How to Use intermittency in a Sentence
intermittency
noun-
The weakness of energy systems powered by the sun and the wind is their intermittency.
—Eduardo Porter, New York Times, 20 June 2017
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The main challenge is intermittency: The sun doesn’t always shine on solar panels in the Southwest, and wind doesn’t always blow turbines in the Midwest.
—Matt Simon, Wired, 27 Dec. 2021
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So is solar, which suffers from the same intermittency problems as wind, along with not being available at night.
—Jonathan Lesser, National Review, 16 Mar. 2022
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Because of their intermittency, wind and solar require backup from coal and gas.
—Holman W. Jenkins, WSJ, 5 June 2020
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The air up there is a vast potential reservoir of energy, if its intermittency can be overcome.
—Alexis Madrigal, WIRED, 15 June 2009
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Energy storage has been counted on to help solve the intermittency problems of solar and wind but the duration of most battery systems lasts up to just four hours.
—Rob Nikolewski, San Diego Union-Tribune, 20 Oct. 2021
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Their broader point that wind and solar are still challenged by intermittency, however, is spot on.
—Roger Conrad, Forbes, 16 Mar. 2023
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That’s because renewables will still be dogged by their intermittency problem (the sun doesn’t always shine, and the wind doesn’t always blow), a problem for which there is, as yet, no workable solution.
—Andrew Stuttaford, National Review, 6 Nov. 2021
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The low cost overcame renewables’ traditional weakness: the intermittency of supply if the sun or wind fails to appear.
—Michael J. Coren, Quartz, 29 Dec. 2020
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But renewable sources have a problem with intermittency — that is, producing power from solar when the sun is not shining or from wind power when the wind isn’t blowing.
—Rob Nikolewski, sandiegouniontribune.com, 26 Apr. 2017
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And in this case, one uncomfortable reality is that both wind and solar are dogged by a range of problems caused by intermittency, the unalterable fact that the wind doesn’t always blow, and the sun doesn’t always shine.
—Andrew Stuttaford, National Review, 8 Jan. 2022
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The rapid rollout of wind and solar power in the U.S. creates intermittency problems that call for storage solutions such as Freyr’s lithium-ion batteries.
—Stephen Wilmot, WSJ, 11 Nov. 2022
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Well before Trump took office, grid operators have been mulling the question of intermittency of solar and wind energy.
—Dino Grandoni, Washington Post, 22 Aug. 2017
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Wind and solar will also require storage systems to cope with intermittency.
—Gautam Kalghatgi, National Review, 10 Sep. 2020
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That’s because wind and solar have problems with intermittency — that is, solar production slips when the sun doesn’t shine and electricity generated by wind wanes when breezes don’t blow.
—Rob Nikolewski, sandiegouniontribune.com, 14 Jan. 2018
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Up until now, wind and solar costs looked competitive on paper, but the intermittency problem was cited as a reason why renewables would grab only a small slice of the market, a problem that was thought to persist for years to come.
—Nick Cunningham, USA TODAY, 4 Apr. 2018
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But others reject that because of the intermittency problem, arguing that in the 2030s and beyond, society will need new huge power plants that can run most of the time without generating greenhouse emissions.
—Justin Gillis, New York Times, 3 Nov. 2016
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Discussions of renewable generation in the Legislature this year were marked by comments about the intermittency of wind and solar.
—Dallas News, 1 Sep. 2021
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Existing power plants are favoured over new facilities, and the share of renewables is limited, on the ground that their intermittency threatens the grid’s stability.
—The Economist, 21 June 2020
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FPVs also still suffer from many of the intermittency issues that land installations suffer; energy only when the sun is out and disparate timing in stressing power grids.
—Ariel Cohen, Forbes, 28 June 2022
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But a grid with a larger proportion of wind and solar requires more storage capacity to overcome intermittency.
—Matthew Hutson, The New Yorker, 18 Apr. 2022
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Making matters worse, renewables continue to be dogged by technological problems, often related to intermittency (the sun doesn’t always shine, nor does the wind always blow), which have yet to be solved.
—Andrew Stuttaford, National Review, 27 Feb. 2022
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The intermittency of growing renewable capacity also means that there is an increase in for balancing by a stable and dispatchable baseload such as coal or natural gas.
—Baker Institute, Forbes, 26 Apr. 2022
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Still, Brouillette's statement is a far cry from rhetoric used by President Trump, who mocks wind and solar energy as unreliable because of their intermittency and doesn't acknowledge the need to reduce emissions to combat climate change.
—Josh Siegel, Washington Examiner, 27 Feb. 2020
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The rising energy costs have already prompted dirty gas-to-coal switching across Europe amidst power shortages, in part due to the intermittency of renewable generation and insufficient smart grid and storage.
—Ariel Cohen, Forbes, 23 Dec. 2021
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The first is the growth in renewable energy, which creates intermittency in supply as well as occasional supply spikes that lead to curtailment (shutting wind and solar off temporarily).
—David Roberts, Vox, 7 Aug. 2019
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Navigating this intermittency, as it’s known among energy geeks, demands a fundamental rethink of how consumers use and even help store energy.
—Matt Simon, Wired, 31 Jan. 2022
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However, the issues of intermittency and electricity storage remain unresolved and are at least two decades away from workable solutions.
—Ariel Cohen, Forbes, 9 Nov. 2021
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The batteries within electric vehicles have the potential to act as storage devices for the grid, which can assist in stabilizing the intermittency of renewable resources in the power sector, among many other benefits.
—Alan Jenn, The Conversation, 4 Apr. 2022
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Texas and California could have really used the Energy Vault in the last two years when this exact intermittency problem caused their blackouts during unusually cold and unusually hot weather.
—James Conca, Forbes, 27 Jan. 2022
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'intermittency.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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