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Batteries: Difference between revisions
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Because wind power is intermittent and highly variable, it requires either back-up power or battery storage to be useful, i.e., steady and available when actually needed. This is a simple fact of off-grid living, for example, which requires a large bank of batteries and usually a diesel-fired generator as well. | Because wind power is intermittent and highly variable, it requires either back-up power or battery storage to be useful, i.e., steady and available when actually needed. This is a simple fact of off-grid living, for example, which requires a large bank of batteries and usually a diesel-fired back-up generator as well. | ||
Just as wind power itself is practical only on a small scale in places where its expense (which is due to the energy source being so diffuse) can be justified, because other sources would be equally or even more expensive, so is the required back-up and battery storage, both of which add not only to the expense, but also to the environmental impacts of wind energy. | Just as wind power itself is practical only on a small scale in places where its expense (which is due to the energy source being so diffuse) can be justified, because other sources would be equally or even more expensive, so is the required back-up and battery storage, both of which add not only to the expense, but also to the environmental impacts of wind energy. | ||