3.3.5 Wholesale demand net of inflexible generation

These charts show the hourly balance from the previous section (wholesale demand minus the output of the inflexible generation technologies), to illustrate the challenge for the other technologies (flexible generation, storage, interconnectors and demand response). Negative periods reflect excess inflexible output (i.e. the output of inflexible generation alone is more than the total demand for electricity in that period, before we allow for any contribution from other technologies, e.g. for system services).
The effect of subtracting an irregular profile from a largely-uncorrelated somewhat-regular profile is a highly irregular profile. The irregularity is a bigger issue than intermittency. Regular intermittency is amenable to solutions such as storage. Irregular intermittency is not.