3 ms·

"Base load" is word invented by coal power operators to argue for their extended existence, it is not a real thing. See Table 1 in this review paper from June

"Base load" is word invented by coal power operators to argue for their extended existence, it is not a real thing. See Table 1 in this review paper from June for a summary of grid simulations from 10 separate models running 100% renewables at various time step resolutions: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=9837910 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=983...

ZeroGravitas 4y ago
More precisely, it was the coal and nuclear equivalent of the "duck curve". It was costly/inefficient for these techs to be flexible, so they seperated the flexible load out into gas and hydro to work around the limitations of the inflexible tech. Now its a rallying cry for some reason.
ohgodplsno 4y ago
Watch out, ideology is blinding you. Base load is very much a real concept: how much you need to have available at all times for your society to function. Your industry to run, your critical services, etc. You can make multiple layers (just running the government, industries, having heating available at all times, etc), and they vary over the year, but base load is absolutely a real thing. Additionally, I would recommend you read the remarks of Table 1, where half of them either make a gigantic portion of electricity needs disappear (not counting livestock needs lol), or assume that 10000TWh (or much more) will be covered by fossil fuels or nuclear. Hm, that sounds like a lot like a base load. It does not either cover how much you need to build (current best case scenarios are that you need to build 2.5x worth your needed consumption for it to be available at all times. Hope you're ready to cover Texas in solar panels you need to replace every ten years), or assume that you can just... transfer electricity through ? Yeah, sure, if we had a worldwide grid that just delivers energy where it needs to be without loss, but we don't.
- Gwypaas 4y ago
  Base load exists on the demand side, it does not exist on the producer side. Base load on the producer side is simply a made up term because the most inflexible power plants of the 1970's were also the cheapest, and thus matched it.
- rcxdude 4y ago
  Base load is not what you're describing. You're describing total demand. 'Base load' is the minimum in the demand curve over some multi-day time period. It is not a 'real' curve you see anywhere except in a split of how different energy producers vary their output, and generally applies to nuclear and coal only. It's not something you 'need to address', you can meet the total demand curve without having any producer look like 'base load'. (And if you're thinking of some hypothetical minimum energy usage at which society could still function, but at a lower level, you'll find that this curve is also not flat over time and is not base load).
  - ohgodplsno 4y ago
    No, this is exactly what a base load it. What do we need to build so that, should all of our intermittent energy sources stop and we could not import energy anymore, we could still have the country exist and function. Where you put the line on intermittency is up to you (is hydro intermittent ? After all, you could technically run out of water in your lake. Is nuclear ? You could run out of fissile material. Is wind ? You could have clear skies with no wind all day long) You can also provide a base load with just solar. You just need to spread your panels all over the country to make up for the fact that sun is not always shining everywhere, but the idea stays the same: can we produce 100TWh over a year with our installation, no matter what ? Energy isn't produced for the fun of it. Base load is related to total demand, at all times. Some of that demand is so you can run your USB powered coffee cup, some of it is to run foundries. You pick what you fit in that, but whatever you pick must be covered by that base load. Needless to say, with sources as intermittent as wind and solar, making any kind of plans except "we're going to produce X over this month" is pretty much impossible, and you need to compensate by building tons of storage to smooth things out, otherwise you get brownouts.
    - rcxdude 4y ago
      I don't know how to respond to this other than to reiterate that you seem to be using different definitions of terms to everyone else. Obviously supply need to equal demand at all times in order for the grid to work. The main idea I'm objecting to is that there needs to be some magical flat line somewhere in the breakdown of how that demand is supplied (This is what most people refer to as 'base load'). Yes, the conclusion of how you meet demand with a bunch of intermittent supply is you build more supply than you need on average, you distribute it geographically and increase how much energy you send long-distance through the grid, and you build lots of storage (and think about what you're going to do with all the leftover energy when potential supply exceeds demand). But this solution does not contain anything which resembles what most people mean when they refer to "base load".
simonmales 4y ago
Interesting. Not debating the definiation of base load, I always thought we got used to base load.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

More precisely, it was the coal and nuclear equivalent of the "duck curve". It was costly/inefficient for these techs to be flexible, so they seperated the flexible load out into gas and hydro to work around the limitations of the inflexible tech. Now its a rallying cry for some reason.

ohgodplsno 4y ago

Watch out, ideology is blinding you. Base load is very much a real concept: how much you need to have available at all times for your society to function. Your industry to run, your critical services, etc. You can make multiple layers (just running the government, industries, having heating available at all times, etc), and they vary over the year, but base load is absolutely a real thing. Additionally, I would recommend you read the remarks of Table 1, where half of them either make a gigantic portion of electricity needs disappear (not counting livestock needs lol), or assume that 10000TWh (or much more) will be covered by fossil fuels or nuclear. Hm, that sounds like a lot like a base load. It does not either cover how much you need to build (current best case scenarios are that you need to build 2.5x worth your needed consumption for it to be available at all times. Hope you're ready to cover Texas in solar panels you need to replace every ten years), or assume that you can just... transfer electricity through ? Yeah, sure, if we had a worldwide grid that just delivers energy where it needs to be without loss, but we don't.

Gwypaas 4y ago
Base load exists on the demand side, it does not exist on the producer side. Base load on the producer side is simply a made up term because the most inflexible power plants of the 1970's were also the cheapest, and thus matched it.
rcxdude 4y ago
Base load is not what you're describing. You're describing total demand. 'Base load' is the minimum in the demand curve over some multi-day time period. It is not a 'real' curve you see anywhere except in a split of how different energy producers vary their output, and generally applies to nuclear and coal only. It's not something you 'need to address', you can meet the total demand curve without having any producer look like 'base load'. (And if you're thinking of some hypothetical minimum energy usage at which society could still function, but at a lower level, you'll find that this curve is also not flat over time and is not base load).
- ohgodplsno 4y ago
  No, this is exactly what a base load it. What do we need to build so that, should all of our intermittent energy sources stop and we could not import energy anymore, we could still have the country exist and function. Where you put the line on intermittency is up to you (is hydro intermittent ? After all, you could technically run out of water in your lake. Is nuclear ? You could run out of fissile material. Is wind ? You could have clear skies with no wind all day long) You can also provide a base load with just solar. You just need to spread your panels all over the country to make up for the fact that sun is not always shining everywhere, but the idea stays the same: can we produce 100TWh over a year with our installation, no matter what ? Energy isn't produced for the fun of it. Base load is related to total demand, at all times. Some of that demand is so you can run your USB powered coffee cup, some of it is to run foundries. You pick what you fit in that, but whatever you pick must be covered by that base load. Needless to say, with sources as intermittent as wind and solar, making any kind of plans except "we're going to produce X over this month" is pretty much impossible, and you need to compensate by building tons of storage to smooth things out, otherwise you get brownouts.
  - rcxdude 4y ago
    I don't know how to respond to this other than to reiterate that you seem to be using different definitions of terms to everyone else. Obviously supply need to equal demand at all times in order for the grid to work. The main idea I'm objecting to is that there needs to be some magical flat line somewhere in the breakdown of how that demand is supplied (This is what most people refer to as 'base load'). Yes, the conclusion of how you meet demand with a bunch of intermittent supply is you build more supply than you need on average, you distribute it geographically and increase how much energy you send long-distance through the grid, and you build lots of storage (and think about what you're going to do with all the leftover energy when potential supply exceeds demand). But this solution does not contain anything which resembles what most people mean when they refer to "base load".

simonmales 4y ago

Interesting. Not debating the definiation of base load, I always thought we got used to base load.