[jillesvangurp]

The solution is to deregulate the market and allow multiple companies to buy and sell electricity. The problem here is not an over supply but poorly regulated demand that causes energy to be priced higher than is justified; mainly to protect expensive sources of energy such as coal and gas plants.

The basic issue is not that there is no demand but that it is unevenly spread. People turn on their ACs when they get home after work. Peak demand is in the evening when the sun is about to go behind the horizon. Peak supply is in the late morning and early afternoon when people are at work.

So, all you need is tuneable demand. Say you had a web service that simply announces the current price of electricity that updates in real time based on your production capacity and a whole bunch of things that can turn themselves on/off based on that price. Whenever there is excess demand it just continues to drop that price until demand picks up. Now say you have an apartment complex with a lot of batteries in the basement and a bit of simple electronics that controls the charging behavior based on the price several energy providers (why limit to one). Now basically you have an energy sink that charges cheaply that automatically picks the cheapest provider.

Now imagine that battery has some overcapacity that can be sold back to the grid when prices are highest (aka. demand is high). Now you have an apartment building that buys energy when it is cheap and sells energy when it is expensive and it has enough capacity to serve its own needs.

Add EVs to the mix and battery to the grid technology and you have a mobile battery capacity that when it is not driving around can be plugged in to act both as an energy source and sink as well.

Now make the rest of the energy available to industrial users that can install their own solar panels and you have even more supply and demand.

The key bottleneck in this system is the current oligarchy that controls prices: the existing energy companies. They make the most profit when prices are high. They don't mind buying in some excess capacity cheaply but they have no incentive to do that when they don't need it. And since they control the market, there's nobody else to sell it to. Worse, since they have fixed cost associated with legacy plants, they have to keep prices high to prevent those becoming loss leaders. The whole system is geared towards protectionism rather than efficiency. Once you create an open market for energy, that's no longer sustainable.

[emirp]

What you're describing is known as a smart grid in the industry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_grid).

I can't speak for other countries but Australia has quite a few initiatives for progressing toward a smart grid but it simply takes time.

Here is some info:

https://arena.gov.au/projects/?project-value-start=0&project...

[ThrustVectoring]

Your analysis completely ignores the capital costs associated with building out a variable demand system. Every battery built will tie up a certain amount of money into fixing grid pricing variability, as well as depreciate in value and usefulness over time.

If electric overproduction is an infrequent enough condition, it may well be cheaper to waste energy than to build a battery that just sits there 300+ days a year doing nothing.

[jillesvangurp]

It doesn't ignore it but the premise of capital cost is that it then gives you access to potential gains. That breaks down if you are dependent on selling to a monopolist that sets prices based on their own needs rather than the market needs. In this case, local energy providers get protective about their more costly infrastructure when faced with homeowners supplying cheaper energy to the point where they charge negatively.

Right now the power market is weird because people are deliberately installing less solar than they need/want because their local energy providers are simply refusing to buy the excess energy beyond a certain number of kwh. And since they are the only party you could feasibly sell to, a lot of homeowners simply install less capacity.

Think about it, you've got engineers on the roof to install solar panels, wires, inverters, etc. and the panel cost is only a small portion of the overall cost. Why would you cap your installation at 4kwh when your needs are closer to 10 kwh and you have room for 20 kwh? That's exactly what's happening in a lot of places.

[jillesvangurp]

Capital cost vs. captial gains is what normally dictates these things except we are talking about effective monpolies where the monopolist is protecting their prior investments and can choose to deny access to the market for everyone else. It's basically forcing consumers to help them turn a good ROI on already obsolete investments that should rightfully be killed ASAP otherwise.