As the Paris climate agreement pushes for more and more renewable installments globally, reports of failure of installed renewables, especially wind and solar, are also becoming increasingly common.

Nobody wishes for wind and solar to fail. After all, billions of dollars have been invested in them. I, like many others, desire to see renewables strengthen the existing energy infrastructure globally.

Sadly, and inevitably, though, the drawbacks and limitations of wind and solar keep resurfacing, no matter how countries integrate them into their electricity network.

Surprise Blackouts 

For those who follow energy news, the Australian renewable blackout of 2016 was an unforgettable event. On 28 September 2016, a blackout left 850,000 customers in darkness.

After two years, the Australian energy regulator has sued four wind farm operators for the blackout, erasing doubts of whether the blackouts were caused by renewable failure. The energy regulator termed these proceedings a “strong signal to all energy businesses about the importance of compliance with performance standards to promote system security and reliability.”

Reliability has been the biggest problem with solar and wind farms. They are unreliable because of the intermittent nature of wind and sunshine and the lack of reliable backup options. This means the power generated could often be totally different from—far under—the installed capacity.

Earlier this month, two nearly simultaneous generator failures in the United Kingdom—one powered by gas and another, two minutes later, by wind—caused large swathes of the country to plunge into darkness and resulted in travel chaos. The Hornsea offshore wind farm in the North Sea was the culprit this time.

Nemesis of Wildlife

Besides being unreliable, a host of other problems plague renewables.

The pollution caused by the materials used in the manufacturing wind turbines and solar panels, pollution caused by renewable wastes, the increase in power prices due to the addition of renewable energy, and the alteration of landscape are some of the other key problems.

However, they pale in comparison to the biggest ecological blunder created by wind farms worldwide. Wind farms are known to kill birds in millions each year and are particularly harmful to endangered species. As a result, conservationists have always been against wind farms. But the climate alarmists continue to neglect the bloodshed by wind turbines. 

Now, even solar farms are facing opposition from wildlife agencies. One of India’s biggest and most expensive solar farms (worth $6.26 billion) faces trouble as the wildlife department has requested the government to change the site location.

The wildlife department said that the Ladakh solar plant will sit on the breeding ground of protected wildlife species. Solar farms by design require a large area to generate energy that could otherwise be generated in a much smaller area from conventional energy sources.

The new alternate site recommended for the Ladakh solar plant will be inaccessible for 6 to 8 months because of heavy snow in the region. It is likely that the solar plant would also be covered in snow during most winter months, making the whole project a financial liability with no returns.

As renewables are pushed upon us as a solution to global warming, they have done nothing to improve the life of people and wildlife. The more they fail in the future, the faster they should be removed from our power grids.

Photo by Zbynek Burival on Unsplash.