The Rise Of The Hybrids: This Plant Combines Wind And Solar Power To Keep Renewable Electricity Flowing

Dan Juhl was building a wind farm in Woodstock, Minnesota, back in 1998, and he’d hit a snag. He needed to supply electricity to a small office building for the farm’s engineers and operators, but he couldn’t afford the local utility’s fees for hooking the building up to the grid. He could tap the wind turbines, but then how would he keep the lights on through the summer doldrums, when the wind dies down for days or weeks at a time? The solution seemed obvious: use solar panels to complement the wind.