This article evaluates and contrasts the variability of large-scale, distributed wind and PV generation across the continental US. It examines the way in which the variability (as identified with a COV) of each resource changes with both temporal scale (time-averaging intervals from 1-8760 hours), spatial scale (spatial-averaging from 1 to 8e6 km2) and location (across the CONUS). It analyzes single year of hourly-interval, time-synchronous wind power production simulated from ERA-5 and PV production simulated with SolarAnywhere®. It empirically shows that though the variability of solar power is much more significant than that of wind at sub 24-h timescale, wind exhibits significantly more variability than solar at all timescales longer than a day. It demonstrates that spatial averaging significantly reduces the variability of the aggregate wind resource, much more so than for solar and discusses the implications with respect to the energy transition.
