The only way wind and solar can work

As I've noted many, many times, solar and wind power for large-scale energy production to meet the world's energy needs is unfeasible -- due to their episodic nature -- unless a true large-scale storage method can be found. I didn't think that batteries could be made big enough (or store enough) to make that actually feasible, despite an earlier post about one kind of battery that might do it for a household.

Well, maybe I was hasty. Possibly, "giant" redox flow batteries could provide sufficient intermediate level storage to even out the supply variability inherent in wind and solar power.

If you want to read more about it, try:
Giant batteries for green power

A Fraunhofer consortium is currently driving the development of large-scale energy-storage systems known as redox flow batteries. The experts' long-term goal is to build a handball-court-sized battery installation with a capacity of 20 MWh -- enough energy to provide power to roughly 2000 households through a long winter's night or a cloudy day. The results have not advanced quite so far: At the moment, the largest laboratory facilities at the Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety and Energy Technology UMSICHT have an output of several kW.

OK, so I guess it's a possibility. We'll see if it has legs (like Eva's).

Here's how it works, diagrammatically: