In remarks tied to the UN week, Trump repeated the argument that Europe—and specifically Germany—turned back to traditional fuels after pursuing renewables, casting it as proof that rapid green transitions don’t work.
Base load doesn’t exist. At least not in the way you consider it to.
Right now energy production is based on demand. With renewables, this should be reversed: Demand should adjust to the supply.
One very quick way to achieve this is by mandating dynamic electricity pricing for everyone - company or individual alike.
It will not take long for energy intensive companies to construct their own battery storage (since “purchasing” at -1 cent/kWh is much more economical than at 60 ct/kWh). Consumer demand will also adjust. If your washing machine costs 3€ to run at midnight and -10 ct at 2 pm, when do you think people will wash their clothes? The same goes for charging their EV, vacuuming etc.
The sole remaining factor is heating in winter. Which can not be solved by better battery storage but rather by building thousands of wind turbines everywhere.
The sole remaining factor is heating in winter. Which can not be solved by better battery storage
My parents house used to have thermal storage heating which seemed to work well. Each room had what looked like a standard sized radiator that stored heat, much more cheaply than a battery: nothing toxic, nothing expendable, nothing expensive. Overnight when rates were low, the unit heated up. During the day when rates were high, we just needed a small circulation fan to keep room temperature consistent with almost no power use.
I just had to get a new heat pump installed and looked for similar functionality but it doesn’t seem to exist.
Thermal storage heat would make a huge difference in shifting power usage from heating to account for factors like solar energy, and it would be much cheaper than batteries.
A prerequisite has to be smart appliances, and not in the current sense of a great way to milk more money from a customer through advertising and lock-in.
My thermostat, dishwasher, washer, dryer, car charger have timers so I can schedule them overnight (typical for cheaper electricity in the past, before solar). But other appliances don’t, and none can respond to less predictable changes in rates.
Do standard solar installs have the smarts to trigger appliances based on what they’re generating? Most of them are “smart” but they’ll only talk about monitoring and bill paying. I’ve been trying to find that out all summer but solar providers don’t know or are otherwise unable to answer.
I’m all for dynamic pricing of electricity but we don’t have the appliance intelligence to support it. That can take decades to roll out so we need to nail this down NOW
Base load doesn’t exist. At least not in the way you consider it to.
Right now energy production is based on demand. With renewables, this should be reversed: Demand should adjust to the supply.
One very quick way to achieve this is by mandating dynamic electricity pricing for everyone - company or individual alike.
It will not take long for energy intensive companies to construct their own battery storage (since “purchasing” at -1 cent/kWh is much more economical than at 60 ct/kWh). Consumer demand will also adjust. If your washing machine costs 3€ to run at midnight and -10 ct at 2 pm, when do you think people will wash their clothes? The same goes for charging their EV, vacuuming etc.
The sole remaining factor is heating in winter. Which can not be solved by better battery storage but rather by building thousands of wind turbines everywhere.
My parents house used to have thermal storage heating which seemed to work well. Each room had what looked like a standard sized radiator that stored heat, much more cheaply than a battery: nothing toxic, nothing expendable, nothing expensive. Overnight when rates were low, the unit heated up. During the day when rates were high, we just needed a small circulation fan to keep room temperature consistent with almost no power use.
I just had to get a new heat pump installed and looked for similar functionality but it doesn’t seem to exist.
Thermal storage heat would make a huge difference in shifting power usage from heating to account for factors like solar energy, and it would be much cheaper than batteries.
A prerequisite has to be smart appliances, and not in the current sense of a great way to milk more money from a customer through advertising and lock-in.
My thermostat, dishwasher, washer, dryer, car charger have timers so I can schedule them overnight (typical for cheaper electricity in the past, before solar). But other appliances don’t, and none can respond to less predictable changes in rates.
Do standard solar installs have the smarts to trigger appliances based on what they’re generating? Most of them are “smart” but they’ll only talk about monitoring and bill paying. I’ve been trying to find that out all summer but solar providers don’t know or are otherwise unable to answer.
I’m all for dynamic pricing of electricity but we don’t have the appliance intelligence to support it. That can take decades to roll out so we need to nail this down NOW