The further a region is to the poles, the worse intermittency becomes. Both for solar and for wind: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26355-z https://w

The further a region is to the poles, the worse intermittency becomes. Both for solar and for wind: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26355-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26355-z > However, the share of solar generation increases less, or even decreases, in higher-latitude countries like Russia, Canada, and Germany (Fig. 2b). These trends continue as more storage is added, so that with 12 h of energy storage and no excess annual generation, 83–94% (average 90%) of electricity demand is met with mixes of 10–70% solar power (49% on average; Fig. 2c). Even with 12 hours of storage, Germany would be seeing blackouts weekly. To put this in perspective: > reliability standards in industrialized countries are typically very high (e.g., targeting <2–3 h of unplanned outages per year, or ~99.97%). Resource adequacy planning standards for “1-in-10” are also high: in North America (BAL-502-RF-03), generating resources must be adequate to provide no more than 1 day of unmet electricity demand—or in some cases 1 loss of load event—in 10 years (i.e., 99.97% or 99.99%, respectively) So no, even with 12 hours of storage and 50% overcapacity, we'd have an unacceptably unreliable grid. Also, your linked article is not modelling a carbon-free grid: > Graham says that the CSIRO modelling showed that at very high levels of wind and solar, a maximum of half a day’s average demand was needed for storage. In some areas of the grid, only around three hours might be needed. What are these "very high levels of wind and solar"? How much of the remaining demand is satisfied by fossil fuels? The article doesn't say.