Is the Grid Ready?

In a recent article in the NYtimes, the North American Reliability Corporation states that the US grid's transmission reliability could be affected by increasing Solar and Wind power . Why? Intermittence.

Solar and Wind technologies are classified as intermittent. This means that they could be up at one time and gone the next. The strength of wind varies highly within short periods of time. So does the power it generates. Solar doesn't vary that much but follows the length of the daytime. If a grid had a high penetration of these sources, power would drop at sundown or when the wind suddenly dies. Director Mario Marasigan of the Energy Utilization Management Bureau (Philippine DOE) that Solar and Wind plants would require equivalent back-up capacities from more reliable power sources.

To mitigate this, a few of things come to mind:

1.) Storage technologies have to be developed. Most industry players have focused on developing generation technology but few have really developed cheap, reliable, utility scale batteries. Can we not have the same revolution as with mobile device batteries?

2.) Generation planning is more crucial than ever. We can no longer have much excess capacity. The penetration limit of intermittent sources must be defined from simulation results. Simulations have to be more detailed that before covering not just transmission grids but also distribution networks.

3.) How do we manage electrical consumption at different times of the day? Energy efficiency will play a key role in addressing this issue.

Is the Grid ready for the power of the future? The answer is up to us?