Earlier this week, the Green Grid Radio team returned to one of the central topics on the show: the grid. In “Grid Flexibility: Challenges and Opportunities with Bringing Renewables onto the Grid,” Professor Mark O’Malley, all the way from the University College Dublin in Ireland, spoke with us about grid basics as well as institutional, physical, and technical barriers to higher renewable penetrations. Outbound Stanford student and current PG&E renewables integration specialist, Larsen Plano*, also joined us to weigh in on the discussion. The two believe there is plenty to be optimistic about in terms of moving to higher levels of variable renewables, here in California, and internationally. There are strategies to overcome these barriers to grid flexibility, as demonstrated by real life examples in Europe and American studies like the NREL Renewable Energy Futures report.

The NREL Futures study provides an interactive map that allows users to investigate generation sources in projected time.

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*Larsen’s opinions are his and do not represent those of PG&E.