Comment by rgmerk
10 hours ago
We can and do, and there are detailed plans based on those weather scenarios (eg for the Australian east coast grid; there is AEMO’s Integrated System Plan).
Things in the US are a bit more of a mixed bag, for better or worse, but there have been studies done that suggest that you can get very high renewables levels cost effectively, but not to 100% without new technology (eg “clean firm” power like geothermal, new nuclear being something other than a clusterfumble, long-term storage like iron-air batteries, etc etc etc).
The best technologies there are (IMO) e-fuels and extremely low capex thermal.
There are interesting engineering problems for sources that are intended to operate very infrequently and at very low capacity factor, as might be needed for covering Dunkleflauten. E-fuels burned with liquid oxygen (and water to reduce temperature) in rocket-like combustors might be better than conventional gas turbines for that.