Suppose ten workers are employed to fulfil a continuous contractual obligation one of whom goes on irregular walkabouts – to risk using a politically incorrect term. That is fine because among the nine reliable workers there are those who are ever ready to fill in. Suppose two or even three workers become prone to downing tools. Hmm? This remains survivable if among the remaining seven reliable workers there are always a few able and willing to pitch in and provide sufficient cover. But what happens if half or more workers become unreliable? There’s the rub. That is when the rubber hits the road or, more aptly, when the proverbial hits the fan.

My thinly disguised metaphor contains all you need to know to understand the consequences of progressively replacing reliable dispatchable power with unreliable intermittent power. It is not complicated. It can be made terribly complicated. Have a look at AEMO’s Integrated System Plan or at any plan produced around the world to explain how renewables can take over power generation. They are bamboozling. They have to be to fool not only the recipients of the plans but also the planners themselves.

I defy anyone to believe that AEMO’s CEO Daniel Westerman and his colleagues in the other climate regulatory agencies are not deadly serious in their delusional beliefs. No, they have imbibed the renewables Kool-Aid. Yet, the weather and the rotating of the planet refuse to play ball. It must be disconcerting in the event they occasionally suffer transitory moments of clarity.

Wind droughts, nights, and heavily clouded days are the hitches. And, to boot, they regularly come together and bring about the need for a backup dispatchable system of equal generating capacity to the renewable power system. To wit, when all ten workers go walkabout at the same time you require another ten-workers worth at the instant to fill the breach. Developing a plan to confound this reality is not easy. You need lots of complex computing, assumptions, numbers, spreadsheets and diagrams, footnotes and appendices. All mixed together with a starry-eyed aspiration. And, still, despite all of this, when the wind and sun refuse to oblige not a mere watt comes out the other side. While demand remains the same. What a shame. Nor all their piety nor complicated modelling can cancel mother nature. Quite simply, the more wind and solar power penetrate the system, the more rationing and blackouts will inevitably ensue. Meanwhile in Azerbaijan…