A near 100% renewables grid is well within reach, and with little storage
&gt; My simulation used the 24GW&#x2F;120GWh of assumed storage and existing hydro to firm up the wind and solar and match demand.<p>120 GWh is not what most would describe as &quot;little storage&quot;. The largest hydroelectric storage facilities in existence are in the single digit or low double digit GWh. And this is for a country with a relatively small population.<p>&gt; Both the hydro and storage were assumed highly flexible. Note that I did not use the actual hydro generation data. I completely changed the dispatch of hydro so that it had minimal generation on days when it wasn’t needed, and elevated levels whenever there was a day with significant shortfalls of wind and solar relative to demand.<p>This is also a big simplification. While dams <i>can</i> just totally shut off the flow of water downstream, this has big ecological impact and also impacts availability of water in population centers that draw from the river. Most dams always release a minimum amount of water to ensure the river never runs dry. Much of his simulation has dams bottling up water for long stretches of time.