Wind Farms Can Provide Society a Surplus of Reliable Clean Energy - Stanford University

Researchers have found that the wind industry can easily afford the energetic cost of building batteries and other grid-scale storage technologies.  However, for the solar industry, scientists found that more work is needed to make grid-scale storage energetically sustainable.

"Our analysis showed that, from an energetic perspective, most photovoltaic technologies can only afford up to 24 hours of storage with an equal mix of battery and pumped hydropower," Michael Dale, a research associate at Stanford, said.  "This suggests that solar photovoltaic systems could be deployed with enough storage to supply electricity at night, and the industry could still operate at a net energy surplus."

One advantage of wind over solar power is that it has an enormous energy return on investment, explained study co-author Sally Benson, a professor of energy resources engineering and director of the Global Climate and Energy Project at Stanford.  "Within a few months, a wind turbine generates enough electricity to pay back all of the energy it took to build it," she said.  "But some photovoltaics have an energy payback time of almost two years.  To sustainably support grid-scale storage will require continued reductions in the amount of fossil fuel used to manufacture photovoltaic cells."

Wind Farms Can Provide Society a Surplus of Reliable Clean Energy - Stanford University