4 ms·

Then we have a huge surplus of energy during the day and a huge deficit at night. What then?

dheera 5y ago
Send it back into the grid. Charge cars. Feed industries that need daytime power. Pay the owners back for it, or give them free night-time electricity in returns. Heat up some high heat capacity goo, or hell even water, and use that to heat your apartment during cold nights in desert weather. If you still have surplus after all that, mine bitcoin and use it to fund battery research, environmental initiatives, fund education, fund healthcare. Surpluses are never a problem.
- robbrown451 5y ago
  "If you still have surplus after all that, mine bitcoin and use it to fund" Or maybe use it to power factories that make hundred dollar bills? Sorry, but Bitcoin does not create a net increase in value for all the energy dumped into it. As you described it, it is simply an elaborate way to waste resources.
  - dheera 5y ago
    Don't mine Bitcoin then, run GPU farms and rent them out to AI researchers. Point is, surplus isn't really an issue.
- Ekaros 5y ago
  Free night-time electricity from where? You need to generate it from somewhere or store it. It just doesn't magically appear... Solar in large scale will be fun. Essentially at peak production it will have zero price or potentially negative price... And then during night you need to generate it from somewhere and pay premium... I wonder would it be actually cheaper soon not to have solar and just get it for free during day and then pay same during dark times...
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    How much energy do you think would be required to air source sequester all of carbon we’ve emitted into the atmosphere over the last 100 years? I don’t believe we have any shortage of demand for electricity, and loads will be structured to accommodate variable generation (this is typically referred to as demand response).
  - VintageCool 5y ago
    Wind, especially if you're in the Great Plains or connected by HVDC transmission lines to the Great Plains. https://windexchange.energy.gov/maps-data/325 https://windexchange.energy.gov/maps-data/325 https://www.volts.wtf/p/transmission-fortnight-burying-power https://www.volts.wtf/p/transmission-fortnight-burying-power
- only_as_i_fall 5y ago
  This is basically a pipe dream unless people radically change the way they consume power. Peak energy consumption is typically around dusk, so driven primarily by home consumption not industry. Convince people not to use air conditioners after 4pm and maybe we would be able to match supply to demand. Moreover, even if we all started sitting in our hot dark houses after work we'd still have an extremely variable supply which would mean more robust infrastructure to transmit less overall power.
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    Hence solar, which generates until sunset, paired with ~4 hours of storage, which carries the grid through peak evening load until most folks are off to bed and grid load declines rapidly. https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/confronting-duck-curve-how-address-over-generation-solar-energy https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/confronting-duck-curve-... (https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_article_width/public/CAISO_DuckCurve_720_469_80.jpg?itok=-RdWPrjW https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_artic... for this illustrated; batteries replace the natural gas ramp) https://youtu.be/P_d0x8uG6kE https://youtu.be/P_d0x8uG6kE
    - only_as_i_fall 5y ago
      And then it's a rainy day and everybody stays home from work because there's no power? Or we spin up a bunch of dirty natural gas? This also doesn't address the seasonal changes in supply. We're realistically talking about creating energy infrastructure (and then maintaining it) that ulaverages maybe 20% capacity. I just feel like solar proponents like to completely ignore the very real unsolved issues because solar+batteries is tidy if you don't think too much about it.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - nradov 5y ago
        Natural gas fired peaker plants will continue to be a crucial part of our electrical system indefinitely. They allow generation to be rapidly spun up and down to stabilize the grid; other generation sources can't react as quickly, or sometimes can't react at all. And natural gas isn't very dirty.
robbrown451 5y ago
Lower the price of electricity when there is a surplus, and people and industry will figure out a way to use it, including charging batteries.
- m463 5y ago
  This is really the natural solution - economic forces do figure things out. I do wonder about situations like the recent texas fiasco. Maybe we want something like "cheaper at night" not pure economic nonsense like "$9,000/kwh for the next 15 minutes"

Send it back into the grid. Charge cars. Feed industries that need daytime power. Pay the owners back for it, or give them free night-time electricity in returns. Heat up some high heat capacity goo, or hell even water, and use that to heat your apartment during cold nights in desert weather. If you still have surplus after all that, mine bitcoin and use it to fund battery research, environmental initiatives, fund education, fund healthcare. Surpluses are never a problem.

robbrown451 5y ago
"If you still have surplus after all that, mine bitcoin and use it to fund" Or maybe use it to power factories that make hundred dollar bills? Sorry, but Bitcoin does not create a net increase in value for all the energy dumped into it. As you described it, it is simply an elaborate way to waste resources.
- dheera 5y ago
  Don't mine Bitcoin then, run GPU farms and rent them out to AI researchers. Point is, surplus isn't really an issue.
Ekaros 5y ago
Free night-time electricity from where? You need to generate it from somewhere or store it. It just doesn't magically appear... Solar in large scale will be fun. Essentially at peak production it will have zero price or potentially negative price... And then during night you need to generate it from somewhere and pay premium... I wonder would it be actually cheaper soon not to have solar and just get it for free during day and then pay same during dark times...
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  How much energy do you think would be required to air source sequester all of carbon we’ve emitted into the atmosphere over the last 100 years? I don’t believe we have any shortage of demand for electricity, and loads will be structured to accommodate variable generation (this is typically referred to as demand response).
- VintageCool 5y ago
  Wind, especially if you're in the Great Plains or connected by HVDC transmission lines to the Great Plains. https://windexchange.energy.gov/maps-data/325 https://windexchange.energy.gov/maps-data/325 https://www.volts.wtf/p/transmission-fortnight-burying-power https://www.volts.wtf/p/transmission-fortnight-burying-power
only_as_i_fall 5y ago
This is basically a pipe dream unless people radically change the way they consume power. Peak energy consumption is typically around dusk, so driven primarily by home consumption not industry. Convince people not to use air conditioners after 4pm and maybe we would be able to match supply to demand. Moreover, even if we all started sitting in our hot dark houses after work we'd still have an extremely variable supply which would mean more robust infrastructure to transmit less overall power.
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  Hence solar, which generates until sunset, paired with ~4 hours of storage, which carries the grid through peak evening load until most folks are off to bed and grid load declines rapidly. https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/confronting-duck-curve-how-address-over-generation-solar-energy https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/confronting-duck-curve-... (https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_article_width/public/CAISO_DuckCurve_720_469_80.jpg?itok=-RdWPrjW https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_artic... for this illustrated; batteries replace the natural gas ramp) https://youtu.be/P_d0x8uG6kE https://youtu.be/P_d0x8uG6kE
  - only_as_i_fall 5y ago
    And then it's a rainy day and everybody stays home from work because there's no power? Or we spin up a bunch of dirty natural gas? This also doesn't address the seasonal changes in supply. We're realistically talking about creating energy infrastructure (and then maintaining it) that ulaverages maybe 20% capacity. I just feel like solar proponents like to completely ignore the very real unsolved issues because solar+batteries is tidy if you don't think too much about it.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - nradov 5y ago
      Natural gas fired peaker plants will continue to be a crucial part of our electrical system indefinitely. They allow generation to be rapidly spun up and down to stabilize the grid; other generation sources can't react as quickly, or sometimes can't react at all. And natural gas isn't very dirty.

robbrown451 5y ago

Lower the price of electricity when there is a surplus, and people and industry will figure out a way to use it, including charging batteries.

m463 5y ago
This is really the natural solution - economic forces do figure things out. I do wonder about situations like the recent texas fiasco. Maybe we want something like "cheaper at night" not pure economic nonsense like "$9,000/kwh for the next 15 minutes"