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This works best in areas where cloud cover is consistently low, so solar power doesn't vary much from day to day. That's most of Australia. Two days of dark ove

by Animats 2mo ago

This works best in areas where cloud cover is consistently low, so solar power doesn't vary much from day to day. That's most of Australia. Two days of dark overcast and the load on non-solar sources goes way up. How much battery do you need before there's no demand for peaking plants? In some places, a day. In others, months? I looked at cloud coverage maps. There are monthly and annual average maps, and raw data from satellites. Building a map of run length of overcast days would be useful.

throwaway2037 2mo ago
> This works best in areas where cloud cover is consistently low, so solar power doesn't vary much from day to day. That's most of Australia. I just want to point out that where the majority of people live in Australia definitely has great variance in solar power day to day. For example, Melbourne is a running joke amoung Australians about how wildly unpredictable its weather is.