Geophysical constraints on the reliability of solar and wind power worldwide

Dan Tong; David J. Farnham; Lei Duan; Qiang Zhang; Nathan S. Lewis; Ken Caldeira; Steven J. Davis

doi:10.1038/s41467-021-26355-z

Nature Communications (Oct 2021)

Geophysical constraints on the reliability of solar and wind power worldwide

Dan Tong,
David J. Farnham,
Lei Duan,
Qiang Zhang,
Nathan S. Lewis,
Ken Caldeira,
Steven J. Davis

Affiliations

Dan Tong: Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Earth System Modeling, Department of Earth System Science, Tsinghua University
David J. Farnham: Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science
Lei Duan: Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science
Qiang Zhang: Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Earth System Modeling, Department of Earth System Science, Tsinghua University
Nathan S. Lewis: Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science
Ken Caldeira: Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science
Steven J. Davis: Department of Earth System Science, University of California

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-26355-z
Journal volume & issue: Vol. 12, no. 1
pp. 1 – 12

Abstract

Read online

Solar and wind resources are dependent on geophysical constraints. Here the authors find that solar and wind power resources can satisfy countries’ electricity demand of between 72–91% of hours, but hundreds of hours of unmet demand may occur annually.

Published in Nature Communications

ISSN: 2041-1723 (Online)
Publisher: Nature Portfolio
Country of publisher: United Kingdom
LCC subjects: Science
Website: https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

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