| Actually I’m not so sure about that. The turning on and off quickly part. Because in my country (in Asia) there’s surplus energy from renewables (solar, wind) during the daytime, so much so that they’re having to shut things down because the grid can’t handle it (yet). However at night we need power from traditional sources (coal, basically. We do have hydroelectric and nuclear power also, but that’s not sufficient). They cannot shut down the coal plants during the day because apparently turning it back on is a tricky time consuming process. They cannot run the coal plants at reduced capacity because that reduces the efficiency and increases the wear and tear of the equipment. And the renewables also brought up another problem in that the power that comes is not steady (unlike the traditional sources). All that is putting pressure on the grid. The long term solution is to upgrade the grid to handle all this. And the government is working on it (I think). But that’ll take time to do. At least a decade. Uhh, I don’t know much more technical details about all this. Maybe more knowledgeable members can contribute. |