John Whitney
Does Concentrated Solar Power Have the Answer to Intermittency Concerns?
by John Whitney AIA
For some time now, the intermittent nature of both solar and wind renewable energy generation systems has been a thorn in the side of the clean energy industry. Coal, natural gas, and nuclear advocates have trumpeted the fact that generation capacity factors for their power plants range from 85% to 90% while solar and wind numbers are in the 20% to 35% range. Over and over we get hammered with the question: What happens when the sun goes down and the wind stops blowing?
Well, as renewable energy supporters have been correctly responding, the simple two-part reply is: (more…)
