China is “set up to hit grand slams,” longtime Chinese energy expert David Fishman told Fortune. “The U.S., at best, can get on base.”
China is “set up to hit grand slams,” longtime Chinese energy expert David Fishman told Fortune. “The U.S., at best, can get on base.”
The solution is to just spam solar panels. Solar power is getting so comically cheap, that this is the solution we’ll likely use. Have enough storage for overnight. Then spam so many solar panels that your grid can meet demand even on a cloudy day in winter. You have enough to meet demand at the lowest productivity point in the year. Then the rest of the year we have cheap hyper-abundant power.
Exactly. That is exactly what we need to do.
Ideally, yes. But, what is actually happening is that near the summer solstice, generation rates aren’t “cheap”. They are negative. We are putting so much power on the grid that generation companies are paying for people to take it off during ideal generation conditions.
That is a big fucking problem. Negative rates mean we stop “spamming” solar panels long before we have enough to meet winter demand.
The solution to that problem is 3-season industries. Major industrial consumers that only operate from spring through autumn, soaking up the excess power, then going offline, shedding their excessive load for the winter.