[ricardo81]

It has been a long standing problem.

Ideas crop up like generating hydrogen with the curtailed energy or maybe at least in Winter, use it for heat generation. The problem would seem to be the capex and the inverse of intermittency being the problem for them in utilising that energy, i.e. waiting for curtailment.

At least with available hydro you can pump water back up hill using a reliable and cheap tech.

[patapong]

I find it fascinating that we have not identified a use for almost free intermittent electricity. You'd think there would be plenty of things to do, but it seems like with the capex investment things like smelting etc need to always be running. Maybe electric car charging can come to the rescue? But even there people need their cars charged usually at certain fixed moments.

[kieranmaine]

EV smart charging is a solved problem in the UK IMO, at least for those with a parking space.

OVO[1] and Octopus[2] offer smart charging tariffs that give EV owners reduced electricity rates.

The usual caveat is you can only benefit if you can install a charger and park near that charger. Still, based on this 2021 article [3] 65% of UK homes have at least one off street space, so the potential for a majority of homes to smart charge is there.

To extend the benefit of cheap smart charging to more people, it would be good to see legislation that makes it easier for leaseholders and renters to require the installation of a smart charger where technically possible.

1. https://www.ovoenergy.com/electric-cars/charge-anytime 2. https://octopus.energy/ev-tariffs/ 3. https://www.racfoundation.org/media-centre/cars-parked-23-ho...

[ricardo81]

Agree. It seems to be a fairly unique problem that intermittent energy sources introduce.

Charging batteries definitely seems like part of the solution and electricity tariffs that adapt to wholesale costs on a shorter time basis help incentivise it. There are times over weekends/holidays where the wholesale price enters negative territory, essentially paying you to charge your battery.

Electrolysing hydrogen to burn is inefficient vs that kind of thing but at least acts as a battery itself, though there's costs/problems in storing it.

And the general problem of how long do you need to store energy vs what the weather forecast may be.

It seems like it's not a solved problem and it'd be exciting to move towards a point where it is. Hard to believe in the 50's they thought nuclear would solve everything and would be "too cheap to meter"