7 ms·

Wind and solar are neither baseload nor peaking power sources. They are intermittent sources where you need other parts of the grid to smooth out the intermitte

Wind and solar are neither baseload nor peaking power sources. They are intermittent sources where you need other parts of the grid to smooth out the intermittent nature. Either via storage, via peakers or via additional baseload on top and something that consumes the excess that intermittent + baseload can produce. Sun is totally out during the night. And wind is only as much a reliable baseload provider as it will provide during the worst days of the year, which in many locations can be a tiny fraction of their average load factor.

rossdavidh 8y ago
Many good points above, I just wanted to point out that there are lots of places like where I live, where peak electricity is nearly completely correlated with the sun shining (air conditioning). Not that this matters for places where it's not that way, just pointing that out.
Retric 8y ago
The fact that wind and solar don’t produce steady state power is completely irrelevant. What power companies care about is the difference between the cheap energy sources production and demand. Night time demand is often so much lower than peak demand that it takes less peaking power plants to cover solars night time deficit than coals daytime deficit. PS: The difference between winds minimum expected output and average output is also smaller than most assume. Locations that get more wind at specific times of the day are common and let you tailor supply and demand. Unusually high winds end up wasted, but discarding 5% of output does little to change the relative costs.
- the8472 8y ago
  > The difference between winds minimum expected output and average output is also smaller than most assume. https://i.imgur.com/UTjUAp4.png https://i.imgur.com/UTjUAp4.png
  - Retric 8y ago
    Expected output is the important point. https://carboncounter.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/wind_hourly_month.png https://carboncounter.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/wind_hourl... Wind over large scales is less random than people assume even if the variation is large. California both needs more electricity in the summer and gets more wind energy in the summer. Further, peak solar and peak wind output occur at different times of the day which again is extremely useful.
    - the8472 8y ago
      If the actually observed output were lower than the expected output then those expectations require adjustments. And germany is about as large as california. It also includes offshore wind, which california does not even have. Maybe your weather is more stable and does not generalize well.

rossdavidh 8y ago

Many good points above, I just wanted to point out that there are lots of places like where I live, where peak electricity is nearly completely correlated with the sun shining (air conditioning). Not that this matters for places where it's not that way, just pointing that out.

Retric 8y ago

The fact that wind and solar don’t produce steady state power is completely irrelevant. What power companies care about is the difference between the cheap energy sources production and demand. Night time demand is often so much lower than peak demand that it takes less peaking power plants to cover solars night time deficit than coals daytime deficit. PS: The difference between winds minimum expected output and average output is also smaller than most assume. Locations that get more wind at specific times of the day are common and let you tailor supply and demand. Unusually high winds end up wasted, but discarding 5% of output does little to change the relative costs.

the8472 8y ago
> The difference between winds minimum expected output and average output is also smaller than most assume. https://i.imgur.com/UTjUAp4.png https://i.imgur.com/UTjUAp4.png
- Retric 8y ago
  Expected output is the important point. https://carboncounter.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/wind_hourly_month.png https://carboncounter.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/wind_hourl... Wind over large scales is less random than people assume even if the variation is large. California both needs more electricity in the summer and gets more wind energy in the summer. Further, peak solar and peak wind output occur at different times of the day which again is extremely useful.
  - the8472 8y ago
    If the actually observed output were lower than the expected output then those expectations require adjustments. And germany is about as large as california. It also includes offshore wind, which california does not even have. Maybe your weather is more stable and does not generalize well.