Re:The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months
by tedsanders on Tuesday May 03, 2016 @10:17PM
(#11625704)
This claim about peak power usage is untrue, at least for California. For the past 20 years in California, the annual peak electricity usage has ALWAYS occurred between 2pm and 5pm.:
(It's true that the daily peak is in the evening and that won't be helped by solar. But capacity is built to handle the annual peak, not the daily peak, and because the annual peak tends to be hot afternoons, solar actually will replace other generation in the long run.)
https://www.caiso.com/Documents/CaliforniaISOPeakLoadHistory...
I used to work at a power company as well.
(It's true that the daily peak is in the evening and that won't be helped by solar. But capacity is built to handle the annual peak, not the daily peak, and because the annual peak tends to be hot afternoons, solar actually will replace other generation in the long run.)