The issue is for _new_ plants, not so much for replacement plants. These older plants can be used for base load where necessary; and in places like developed OECD nations which are seeing reductions in electricity generation year on year (not so much population growth, heavy industries moving to cheaper developing nations), the need for base load is going down.
Its not relevant to people who are prepared to sacrifice convenience for cost. Especially if night-time prices are directly linked to supply. Smarter devices will become available that use energy when its cheaply available. Long time storage will improve and spread the load, probably from smaller to larger scale. Base load is really an artefact of system and usage inefficiencies, not some inherent problem with renewables.
Exactly! If daytime electricity was cheap enough I would double the size of my refrigerator and fill it with water to increase thermal mass. At night time it would stay cold enough to not use any power. Almost all energy except lighting is good to go. My laptop already has enough power to last the evening. I just need a few watts for the router.
I live in central Texas and my biggest energy consumer is air conditioning. Rooftop solar makes a lot of sense for me because I use the most energy when the sun is shining. I've never seriously considered storage.
Haha. That's funny. Would the thought going through daytime renewables without batteries coincide with the idea to transition to natural gas or other power plants at night? I do not know if there would be problems here and observe the comments of all the great minds here usually, but I want to address the need to stop nuclear plants anywhere near faults or coastlines after reading the data of increasing shifting of our poles and daily earthquakes of low magnitude mostly, but a new thing for certain in my area of North Texas. Earthquake watch scared me last week after feeling and hearing two of enough strength to shake things up a bit. Until the observable large, dark objects in our solar system are reported on without disinformation and honesty, I truly believe we should be safe in case they are objects causing these great rifts. No need to argue, spread love and achieve more. I read so much here hoping to ring a mental bell and remember lost skills due to an accident and a coma. I just retained ability to learn in a new way of sorts and also want to thank all of you for your informational and technical posts.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding your comment, but how is my desire for electricity at night time "not relevant"?