'Dispatchable' renewables in spotlight after upbeat IEA report: Maguire
This week’s upbeat renewable energy supply outlook by the International Energy Agency (IEA) contained an important but overlooked lament about the slow roll-out of so-called dispatchable renewable energy sources.
Related Knowledge Center: ENERGY BASICS: renewables
Renewable energy sources — once the fuel of the future, then practical in specific, narrow applications — are increasingly economic mainstream sources of power generation. Hydropower was long the mainstay of U.S. renewable electricity generation, although wind power surpassed hydro for the first time in 2019, and solar continues its rapid growth. The continued growth of wind and solar, with their fluctuations, is tied in part to improvements in storage technology: batteries.