[lambdaone]

Remarkably, even most cloudy weather still lets a suprising amount of sun in. And it doesn't stop the wind from blowing. The threat is when the wind stops blowing at the same time it's very, very cloudy and in the middle of winter (short days). This happens, but it's very intermittent.

However, as seen above, there are lots and lots of ways to store (or equivalent) power over long periods, it's just the economic incentive to build them that is needed - and is now on the way. Renewable-gas low-duty-cycle gas peakers, Carnot batteries, and sodium-ion batteries are top candidates, with the first being the low-hanging fruit because they already exist.

[hexbin010]

> Remarkably, even most cloudy weather still lets a suprising amount of sun in

Lol give over. Who told you that - solar panel companies? Companies selling holidays to the UK?

You ever been to England?

[IshKebab]

> even most cloudy weather still lets a suprising amount of sun in

It really doesn't. Clouds absolutely kill solar. In the winter we get 10-20kWh/day on sunny days and 0.5-2kWh/day on cloudy days.

I dunno where you got that info but it's dead wrong.