[adgjlsfhk1]

solar panels actually decrease load on power lines. every house with solar panels on it reduces the amount of power the grid needs to bring to that house

[FredPret]

In that case, yes. But for solar farms, it's the opposite.

That's why I think we should end up with:

- gas plants: easy and cheap to spin up, can provide district heating

- nuclear: squeaky clean, issues are concentrated in one spot, district heating

- solar panels: super cheap, decentralized, and there are lots of opportunities like rooftops and carparks where we are wasting sunlight right now

I just re-read Critical Mass by Daniel Suarez (great book if you like hard near-future sci-fi) and that has the idea of solar stations in geostationary orbit and beaming power to where it's needed with a phased-array microwave transmitter on the station, and rectennas where you need them on the ground. We can't do this economically any time soon, but that would be clean, and require no power lines

[adgjlsfhk1]

Solar farms aren't really any worse for the grid than other types of power plants that can't be located near cities.

[eldaisfish]

yes, they are worse for the grid, depending on how you define worse.

One interpretation is that solar adds variability to the generation side of the equation and managing that variability is currently a question without a clear answer.

[eldaisfish]

this is false.

Power line capacity is designed around the maximum power that must be delivered. Solar power by itself reduces the mean, and possibly the minimum as well, but never the maximum.

[Scoundreller]

Are we expecting peak a/c loads on cloudy days or something?

[philipkglass]

In some places the annual peak demand is for summertime cooling, but in others the annual peak demand is for wintertime heating. It's too strong to say "never [reduce] the maximum" as the parent post did, but there are substantial regions where solar power can't reduce the needed power line capacity.