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Base load is a feature, not a bug. Companies planning new industrial facilities need long-term guarantees of reliable 24×7 power with predictable rates. Otherwi
by nradov 7mo ago
Base load is a feature, not a bug. Companies planning new industrial facilities need long-term guarantees of reliable 24×7 power with predictable rates. Otherwise they'll build elsewhere. Dispatchable power doesn't help them.
- gpm 7mo agoBase load power cannot provide predictable rates because it provides a fixed amount of power that the market then bids on. If there's too much demand rates go up arbitrarily high. If there's too little rates go to zero. Dispatchable power is the only sort of power that provides 24x7 power with predictable rates. If there's more demand, you produce more power (at the same cost). If there's less, you produce less so you can sell what you do produce at the same cost.
- bluGill 7mo agoBase load provides predictable cheap power at night. Which is why heavy industry runs third shift only (only rare industy is this way), and shuts down for maintenance in december (christman lights). Now that wind is cheap they are changing shifts because nobody wants to work third shift if they don't have to.
- nradov 7mo agoNope. What you're describing is an artifact of certain electricity markets work for spot prices. This is artificial, not inevitable. Large industrial customers often bypass those markets and contract directly with producers for fixed rates.
- jltsiren 7mo agoIt's the natural way commodities are priced in the market. Those large industrial customers often also end up selling the electricity in the market. Power companies need multi-decade commitments before they are willing to build anything as capital intensive as a nuclear reactor. In that time, industrial customers need to modernize their factories to keep them competitive. Which is often the time they realize it's more profitable to invest that money somewhere else and wind down the old factories.
- maxerickson 7mo agoIs a more predictable rate obviously better than a lower average rate?
- gpm 7mo agoNo not at all, I just didn't feel the need to challenge that assumption that the person I responded to made.
- bluGill 7mo agoindustry needs perdictable cheap power. They only care about base load because it is traditionally cheap enough to schedule your energy intensive work around. Wind and solar are much cheaper and we are often good enough at predicting it for industry.
- nradov 7mo agoNot for industry that needs to run when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing. Sure, in theory maybe someday battery storage will present another option but that won't be realistic or economically feasible for many years.
- bluGill 7mo agoThere are lots of different industries with different needs. The ones that use a lot of energy make as many changes to how they work as they can to get cheap energy. They don't run 24x7 if they don't have to.