This is the latest myth that made it into the mainstream media. Is there any truth to it at all?
It is undeniable that on sunny days a lot of generation wants to feed into the grid at a time when not much it needed. If unchecked, this can lead to frequency shifts which potentially could affect grid stability.
However, the writer of the piece conveniently (?) forgets the fact that most inverters (in fact, all modern inverters, which are the bulk of them) automatically throttle their output if and when the frequency changes by more than very small amounts. So the safeguards are there, already in place. Sorry, no large scale blackouts that can be blamed on solar power.
More, the fact that we have soooo much solar energy during the day, and the peak of demand for it being after sundown, should encourage the energy industry (and us, the householders) to make use of battery storage. Or pumped hydro, for that matter. Battery storage for the excess solar generated energy is already much cheaper than building a new (replacement) base-load power station fired by coal or gas – plus it’s cleaner. SA is leading the nation on that!
There is a place for pumped hydro, despite the high costs, because once built it will be working for many decades. It is not a short or medium term fix, though. Batteries are – and the more we install the lower the price will go and the better the technology will become. This is ‘economies-of-scale’ 101. Promoting an obsolete, dirty and costly coal industry like some in the COALition want is downright stupid and criminal from the point of protecting the nation from avoidable harm.
GO BATTERY. In my next post I will talk about what to watch out for when buying a battery storage system.