From: American Thinker

By: Bill Ponton

Date: August 27, 2025

Cross-Regional Analysis of Renewable and Dispatchable Energy Sources

The effect of over two decades of preferential government treatment for wind and solar energy is observable throughout the world. The mix of renewables has been optimized to match each region’s relative abundance or scarcity of renewable resources. In each case,  we can assume that engineers have diligently designed and implemented functioning systems based on the constraints imposed by governmental mandates, available renewable resources, and costs of capital, operations, and fuel. By comparing commonality and difference in the electrical capacity and generation across regions, one can draw certain  conclusions about the impact of renewables on systems worldwide.

Before we start with the comparison, it is best to categorize the constituent parts of the  system that we will be investigating. Traditionally, there have been two broad categories of  power generation: baseload and dispatchable. Baseload power is steady state with a slow  ability to ramp up and down. It does not respond quickly enough to fluctuations in demand. In fact, it is optimized to have high thermal efficiency and utilization as indicated by its capacity factor. The capacity factor is a measure of how effectively a power plant is operating compared to its maximum potential output over a specific period (Capacity Factor = Actual Output / Maximum Possible Output). (continue reading)

Cross-Regional Analysis of Renewable and Dispatchable Energy Sources