Yes, but that doesn't contradict InclinedPlane's point in the least. It's easy to generate a lot of renewable energy when you've got the old power plants ready

Yes, but that doesn't contradict InclinedPlane's point in the least. It's easy to generate a lot of renewable energy when you've got the old power plants ready to cover any shortfalls in generation capacity. Just because you can acheive 25% under those conditions by prioritizing renewables does not imply that you can push renewables up to 90%+. The wind can stop blowing for quite some time, even on a country wide scale. You either have to store the energy, import it from other countries or have backup power stations to cover the shortfall. The (free) book Without Hot Air is a fantastic read for more information. It's written by a no nonsense physicist that dives pretty deep into possible plans for a future energy grid, including all the messy details. And the details are messy. Any renewable energy plan that doesn't sound like a momentus undertaking is cheating by 1) Only talking about electricity, not total energy 2) Discounting embodied energy of imports 3) Keeping a country sized fossil fuel infrastructure around to fill in the gaps 4) Importing energy Sometimes all four.