.. wrong time scale. Neither I, nor anyone, expect significant problems with variations in annual wind output. The issue is that in order to avoid large and well correlated variations in wind output on a day to day basis, your wind power installations need to be spread out over an area significantly larger than typical weathersystems, and be scaled to move a heck of a lot of power from one end of that grid to another. Much the same argument states that grids with very small numbers of reactors in them are daft. (.. if denmark were to go nuclear, the country would need.. 3 eprs. That would not be amusing when it is refueling time)
- So much larger grids are a nessesity, no matter what we do.
For reference: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/satpics/latest_IR.html
That is the weather pattern over europe right now. This is the size of the area that needs interconnecting to level out output. Solar-in-europe is extremely unhelpful for adressing this problem, because unlike wind, it has huge seasonal variability across the continent, which rather obviously happens at the same time, and at the time of maximum demand, to boot. Winter always comes.
Desertec makes sense. Domestic solar amounts to iceskating uphill.