Preparing for large-scale solar deployment

Deploying solar power at the scale needed to alleviate climate change will pose serious challenges for today's electric power system, finds a study performed by researchers at MIT and the Institute for Research and Technology (ITT) at Comillas University in Spain. For example, local power networks will need to handle both incoming and outgoing flows of electricity. Rapid changes in photovoltaic (PV) output as the sun comes and goes will require running expensive power plants that can respond qui