I mean that we don't have enough storage capacity to cover the current loads with renewables only, the situation is the same in most countries. For example, in Italy we have ~7.4GW of stored installed power: 97% alone is from a few very large pumped hydroelectric plants, 3% from chemical batteries (more than 45000 distributed systems). The base electric load is 38GW and peaks between ~56GW and ~60GW, these are between 5 and 10 times what the storage systems can now supply. I don't see the numbers changing significantly in the near future, unless there will be major technological breakthroughs and massive investements into these solutions.
Realistically, greatly reducing energy consumption is not possible without drastic changes to our lifestyle, which many will surely oppose. This is also in contrast to the current trend of electrifying everything as much as possible: from transport to heating and manufacture. We can try to improve the energy efficiency of buildings and engines, wasting less, but it's not going to reverse the trend of growing energy demand.
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It's simply not possible to do so now or in the near future because we don't have nearly enough storage capacity.
What do you mean by "it's not possible" exactly? It's not possible without ...?
Regarding the storage capacity: Yes, it's not possible without drastically reducing energy consumption.
I mean that we don't have enough storage capacity to cover the current loads with renewables only, the situation is the same in most countries. For example, in Italy we have ~7.4GW of stored installed power: 97% alone is from a few very large pumped hydroelectric plants, 3% from chemical batteries (more than 45000 distributed systems). The base electric load is 38GW and peaks between ~56GW and ~60GW, these are between 5 and 10 times what the storage systems can now supply. I don't see the numbers changing significantly in the near future, unless there will be major technological breakthroughs and massive investements into these solutions.
Realistically, greatly reducing energy consumption is not possible without drastic changes to our lifestyle, which many will surely oppose. This is also in contrast to the current trend of electrifying everything as much as possible: from transport to heating and manufacture. We can try to improve the energy efficiency of buildings and engines, wasting less, but it's not going to reverse the trend of growing energy demand.