DevelopOhio

There are methods that could make renewable energy reliable enough “to power at least 139 countries,” a new study by researchers in the United States and Denmark finds, according to a recent nawindpower.com article. Mark Z. Jacobson, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University, and colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley and Aalborg University in Denmark, propose ways to overcome the inconsistencies of wind, water and solar power and the “continuously fluctuating demand for energy” in the paper recently published in Renewable Energy, according to the article. The paper “builds on a previous study by Jacobson and colleagues that examined the ability of the grid to stay stable in the 48 contiguous states.” The new research includes excess energy-generation storage methods and “predictions of energy demands over time.” Computational modeling programs predicted future weather patterns and how much renewable energy could be produced from weather-related energy sources; the group was then able to predict how well more stable sources such as geothermal and hydroelectric power plants “could balance out the fluctuating energy to meet demands.” For more, read the full article.