History of ideas for integrating renewable energy

First Posted: 2020.03.06, Last Revised: 2020.03.06, Author: Tom Brown

I would love to read a history of ideas to integrate renewable energy

This 1955 book is very familiar:

electrify first to avoid conversion losses
then use thermal, hydrogen and compressed air energy storage to balance wind variations

(it pooh-poohs using batteries alone)

The book is The Generation of Electricity by Wind Power by British engineer E.W. Golding, and describes the early experience with wind power across the world.

There were of course ideas in the 19th century already to use concentrated solar power in combination with thermal storage:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power#History

As far as I can tell Bent Sørensen was one of the first people to discuss running an entire country (rather than isolated communities) on renewable energy in detail after the 1970s oil crisis

Blogpost: First Coherent Renewables Scenario: Bent Sørensen in 1970s

The Union of Concerned Scientists had detailed work for the US back in the 1970s too, summarised in this brilliant book from 1980:

Energy strategies: toward a solar future by Kendall, Nadis et al, 1980

Amory Lovins cites this technical work in his famous 1976 essay on soft energy paths

If anyone has any tips on good summaries of this early history, I'd be very grateful!

Hermann Scheer's 2010 book "100% now" documents several early versions of the DESERTEC idea, including:

i) Marcel Perrot's ideas in the 1940s/50s/60s (?) to export solar (thermal?) power from Algeria to France, see his book "La Houille D'or Ou L'énergie Solaire" from 1963.

ii) German professor Eduard Justi's ideas in the 1950s to use solar power in the Sahara to export hydrogen to Europe.

At least he gets a Wikipedia page.