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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

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.

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.