{"id":38693,"date":"2020-04-08T13:50:52","date_gmt":"2020-04-08T03:20:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/?p=38693"},"modified":"2025-01-02T10:14:25","modified_gmt":"2025-01-02T00:44:25","slug":"20-percent-renewables","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/20-percent-renewables\/","title":{"rendered":"Idiots Insisting &#8220;Over 20% Renewables Is Impossible&#8221; Go Into Hiding. Won&#8217;t Be Missed."},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_38821\" style=\"width: 1210px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-38821\" class=\"wp-image-38821 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/impossible.jpg\" alt=\"20 per cent renewable energy\" width=\"1200\" height=\"628\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/impossible.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/impossible-300x157.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/impossible-1024x536.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/impossible-768x402.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-38821\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A few years ago it was common to hear &#8220;Grids Can&#8217;t Handle More Than 20% Renewables&#8221;. South Australia (among others) would beg to differ.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I was talking to Finn on Sunday &#8212; electronically because computer viruses are less of a threat than biological ones these days &#8212; and I mentioned South Australia was producing much more electricity from renewables than it was consuming and that the surplus was being exported to Victoria.\u00a0 There&#8217;s nothing unusual about this, especially on weekends, but it prompted Finn to ask&#8230;<!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Where have all the 20 percenters gone?\u00a0 All the people who used to say the grid couldn&#8217;t handle more than 20% renewables without disaster?&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>That&#8217;s a good question, because they used to be all over the place only a couple of years ago. I know they were still around in 2018 when solar energy and wind power began providing 50% of the state&#8217;s generation, but it&#8217;s almost as if the following&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Continued expansion of renewable energy capacity<\/li>\n<li>Countries like Spain and Denmark producing over 40% of generation from intermittent renewables<sup class='endnote'><a href='https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/20-percent-renewables\/#en-38693-1' id='enref-38693-1' onclick='return hhEndnotes_show(38693)'>1<\/a><\/sup><\/li>\n<li>South Australia becoming a net exporter of electricity<\/li>\n<li>South Australia being on track to generate electricity from renewable energy equal to 100% or more of its own consumption by 2030 and the Australian Energy Market Operator (<a href=\"https:\/\/aemo.com.au\/en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">AEMO<\/a>) being down with that<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8230;caused them to disappear.\u00a0 Where did they go?\u00a0 Did they suddenly become embarrassed and shut up?\u00a0 Or were they wiped out by a wind farm on the rampage, determined to prevent them interfering with their evil plan to blow the world out of orbit?<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_38753\" style=\"width: 941px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-38753\" class=\"wp-image-38753 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/xkcd.jpg\" alt=\"Tilting at wind turbines\" width=\"931\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/xkcd.jpg 931w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/xkcd-300x155.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/xkcd-768x396.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 931px) 100vw, 931px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-38753\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image: XKCD (Full illustration <a href=\"https:\/\/xkcd.com\/556\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I&#8217;d like to think we no longer hear from 20 percenters as they realized the evidence against them was overwhelming and the shame this revelation brought upon them made them swear to forevermore ensure the facts were on their side before tilting against wind turbines, but I doubt that&#8217;s what happened.<sup class='endnote'><a href='https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/20-percent-renewables\/#en-38693-2' id='enref-38693-2' onclick='return hhEndnotes_show(38693)'>2<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n<h2>Looking Up Old Scoundrels Is Kind Of Sad<\/h2>\n<p>At first my plan was to look up some prominent<sup class='endnote'><a href='https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/20-percent-renewables\/#en-38693-3' id='enref-38693-3' onclick='return hhEndnotes_show(38693)'>3<\/a><\/sup> 20 percenters, dust off some of their old quotes on the topic, and mock them mercilessly.<\/p>\n<p>But I soon discovered that rather than being fun this was simply depressing.\u00a0 Being reminded our politicians can so easily ignore a grave danger and put our lives at risk isn&#8217;t really what we need right now.\u00a0 Even when it comes to retired politicians who are limited in the amount of damage they can cause, it&#8217;s probably still better for national morale at the moment to pretend they were merely confused when they were being paid money to safeguard our lives and it was only in old age that their brains become fully &#8220;fossilized&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to politicians there were various media outrage merchants who appear to enjoy notoriety and I didn&#8217;t see the point in playing their game by giving them more.\u00a0 You know the type.\u00a0 The ones currently complaining that everyone&#8217;s panicking over Coronavirus except them and by extension their audience, when &#8212; apart from the odd punch up over toilet paper &#8212; the country&#8217;s reaction has been, if anything, a little too<span class=\"st\"> blas\u00e9<\/span>.\u00a0 If we&#8217;d gone into this situation sphincters clenched we&#8217;d be in a better position than we are today.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, there are people who should have known better, but decided that their gut feelings, that may serve them well in their specialized fields, have exactly the same validity when applied to areas outside their expertise, such as energy<sup class='endnote'><a href='https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/20-percent-renewables\/#en-38693-4' id='enref-38693-4' onclick='return hhEndnotes_show(38693)'>4<\/a><\/sup>.\u00a0 These are people with technical backgrounds who often were hands-on involved in building the scientific and engineering marvels our modern lives rely on.\u00a0 They put people on the moon, sent robots to Mars, and oversaw a computer revolution that put the sum of human knowledge at our fingertips.\u00a0 Then, towards the end of the 20th century, they looked at the marvels they had helped create and said, &#8220;Yep.\u00a0 This is best we can do.\u00a0 It&#8217;s impossible to improve on this any further, especially when it comes to electricity.\u00a0 It&#8217;s all fossil fuels or nuclear from here on in.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-wrapper\"><iframe title=\"Timbuk 3 - The Future&#039;s So Bright\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/8qrriKcwvlY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>Engineers don&#8217;t get a free pass on this, but they do get a shoulder shrug and an eye roll simply because, soon after they invented the internet, it became clear a small but vocal minority had no problem loudly proclaiming their opinions on a wide range of topics despite being so far out of their depth they&#8217;d need mile long legs to keep their nipples dry<sup class='endnote'><a href='https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/20-percent-renewables\/#en-38693-5' id='enref-38693-5' onclick='return hhEndnotes_show(38693)'>5<\/a><\/sup>.<\/p>\n<p>Some of these people were experts on energy but managed to get it wrong anyway. \u00a0Only 13 years ago a respected energy expert from the University of NSW\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/287514919_Renewable_Energy_Cannot_Sustain_A_Consumer_Society\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">was writing<\/a> that renewable energy couldn&#8217;t power an industrial economy or provide the world with a developed nation standard of living.\u00a0 This never made sense to me back then and it definitely makes no sense now<sup class='endnote'><a href='https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/20-percent-renewables\/#en-38693-6' id='enref-38693-6' onclick='return hhEndnotes_show(38693)'>6<\/a><\/sup> we have entire Australian states moving towards 100% renewable electricity at the same time the developing country of India is building giant <a href=\"https:\/\/reneweconomy.com.au\/bad-news-for-coal-india-lands-worlds-largest-super-cheap-solar-and-storage-tender-80682\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">solar farms and energy storage facilities<\/a>, and has abandoned the construction of a considerable number of coal power stations because they&#8217;re simply not cost effective.<\/p>\n<h2>20% Renewables Was Never A Hard Limit<\/h2>\n<p>Around 14 to 20 years ago there were a lot of studies done on intermittent renewable energy and how much grids could handle.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ukerc.ac.uk\/publications\/the-costs-and-impacts-of-intermittency.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">This UK review<\/a> looked at over 200 and most of them considered penetrations of up to 20%.\u00a0 There are two main reasons why this 20% figure was chosen.\u00a0 Firstly, they had good reasons to think it would be okay, and secondly, there were next to no countries getting more than a few percent of their electricity from intermittent renewables at the time.\u00a0 The question people wanted answered was not&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Hey, I&#8217;ve got 20% solar and wind penetration, is it okay to take that up to 40%?&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It was&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve got next to no solar and wind generation.\u00a0 Is it okay to increase it to 15% or 20%?&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The large majority of studies said around 20% should be fine but there may be issues with more than that.\u00a0 They generally didn&#8217;t look at more than that because it wasn&#8217;t really an issue at the time.\u00a0 But the 20 percenters took the large number of papers saying there could be problems at over 20% as evidence that 20% couldn&#8217;t be exceeded.\u00a0 They took an absence of evidence of what would happen beyond 20% as evidence of the absence of ability to go beyond 20%.<sup class='endnote'><a href='https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/20-percent-renewables\/#en-38693-7' id='enref-38693-7' onclick='return hhEndnotes_show(38693)'>7<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0 While we all mistakes at times, the fact that many of them refused to re-evaluate their opinion years after several grids left the 20% figure far behind indicated they weren&#8217;t making a mistake, they were ignoring reality on bloody purpose.<\/p>\n<p>So 20% was never at any point an agreed upon hard limit.\u00a0 It was simply useful for grids with next to no solar power or wind capacity at the time to know they could probably get to that point without any major problems.\u00a0 It was never a line drawn in the sand that couldn&#8217;t be crossed without disaster occurring.<\/p>\n<p>South Australia expanded its renewable energy capacity beyond 20% and no hard limits were met.\u00a0 The two largest changes made were both for the good.\u00a0 These were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/coal-power-eliminated-south-australia-help-rooftop-solar\/\">the closures<\/a> of the state&#8217;s two coal power stations.\u00a0 As the most polluting and dangerous form of generation it was good for the health of South Australians and good for everyone in the world who&#8217;s dependent on a stable climate for safety and\/or food.<\/p>\n<h2>South Australia, Denmark, Spain, Etc. Don&#8217;t Count<\/h2>\n<p>You may be wondering how the hell there could still be 20 percenters around in 2018 when South Australia reached 50% intermittent renewables and Spain and Denmark were at 40% or more?\u00a0 Their answer was that these places apparently didn&#8217;t count because they were connected to other grids.\u00a0 According to the 20 percenters, the only reason a small region of just 47 million Spaniards was able to make use of more than 20% renewable energy was because Europe&#8217;s grid as a whole was less than 20%.<\/p>\n<p>This explanation was ridiculous.\u00a0 The first reason is because Spain is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ree.es\/en\/ecological-transition\/electricity-interconnections\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">poorly connected<\/a> to the rest of Europe,<sup class='endnote'><a href='https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/20-percent-renewables\/#en-38693-8' id='enref-38693-8' onclick='return hhEndnotes_show(38693)'>8<\/a><\/sup> and the second is because these places are all capable of operating as separate grids without disaster, despite having more than twice the wind and solar energy generation the 20 percenters insisted was possible.<\/p>\n<p>South Australia has spent a lot of time either fully islanded or mostly islanded, as interconnectors with Victoria have undergone repairs or maintenance.\u00a0 Disaster did not occur despite the state being at two and a half times the supposed limit the last time this occurred.\u00a0 Operating as an island does put the state at an increased risk of blackouts during a summer heatwave or winter cold snap, but we know exactly how to fix this problem and we could do it in under 3 weeks<sup class='endnote'><a href='https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/20-percent-renewables\/#en-38693-9' id='enref-38693-9' onclick='return hhEndnotes_show(38693)'>9<\/a><\/sup> by renting portable diesel generators.\u00a0 Or if we felt like waiting 100 days we could build some more <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/tesla-big-battery-first-year\/\">big batteries<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2>Endless Objections<\/h2>\n<p>Looking online I see there are people devoting their energy to arguing that 100% renewable energy is impossible.\u00a0 But, try as they might, I&#8217;m certain they&#8217;ll never match the 20 percenters in either numbers or sheer idiotic stamina.\u00a0 The time for this type of idiocy has passed.\u00a0 While we currently don&#8217;t know the best way to get electricity generation to zero net emissions, it&#8217;s not possible to make a good faith argument that it&#8217;s technically impossible.\u00a0 Given the falling cost of renewables and energy storage, as well as the low costs of various <a href=\"https:\/\/reneweconomy.com.au\/australia-can-be-powered-100-by-renewables-by-early-2030s-says-garnaut-16846\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">estimates<\/a>, there is also no real economic objection either.\u00a0 Not unless you think CO2 is just plant food without any drawbacks.\u00a0 In which case you&#8217;re probably a plant yourself.\u00a0 Specifically, a vegetable.<\/p>\n<p>Rather than shifting their immovable line in the sand from &#8220;more than 20% is impossible&#8221; to &#8220;100% is impossible&#8221; I expect the current objectors will just fade away and we&#8217;ll pay them no more attention than we do to people who occasionally cry out that fluoridated water is a plot by Satan or that the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=4hPShoKFWic\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Kaiser stole their string<\/a>.\u00a0 They&#8217;ll soon find something else to complain and feel self-righteous about online or, once everyone realizes the internet is just a passing fad, go back to kicking dogs and pissing in wells or however they used to amuse themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was talking to Finn on Sunday &#8212; electronically because computer viruses are less of a threat than biological ones these days &#8212; and I mentioned South Australia was producing much more electricity from renewables than it was consuming and that the surplus was being exported to Victoria.\u00a0 There&#8217;s nothing unusual about this, especially on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":38821,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":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":""},"categories":[507],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-solar-and-the-environment","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.2 (Yoast SEO v27.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>How Wrong Were\u00a0Pundits Insisting &quot;Over 20% Renewables Is Impossible&quot;?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Just a few years ago it was common to hear &quot;Grids Can&#039;t Handle More Than 20% Renewable Energy&quot;. Those pundits have been proven hopelessly wrong.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/20-percent-renewables\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Idiots Insisting &quot;Over 20% Renewables Is Impossible&quot; Go Into Hiding. Won&#039;t Be Missed.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Just a few years ago it was common to hear &quot;Grids Can&#039;t Handle More Than 20% Renewable Energy&quot;. Those pundits have been proven hopelessly wrong.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/20-percent-renewables\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"SolarQuotes Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/SolarQuotes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-04-08T03:20:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-01-02T00:44:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/impossible.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ronald Brakels\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@BrakelsRonald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@solar_quotes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/20-percent-renewables\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/20-percent-renewables\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Ronald Brakels\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/d0ce1779b3f5cb67cb4f146732af2fc7\"},\"headline\":\"Idiots Insisting &#8220;Over 20% Renewables Is Impossible&#8221; Go Into Hiding. 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Those pundits have been proven hopelessly wrong.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/20-percent-renewables\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/20-percent-renewables\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/20-percent-renewables\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/impossible.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/impossible.jpg\",\"width\":1200,\"height\":628,\"caption\":\"A few years ago it was common to hear \\\"Grids Can't Handle More Than 20% Renewables\\\". 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