemented by diesel generators.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":353472,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691818216,691831865,691819094,691823573,691818728],"class_list":{"0":"post-353468","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-broken-hill-outage","10":"tag-renewable-green-energy","11":"tag-the-grid","12":"tag-wind-and-solar","14":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/0shots-of-broken-hill-v0-osnob0ij7l9a1.webp?fit=1080%2C720&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1tX6","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":349369,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=349369","url_meta":{"origin":353468,"position":0},"title":"$650m in renewable energy didn\u2019t save Broken Hill from days of blackouts after a storm islanded it","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"29\/10\/2024","format":false,"excerpt":"The lights went out in Broken Hill. 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