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Re:For a Bit of Colored Ribbon by whatusername on Monday November 26, 2012 @05:44AM (#4831450)
Not sure about the US energy market -- but here in Aus -- the profit is in the baseload kilowatts and not in the peaks. Your cheap Coal plant can produce electricity really cheaply - but when demand spikes you need to fire up the higher cost on-demand generators. You can still sell this electricity - but you may even make a loss on it at the margins.
Re:For a Bit of Colored Ribbon by curiousdannii on Monday November 26, 2012 @05:54AM (#4831467)
In fact, one quarter of electricity bills goes to 40 hours of peak demand per year!

http://theconversation.edu.au/air-conditioning-is-peaking-ou...

Re:For a Bit of Colored Ribbon by yen223 on Monday November 26, 2012 @08:19AM (#4831786)
Having stayed in Melbourne for a while, I am honestly not surprised. Melbourne's climate is normally rather mild, but their short summer periods are brutal.