We analyze 36 years of global, hourly weather data (1980–2015) to quantify the covariability of solar and wind resources as a function of time and location, over multi-decadal time scales and up to continental length scales. Assuming minimal excess generation, lossless transmission, and no other generation sources, the analysis indicates that wind-heavy or solar-heavy U.S.-scale power generation portfolios could in principle provide ∼80% of recent total annual U.S. electricity demand. However, to reliably meet 100% of total annual electricity demand, seasonal cycles and unpredictable weather events require several weeks’ worth of energy storage and/or the installation of much more capacity of solar and wind power than is routinely necessary to meet peak demand. To obtain ∼80% reliability, solar-heavy wind/solar generation mixes require sufficient energy storage to overcome the daily solar cycle, whereas wind-heavy wind/solar generation mixes require continental-scale transmission to exploit the geographic diversity of wind. Policy and planning aimed at providing a reliable electricity supply must therefore rigorously consider constraints associated with the geophysical variability of the solar and wind resource—even over continental scales.

中文翻译：

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在美国，地球物理对太阳能和风能可靠性的限制†

我们分析了36年的全球每小时气象数据（1980-2015年），以量化太阳能和风能随时间和位置，在多年代尺度上以及大陆长度尺度上的协变性。假设多余的发电量最少，无损耗的输电且没有其他发电来源，该分析表明，原则上，风能大或太阳能量大的美国规模的发电投资组合原则上可以提供近来美国年度总电力需求的约80％。但是，为了可靠地满足100％的年度总电力需求，季节性周期和不可预测的天气事件需要数周的能量存储和/或安装比常规的满足高峰需求所需更多的太阳能和风能。为了获得〜80％的可靠性，太阳密集的风/太阳能发电混合物需要足够的能量存储以克服每日的太阳周期，而风力较大的风/太阳能发电混合物则需要在大陆范围内传输以利用风的地理多样性。因此，旨在提供可靠电力供应的政策和计划必须严格考虑与太阳能和风能资源的地球物理变异性相关的限制，即使在整个大陆范围内也是如此。