The California Duck Curve is causing concern among California’s utilities, who wonder whether they will be able to ramp generation up quickly enough to meet evening peak demand when all the new solar capacity California plans to add over the next few years comes on line. As the title of this post notes, however, the California Duck Curve isn’t unique to California. It’s present everywhere to a greater or lesser extent regardless of the shape of the daily load curve, and in many places it’s a more serious problem than it is in California.
The California Duck Curve isn’t confined to California
Related: who to believe? Academics or bloggers? … new results based on 3 months actual grid data:
Australia, energy storage and the Blakers study
If I understand this correctly, when the sun starts dumping solar “load” onto the grid, the electricity providers have to back off on the base load to keep the grid balanced. At the end of the day when the sun sets and demand is peeking, the providers have to increase the base load back to compensate for the loss of the solar power.
So this is a peeking duck problem.
🙂
“who to believe? Academics or bloggers?”
The answer to that question is very straight-forward by answering this question: Who has more of a vested interest, academics or bloggers?
My guess is “academics” because, with academics, the power of government and its enormous wealth is available to them. (Simply notice what IPCC stands for: “InterGOVERMENTAL Panel on Climate Change”.)
Thus, academics have more of a vested interested and “who to believe” is therefore “bloggers”.
This is another reason to keep building Site C dam in BC. THe extra power can be sold to the idiots in California, to help pay for the dam. I suspect that was always part of the strategy to build SIte C, selling to out of province jurisdictions that have self-immolated their traditional energy sources from oil, coal and gas, and have adopted unreliable wind and solar. KKKalifornia and Alberta come to mind immediately.
But no, Comrade John and his Horde seem to on a death march, to snuff Site C, and also adopt the unreliable solar/wind trendiness. We’re so fecked in BC
“who to believe? Academics or bloggers?”
Here let me fix that for them …
“WHAT to believe? The TRUTH or Agenda-driven Lies?”
You see, things like science and engineering have NOTHING to do with “the people” or “credentials” or “titles”. Einstein was what? A patent office clerk … pretty much the modern-day equivalent to a “blogger”. I don’t recall Einstein being an “academic” when he completely changed and catapulted science forward by leaps and bounds. Why would “scientists” want to turn science into an elitist personality cult? All that matters is … the science.
And what are Al Gore’s, Bill Nye’s, etc. Academic credentials? So why should anyone listen to a word they say ? And I would LOVE to hear Al Gore debate Euan … what’s that? Al Gore never debates or ever takes any questions? Yeah … says it all right there. And didn’t a bunch of “untrained (like seals) bloggers” just humiliate Bill Nye online? Humiliate him with … SCIENCE!?
They’ll spend billions trying and failing to make intermittent power plus green storage be as effective as the conventional baseload plus reliable peaking power combo. Before all attempts fail, power rates will skyrocket. Government…being government will decide the only way to fix the duck curve problem is to ‘wring the duck’s neck’ by forcing a decrease in demand. They will make peak power period rates so expensive that people cannot afford it or severely ration peak period usage via new laws.
The option of last resort is to let the system fail and blame someone else – greedy companies, conservatives and libertarians, hackers, energy workers, the russians, white guys, anyone who is happens to be out of political favor at that moment.
Thus, academics have more of a vested interested
That vested interest will be in the form of grants and tenure.
Can anyone imagine a time in the not too distant future when California is ringed with refugee camps filled with people escaping that increasingly communist disaster with only the shirts on their backs? It’s a good thing that the surrounding states are some of the most unpopulated areas of land in the union ’cause all that room might well come in handy.
Its all part n parcel of the Globalists in the UN who would see the massive amounts of wealth accumulated in the West go to the 3rd world… How..? By ramping up BS renewables driving up electricity rates such that Industry cannot compete. Said Industry either dies or moves to a jurisdiction with significantly lower electricity rates (China – India etc.)setts hooper. Goodbye to jobs Standard of living etc.
They are aided and abetted by every two bit Multi-Cult “Diversity is our strength” MORON in charge of our Western Democracies along with the MSM.
The Goal..?? ENERGY POVERTY For all.
The Aim..?? Destruction of Capitalist Western civilization
“They are aided and abetted by every two bit Multi-Cult “Diversity is our strength” MORON in charge of our Western Democracies along with the MSM.”
Are you perchance talking about IQ80?
DanBC – You are probably right suggesting that the Site C dam would have export potential. Do not forget that any revenue from that “renewable” resource is NOT included as provincial revenue from an equalization point of view, as per Quebec’s massive James Bay hydro projects that sells most of that power to Newfieland and Labradoodle. La Belle Province must be pooping bricks that Muskrat Falls is nearing completion. When I last visited PQ, you could hear the crackle of the aurora and smell the ozone near the power lines crossing the St. Lawrence River on their way to upstate New York.