I don't think "absolutely minimal" is the correct description of the nature of A/C electrical demand. EIA places the total percentage of A/C electrical expendi

I don't think "absolutely minimal" is the correct description of the nature of A/C electrical demand. EIA places the total percentage of A/C electrical expenditures at %12 in 2015[0], energy.gov cites it at 6% of the total usage[1]. This number looks pretty "meh", however note that A/C demand is highly variable, seasonal, and on a daily basis will spike quite a bit. Contextualized with the annual data this is positioned within, the %6 usage is concentrated regionally, during the day, in the vaguely 4-month summer season in CONUS. Contrasted with heating electrical requirements, which operate more or less all the time in the winter (to prevent freezing pipes, and thermal inertia of a cold-ass house) and the averages of the electrical demand begin to look a lot different. The relatively low aggregate demand is smoothed out of the highly variable nature of A/C load. Electrical load is immediately produced and consumed for the most part. An electrical grid will struggle to supply this peak-load demand a small but critical percentage of the time. This A/C demand happily coincides with the times solar power will be most effective. It appears to me that solar is very well suited to augment the baseline load of a national/regional electrical grid to support peak summer demand. There is also some effect of the increased summertime temperatures on electrical grid transmission losses[2], but I'm not sure how all that shakes out. [0] - https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=36692 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=36692 [1] - https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/home-cooling-systems/air-conditioning https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/home-cooling-systems/air-... [2] - https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/11/114008 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/11/1...