Renewable Energy has many parts, and some of them can do jobs that others cannot do. It is important to work together to bring the best renewable Energy to the world that we can hope to achieve.
This diagram represents a short overview over different elements of a renewable energy network, and what the different parts can do, and what not.
For example, Hydropower can be both an energy source (flowing water through a turbine) but also a means of energy storage (by keeping the water behind the dam). Renewable Biomass can be stored well, but can also be turned into a renewable source of energy. Batteries can store energy well, but cannot produce energy.
Thoughts, comments, likes :-)
Where does geothermal fit in all this? I don’t think it can really be used as an energy storage system unless there’s some technique I’m not thinking of, but since it isn’t as intermittent, it doesn’t really need much energy storage either, as far as I’m aware. I’ve noticed it seems to get left out of a lot of discussion on renewables, but I’m not sure why.
Biomass and hydro* aren’t storage for intermittent power (*except pumped hydro). Rather they are natural sources of accumulated solar power that can be tapped on demand. In that sense, so is geothermal.
Isn’t geothermal mostly nuclear power?
More a potentially infinite (within human lifetimes) heat source from a still-warm Earth interior. Limited in that you can’t harness it from anywhere other than local.
Partially, some of the heat comes from radioactive decay within the Earth, and some is left over from the Earth’s formation.