„The venerable “baseload” concept—that grid stability needs gigawatt-scale, steadily operating thermal (steam-raising) power plants—reflects the valid and vital economic practice of dispatching power at least operating cost, so resources with lowest operating costs are run most. This traditional role of giant thermal plants led many people to suppose that such plants are always needed. But now that renewables with no fuel cost are taking over the “baseload” role of being dispatched whenever available, those big thermal plants are relegated to fewer operating hours, making the term “baseload” an obsolete honorific. Thermal plants must now adapt to follow the net load left after cost-effective efficiency, demand response, and real-time “base-cost” renewable supply have been dispatched. Nuclear power’s limited flexibility, and its technical and economic challenges when cycled, have thus become a handicap, complicating least-cost and stable grid operation with a rising share of zero-carbon, least-cost variable renewables. That is why Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) found that early closure of its well running Diablo Canyon reactors would save customers money and, by making the grid more flexible, raise renewables’ share. Those reactors had become cheaper to close than to run: the power systems’ shift to renewables had turned them from an asset to a liability, so they’ll be replaced by competitively procured low-carbon resources, saving both money and carbon.“
Take a look below at how much battery storage discharging (purple) offsets natural gas (maroon) after the sun sets in California on the hourly electricity origin graph. Not much further left to go at current battery deployment trajectories.
Conveniently, Tesla’s Megapack manufacturing facility is in Northern California, speeding deployments in state.
Which would be great if demand didn't vary by time of day and season.
But, it's neat the way that flaw has been rebranded as "baseload". The extra energy you need when people wake up and go to work? That's someone else's problem.
I’m gonna be blunt, that’s a strange position.
I mean, even just math wise/FFT, you can break down a lot of stuff into a dc component plus your variable component.
But the other part is you can absolutely adjust the output of a nuclear reactor, we just don’t because the availability is there. Look up the largest power stations in the us/globally, and sort by capacity factor.
