Ignoring cost, solar is an effective peak power resource and should be used where possible, but its not as good as a combustion turbine because it cannot be dispatched on demand.
Your writing reflects the two greatest common misunderstandings about the power grid. The first is the perception that pure generation is the most important grid component. Its not. Its the easy part. Transmission capacity and 24/7/365 system reliability are the hard parts. And combustion turbines are the only type of power plant capable of supplying the triple services of peak energy, generation reliability, and transmission reliabilty (large hydro dams can as well, but building more of them is not an option).
Solar and wind generation, in contrast, require substantial reliability support, at considerable cost.
The second big misunderstanding is the snapshot perception that the existence of capacity sufficient to meet peak demand means that there must be lots of unused capacity during the off peak. There isn't. The utility system is designed and built to serve the expected daily and seasonal load swings as economically as possible, with sufficient reserve margin to prevent mass outages when parts of the system fail unexpectedly. Thus, for example, the plants intended to meet peaks aren't capable of running 24/7 as economically as the baseload plants.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, forecasting errors can result temporarily in local or regional unused capacity. But, in the long term, when permanent new load is added to the grid, regardless of the time of day, it will eventually force new capacity additions.
As for solar being cheaper than $4 gasoline, I suggest that if you analyze apples-to-apples, i.e., all costs in, matching vehicle performances, etc., the perceived solar economic advantage might disappear.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nak
My solar array runs the same time of day that my house A/C runs (also known as "first shift" to manufacturers and "normal business hours" to banks). Solar acts like the battery in a hybrid car - picks up surge/peak demand. It acts somewhat like a battery to the grid in that sense, and helps level the load on the grid by producing most power when more power is needed.
If electric cars use less power charging at night than industry and air conditioners use during the day, they are also load-leveling (by increasing demand when there is more capacity) to the power company. Some of the capacity is already there, or we'd brown out every afternoon.
What you really mean is that it is cheaper to charge an electric car with grid power than with installed solar. That's true and we agree on it. But it is cheaper to fuel an electric car with household solar than it is to run a regular car with $4 gas. So when people say solar is too expensive, the answer is "compared to what?" Compared to grid power, it's more expensive. Compared to $4 gas, it's cheaper. It is possible for the price of one thing to be between the prices of two other things.
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