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How do we reconcile the fact that base-load generation (e.g. coal, nuclear) is hard to throttle, yet PV is increasingly sapping the profits from peak generation
by politician 13y ago
How do we reconcile the fact that base-load generation (e.g. coal, nuclear) is hard to throttle, yet PV is increasingly sapping the profits from peak generation hours (i.e. mid-day) resulting in economic disruptions and perhaps ultimately in off-peak electricity disruptions as base-load generators become increasingly expensive to operate?
I personally think that that's the reason the brakes are being put on PV, and not the populist "robber baron" explanation offered by the article.
- danielharan 13y agoPeaker plants will be out of business before the base-load generators. Unless we reconcile those, we'll see a death spiral for utilities.
- crdoconnor 13y agoIsn't that itself a robber baron explanation? If the grid operator is primarily concerned with profits from peak generation hours, and trying to prevent solar from impinging upon that, it doesn't seem reasonable to legislate a way to protect those profits, ESPECIALLY not when it is environmentally damaging to do so.
- maxerickson 13y agoThe rate schedules are highly regulated. If they lose the peaks they are going to either get an increase in other rates or throw their hands in the air and turn it all off. The second would be a huge problem. The first is something lots of people are going to complain loudly about.
- moocowduckquack 13y agoor throw their hands in the air and turn it all off. Resorting to doing that just drives people onto solar on mass.
- maxerickson 13y agoSure. But lots of those people are currently staying away from solar because of the capital costs. It sort of seems like the two big inflection points will be solar getting so cheap that it pays for itself in a few summers and neighborhood or household scale batteries becoming practical.
- moocowduckquack 13y agoLightsail has an interesting approach to the storage problem - http://www.lightsail.com/blog/making-economical-clean-energy-at-planet-scale/ http://www.lightsail.com/blog/making-economical-clean-energy...