3 ms·

FWIW long distance transmission lines work too. Solar peaks a few hours earlier than demand. So ship that power east two timezones.

• kortilla 6y ago
  And which solar panels power California?
  • epistasis 6y ago
    Batteries and hopefully offshore wind. And people will time shift energy consumption when incentivized. If we were able to charge cars at work, for example, that would shift massive amounts of load to peak solar hours, when electricity will be essentially free on the generation side, and transmission/congestion costs will be the major factor. We are well on our way to making enough batteries to replace our car fleet. If we do that, we will have already built the industrial manufacturing capacity to store several days worth of energy. I forget the numbers, but a huge proportion of wind and solar installs are planning foe good chunks of battery right now. The contracts I've seen indicate a storage cost of $80-$110/MWh, which is cheaper than new nuclear, and pretty much in coal territory. The future is one of super abundant renewable energy, with the huge fractions of it thrown away, unless somebody can figure out used for it or ways to transmit/store it.
  • ip26 6y ago
    If California is the only market powered by batteries, that's a huge reduction in battery-scope. Washington has a lot of hydro, etc.