Please engage in this thought experiment.
A wind turbine has a nameplate rating of say 10Megwatts.
Experience shows that over a year they average 35% of the maximum
theoretical nameplate generation.
So you get 3.5 Megwatts/years average over a year
Therefore to get the rated output you have to install two more wind generators.
However you cannot put them alongside the first one.
They have to go on two other sites.
However the wind will perhaps stop at two sites at the same time.
However the wind will perhaps stop at three sites at the same time.
So how do you cope with that ?
You install more of them on other sites !
You keep doing this until you can be certain of getting 10 Megawatts
100% of the time.

Do you now understand why wind costs a lot more than some expect ?
The same problem exists with solar but to a less extent, it is just
that the first and last hours of the day has a large fall off in output.

There are ways around this, by use of batteries, but it only partly
solves the problem and has really high costs.
You then need more wind generators to recharge the batteries.

Bazz, the only "battery" that has any chance of actually smoothing out wind & solar variable generation is pumped hydro. There are no chemicals yet discovered, & we do know of most, that have the potential to hold sufficient power.

Now we all know that pumped hydro has a loss factor of about 33%.

So forget solar, it is just a bad joke. With wind as you stated you require 3 turbines to actually produce the name plate of one. So with an other 33% loss you require 4 windmills pumping 24/7 to have the back up required for those week long calms we regularly experience. This mate means you need 7 wind mills to give reliably the name plate claimed supply of just one.

Have you heard the latest, wind is now cheaper than coal.

God help us.

Bazz, your on the right track.
You have described only a small part of the puzzle.
I know some dreamers keep pushing their vision, that technology will eventually give us what we need.
Knowing some of the basics of generating electricity, I can say with confidence, it will not happen for the foreseeable future, if at all.
We know that nuclear is now a much safer concept than before, and if we really want to go one step further, I know we've heard it all before but, I would be asking Alan to give a brief run down on his thorium salt reactor and it's positives and negatives, especially costs and returns.
Now they are the two options worth investing in.
Some dreamers on here speak of future technologies that we don't even know about yet, well how about looking closer to home about the technologies we DO know about.
Those out there who have no idea about a topic, please do not comment, I and many others do not want to waste time in the futility of trying to educate you on the topic and then also having to tolerate engaging with someone who blindly refuses to listen to reason and the truth anyway.

Hasbeen & Altrav, and a note at the end for Foxy;
Actually I think it gets worse than seven times the nameplate.
I have seen one study that suggested 12 times was more likely.
Also the same study on the US, same size as Australia, had this to say
about maintenance of solar. Using the MTBF of solar cells the US would
need teams of workers replacing 100,000 solar panels a day !

Foxy, Keith Alder, a friend, who designed the ill fated nuclear power
station for Jervis Bay told how the high level waste problem is solved.
When the used fuel is removed it is then used in another reactor
designed for it. When its radioactivity declines further it is used in
yet another reactor designed for it. From memory I think he said it
would be completely safe in a hundred years.
After that it is at a safe level and he handed out some depleted
uranium and my goodness it is heavy.
At his retirement he was the boss at Lucas heights Menai research
reactor so he knew what he was talking about.

Cont, one quick point, as the physical size of the grid reduces the
number of backup wind turbines increases exponentially.
This is why the German wind system failed.

if it wasn't signing up to the corrupt UN and trying to keep targets no one else is keeping their would be next to no complications and the whole energy mix garbage would hardly rate a mention.