Hope! :D

That's a bad thing; who wants unusable spikes to 41%?

Wind power contributes on average 11% of Spains electricity demand but it's distributed into spikes that are hard to absorb and lulls that are hard to mitigate(which no doubt creates "security of demand" for Gazprom). There's not even a hint off a plan to build the massive storage they will need.

It wouldn't surprise me if they pay negative prices for wind much of the time(just like the Texas ERCOT, see http://www.knowledgeproblem.com/archives/002745.html)

Consumer,

We probably agree on much but I suspect we define scalability differently. Most of the alts can be constructed on commercial levels. When some of us refer to scalability problems we mean the combination of the lack of investment capital and the timing factor. Given a couple of decades and trillions of $'s many of the alts can development a significant impact on our energy consumption profile. But, as you say, we need a "good grid". So how long before the grid is expanded before the alts can be scaled up? Certainly not 4 or 5 years. No one is even approaching that one problem at the moment with any meaningful action. How long before we see solid political mandates supporting alts? More time delay. How long to build the infrastructure to build the hardware for any alt expansion? And where will that capital come from these days?

Perhaps the use of scalability in this manner is the best nomenclature but it's a common theme in many discussions.