There is no reason why “western Europe” should be an isolated grid. Europe is building toward a grid that reaches from Iceland to North Africa. The wind will be blowing somewhere, hydro flowing, ….

There are at least four very promising new battery technologies which have proven themselves at the prototype level and two are going into production in the next few months. If only one proves out we will have cheap, safe, abundant storage.

Germany’s new coal burning plants are replacing (not adding to) the older plants that either have been or will soon be decommissioned. Moreover, by 2020, 18.5 gigawatts of coal power capacity will be decommissioned, whereas only 11.3 gigawatts will be newly installed.

Furthermore those plants will be more efficient, releasing less CO2 per unit electricity produced than are the ones they are replacing.

You say – “Additionally, it’s
worth noting that the wind is always blowing somewhere. With a good grid, wind
from one region can easily be sent to another.”

Not so,
at the moment the whole of Western Europe
is under the same weather system, very little wind power over 1000s of miles, it’s
been like this for 18 days, it is a frequent situation.

My local windfarm Llyn Alaw has a capacity factor of only
7.2% this mth !!!

If you want to get the true picture of the poor performance of
European wind, look on this German wind energy company’s production data site, (100s
of locations with 1000s of turbines !!) http://www.rwe.com/web/cms/en/206488/rwe-innogy/sites/production-data-live/rwe-renewable-energy-live/ note; [It’s a manual refresh] – nb capacity in MW but output in kW

You also say – “Wind power
is useful. It can be stored. And it is one (very cheap) part of a broader
energy mix.”

You can only store small amounts of energy & to do it is
both inefficient & eye wateringly expensive.

E.g.;

battery. ≈ 85% Efficiency cost = 31-43 €-cent/kWh Dangerous, prone to fire

CAES ≈ 50% Efficiency cost = 13-27 €-cent/kWh

Flywheel, ≈ 90% Efficiency
cost = 300-500 €-cent/kWh

Hydrogen, ≈ 40% Efficiency
cost = 19-50 €-cent/kWh

Methane ≈ 30% Efficiency cost = 12-34 €-cent/kWh

ANNE

My favorite image is from Oxford University:
http://www.geog.ox.ac.uk/~dcurtis/NETA.html

It shows the real time generation of electricity in Britain
and how wind affects the other generators. The site refreshes automatically,
gives 7mths history. In ½hr slots.

(you can switch the different fuels on/off & zoom, –
follow the onscreen instructions)

Note how inefficient pumped storage is (bottom blue line)

STEFANO99

You say- “For how renewables work in the real world, all you
need to do is look at Germany
and their success. Can’t hide facts as big as Germany’s,
no matter how hard you try with BS.”

I agree, you can’t hide the facts, Germany
& Denmark
are now building brown coal plants because the wind & solar are unreliable
& intermittent.

http://fossilfuel.energy-business-review.com/news/vattenfall-unit-starts-up-brown-coal-fired-power-plant-in-germany-151012

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-19/merkel-s-green-shift-forces-germany-to-burn-more-coal-energy.html

For how renewables work in the real world, all you need to do is look at Germany and their success. Can’t hide facts as big as Germany’s, no matter how hard you try with BS.

It’s a difference between utility-owned wind farms and wind farms selling their power to the grid.

This is inaccurate and persists the notion that wind energy is on/off (‘intermittent’). It is not, it is a variable resource. Over the size of an average control area, wind power rises and drops slowly, giving power companies time to bring backup units on or off line. And it gets even better: wind energy is predictable, so they can schedule in advance.

My favourite image is: https://demanda.ree.es/generacion_acumulada.html

It shows the real time generation of electricity in Spain and how wind affects the other generators. You can clearly see that wind only increases and diminishes in strength on a timescale of hours, not 15 minutes.