Quote:
Originally Posted by 1990C4S
There is a lot of unused capacity at night, looking at real grid demand the night is often 60% of peak day. There is still a lot of electrical energy available.
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Correct. One problem with renewables like wind and solar is that solar produces during the day and wind primarily at night. They are also both subject to weather changes. A small weather change like a cloud going over a utility sized solar farm could be mitigated by thousands of batteries connected to the grid like you'd have with electrics cars that could discharge some of their power back to the grid for a few seconds.
The second problem with renewables is power storage. Wind and solar power production will soon be cheaper to build and maintain than a gas powered plant but they have no way to store the power so they're not as flexible as a gas plant that can ramp power up or down 24 hours a day. A Telsa S100D holds about 100 kWh of power which is enough to power the average home for 3 days so it doesn't take a huge number of them to provide back up power to the grid. Once the grid and cars are smart enough to know when to charge or discharge depending on the needs of the grid and the needs of the car owner (like how far they need to drive in the few days) then the cars become the power storage system for the grid. The car could be so smart that as soon as your calendar shows you have a meeting across town, it will make sure you have enough charge for the trip.