[makapuf]

What night base consumption is absolutely vital ? I understand that some of the consumption is necessary to function and that some other is made possible by the fact that fossil energy is as expensive to generate at night and that it's cheaper to function 24/7. But sometimes it can be cheaper to shut down widget X factory at night not to double storage capacity. Maybe this effect will be important, I don't know.

[DennisP]

If we have to build twice as many widget factories to make up for shutting them down at night, that's another cost to society that we should take into account. I've seen a lot of renewables advocates talk about "demand management" but not any estimate of this cost.

There's also heating, air conditioning, street lights, etc. Aluminum plants, which can't shut down more than 4-5 hours without major damage from the metal solidifying.

Before long, electric vehicles charging in people's garages at night; it'd be nice if we used them to supply the grid at night but that would require parking lots full of charging stations where everybody works, plus new infrastructure in people's houses, and some kind of incentive to get people to bother. All that costs money too.