[Manuel_D]

You can see the breakdown of electricity usage here: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/use-of-elect...

For residential uses, heating, cooling, and refrigeration are the main uses.

For commercial electricity use: computing, refrigeration, cooling, and ventilation.

For industrial electricity use: machine drive (lathes, mills, etc.), process and boiler heating, facility heating and cooling, electrochemical process.

The only categories that I guess could be easily shifted is process and boiler heating. But some industrial processes need to run uninterrupted for weeks. Machine drive, perhaps, but then workers would not be able to work a regular schedule. Not to mention, industrial applications in total is less than 25% of electricity use.

Demand shifting is a lot easier said than done. I see it proposed very frequently, but I've yet to see a detailed plan for what electricity uses will be shifted, and how.

[moooo99]

> For residential uses, heating, cooling, and refrigeration are the main uses.

Heating and cooling can be offloaded into grid peak availability hours relatively easily with the price serving as a reliable trigger. This assumes proper insulation for the most part, but is viable and using the price as an indicator automatically sets up the right incentives. As for refrigeration, the energy use for that in a private household seems to be overstated.

> For commercial electricity use: computing, refrigeration, cooling, and ventilation

For cooling the same applies as for private households, maybe to a lesser extent. The other loads remain pretty static in their demand, but once a commercial operation has a certain scale building out the own battery storage to optimize for purchasing price (assuming a flexible price that reflects spot pricing) may be a viable strategy.

> For industrial electricity use: machine drive (lathes, mills, etc.), process and boiler heating, facility heating and cooling, electrochemical process.

For boiler heating and facility heating and cooling the same applies as for commercial and residential uses. For other energy intense workloads, demand shift is already frequently happening because the ROI is fairly quick. It’s not easy to assess from the outside because you do need an in depth process understanding that you just cannot provide as an outsider. But I have personally witnessed plenty of examples that demonstrate it is well within the realm of possibility

[Manuel_D]

Heating and cooling cannot be easily load shifted. Daily fluctuations in energy production aren't the only forms of fluctuations. Seasonal fluctuations are large, too. And the seasonal variation has the unfortunate tendency to line up with periods of high energy demand. "Just don't heat your house in the winter" is not a viable form of demand shifting.

> For boiler heating and facility heating and cooling the same applies as for commercial and residential uses.

Note that this refers to "process and boiler heating". There's plenty of industrial processes that need to be kept at temperature for long periods of time, otherwise the batch is ruined. Titanium smelting is one example. I've yet to see a breakdown of what specific industrial processes can be shifted.

[AstralStorm]

Heating and cooling can only be offloaded in extremely wellinsulated houses. A lot of the ones in the UK do not make the cut. Even some new EU ones do not.

If you try to offload it otherwise you just waste power heating/cooling yourself at wrong hours.

A boiler in this setup is a thermal battery. These are good, but space consuming and relatively failure prone and expensive to maintain. Inefficient compared to central too.

[specialist]

Are you arguing for or against offshore wind?

Tackling climate crisis requires All The Above.

Wind, nukes, solar farms, tidal, whatever, by themselves, aren't silver bullets.

We also need heat pumps, renovations (insulation, air sealing), district heating, etc. That's just for housing.

We could also talk all day about industry and agriculture.

As the saying goes: The opportunities are insurmountable!

[Manuel_D]

Nuclear power is indeed a silver bullet. France supplied > 85% of its electricity demand with nuclear (with the rest being filled by pre-existing hydroelectricity). As is hydroelectricity and geothermal power for those countries with the appropriate geography. E.g. Norward produces 100% of electricity through hydro. Non-intermittent sources of energy don't need to be supplemented by alternative sources of energy.

[ViewTrick1002]

Whenever a cold spell hits France 10 GW of fossil production is started and 15 GW of exports turns to 5 GW of fossil based imports.

The French grid would collapse without 30 GW of fossil based production to manage cold spells.

[Manuel_D]

Using absolute units instead of proportional figures is deceptive.

This is Frances' electricity generation breakdown: https://aleasoft.com/france-leading-european-nuclear-energy-...

Fossil fuels are 7%.

[devnullbrain]

This is about the UK. We're now less than 5 years away from when every new car will have a battery. In 10, none of them will have an engine.

[alt227]

The deadline in the UK is currently 2035.

Labour have pledged to bring it back down to 2030, but when they begin the talks with the motor industry to try to achieve this they will fold like they have done several times so far in this government.