The Netherlands generates way more solar power than Canada. Here's how they do it - Global investment in solar power now tops all other energy generation technologies combined, says IEA
While Canada lags behind in solar adoption, many places including Germany, China, Japan and even the United States are moving quickly.
In fact, on certain days, some places are generating so much energy, the price to purchase it is dropping below zero, prompting concerns about storage capacity for the abundant power source.
Generally the big problem we still have to solve with reviewables is storage.
I think that one advantage that the NL has with renewables is that they don't have the storage problem, because they can always reroute to more pumping water out the polders.
Actually, lack of capacity is pro-petro propaganda. In Ontario demand and generation can literally double in a week and still be within the normal range. Using smart charging (not SmartTM) it would be easy to recharge commuter vehicles overnight in such a way that the baseload is increased making the grid MORE stable, not less.
in NL, the sun rarely shines and especially doesn't during the night. and since there's no proper way to store huge amounts of electrical power during the day,
charging overnight isn't an option
we're left to feeding the exess power onto the grid
Solar in some cases can actually address the [over exaggerated] concerns regarding EV charging. By bringing power generation closer to where the power is being used, there can be less load on the long distance transmission lines. In some cases it can also reduce the load on local transformers.
But all of that is mostly irrelevant, the transition to EVs will happen over the next 30 years. Even if we weren't looking to move to EVs if we ignored the current grid we would be in trouble. But like anything we'll upgrade parts slowly as needed.
All of those things are recyclable today with wind turbines being the hardest and batteries being the easiest. But the quantity of materials that needs recycling is still low so there are only a handful of companies doing it.