What Happens When the Wind Does Not Blow

Wind farms deliver power when weather decides, so grids manage the variability with a stack of tools: forecasting that predicts output hours to days ahead, interconnection that lets surplus flow to neighbors, flexible gas and hydro that ramp around wind, storage that shifts energy, and markets that pay for balancing.

The Gansu experience shows the cost of skipping transmission planning, with curtailment once above 30 percent.

At high shares, grid design matters as much as turbine count..