Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by jamescrowley 218 days ago
Baseload is traditionally about generation, not consumption. And baseload generation only makes sense when it is the cheapest option.

When solar and wind produce at near-zero marginal cost, running inflexible baseload beside them just forces cheaper generation to switch off, driving up system costs.

What the grid needs is dispatchable capacity - batteries, hydro, gas peakers (if we must) and demand shifting - that can plug the gaps when cheaper forms of generation cannot.

1 comments

It sounds great in theory but doesn’t work in practice.

Just compare Germany to France.

This is such a tired trope. The differences between the two countries present day energy situation doesn’t tell you anything about how the world should proceed tomorrow.

Unless you have a time machine that you can use to get every country to build state subsided nuclear 50 years ago.

Not even France can replicate their nuclear construction of decades ago.