The top five coolest ways to integrate renewable energy into the grid

Intermittent renewables at high penetrations will bring new challenges for the grid. But how big will they be? And is it true that wind and solar will necessarily need storage or natural gas back-up at high levels?

The International Energy Agency (IEA) wanted to know, so it modeled a variety of high-penetration scenarios in eight geographic regions around the world. Hugo Chandler, a senior policy analyst with the IEA, explains the organization's findings to Climate Progress:

    Variability is not just some new phenomenon in grid management. What we found is that renewable energy is not fundamentally different. The criticisms of renewables often neglect the complementarities between different technologies and the way they can balance each other out if spread over certain regions and energy types.

    Grid operators are constantly working to balance available supply with demand -- it's what they do. There are always natural variations that cause spikes in demand, reductions in supply, or create disturbances in frequency and voltage. Once you see there are a variety of ways to properly manage that variability, you start whittling away at the argument that you always need storage or a megawatt of natural gas backup for every megawatt of renewable energy.

Theoretical modeling is important. But what companies are doing in reality?

Here's five of the top methods for integrating renewable energy into the grid -- proving that intermittency isn't the showstopper that critics make it out to be. Explanations of each of these with videos are below.


Intelligent demand response is often called the "killer app" of the smart grid. Demand response is not a new concept -- but the "intelligent" part is still somewhat new.

The demand-response leader, EnerNOC, is now applying this concept to renewable energy. The company announced earlier this year that it would work with a Northwestern transmission operator to help manage demand to meet the fluctuating output of wind electricity in the system. EnerNOC President David Brewster calls it "the perfect dancing partner for wind." By ramping up demand at facilities during times of peak supply and lowering demand when supply drops off, the grid can respond to changing conditions in real time without the need for storage.

Microinverters and maximum power point trackers

Inverters are the gateway to the grid -- turning direct current electricity from solar photovoltaic (PV) systems to grid-friendly alternating current. Over the past several years, there has been a revolution in inverter technologies that allows project owners to more effectively regulate system performance. One technology, the microinverter, is installed on the back of individual panels, turning each module into its own unit and providing real-time data on how each is operating. Therefore, if clouds roll over a PV system, the "Christmas tree light effect" is avoided, and each panel still functions normally, maximizing the output of a system -- sometimes by 20 percent or more.

Speaking of maximizing output, that's where maximum power point trackers come in. These pieces of power electronics are also installed on the back of individual panels. But they're not microinverters; instead, they boost voltage to an optimal range for a central inverter, thus allowing the device to run more efficiently. By allowing a system owner to control a PV plant at the module level, you can boost performance on the module level and regulate voltage even as weather patterns change.