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We can get hard numbers on the storage required using this simulation/optimization site:

https://model.energy/

I often point to this, but it's such a fun and useful site I'll do it again.

What you get is typically (it depends on where you are) producing steady output from solar + wind requires some hours of batteries (typically much less than a day) and usually a fairly large backup of hydrogen (particularly far from the equator). The hydrogen gets burned in combined cycle plants with a mediocre round trip efficiency; most of the stored energy goes through batteries and back again at high round trip efficiency.

So, yes, one does need days worth of storage, but it's not batteries, it's a rainy day hydrogen account where storage capacity is very cheap.



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