[talideon]

That's what interconnects partly are for. Ireland is an island, but its grid is no longer separated from the rest of Europe. We're getting closer to a point where, when we have a surplus, it can get sent elsewhere, and when we have a deficit, it can be pulled from elsewhere.

[ElKrist]

Sure. If you assume that electricity from renewables are randomly distributed in time across your grid then all countries can do that. Unfortunately it's not the case (it's night time in Ireland and France at roughly the same hours) and so this model relies on the fact that other countries have non intermittent power sources that can kick in when it's night time and there is no wind. You've just moved the problem

[talideon]

Let's get one thing straight here: neither I nor anybody else is arguing that renewables (which are currently mostly intermittant) can replace non-renewable sources. They are, however, complementary: the more power you generate from the renewables, the longer you can stretch out the supply of the non-renewables. And that is an unqualified good.

Of course the problem just moved. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, because the way that it moves can itself be beneficial.

> If you assume that electricity from renewables are randomly distributed in time across your grid then all countries can do that.

That's not an argument I'm making. The closest I come to that is that the distribution of power sources across different interconnected grids can compensate for each other.

Distribution isn't random: geography figures into this hugely. Ireland has vast areas off its Atlantic coasts to put off-shore windfarms in addition to the current mostly land-based ones.

Most wind power generated, especially off-shore, is generated around the time of peak hours. That means a potential surplus around the same time, which can be sent elsewhere, where they're also hitting their peak hours. At the risk of vastly oversimplifying things, power can flow back and forward over the interconnects, covering the difference, and we're good enough at forecasting usage and availability at this point that the surpluses and deficits can be accounted.

Intermittant and non-intermittant sources are complementary. The problem is moved, but