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Sorry, brain fart, shifted the words around and didn't fix the sentence up. Corrected, thanks.

No worries! However I don't understand it :) Base load is the load that can't vary based on weather conditions; i.e. it needs to be supplyable from coal/diesel/gas/nuclear-type generation, or from batteries that have a certain number of hours or days of supply in them at all times. I don't think we have that, although I'm happy to be corrected.

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tcfhgj 16 hours ago | parent | next [-]

or from any other type of energy storage

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pfdietz a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The best way to supply "synthetic baseload" with renewables is typically not to use just batteries for storage, but rather a combination of batteries and another storage mode more suited for longer term storage. The latter is optimized to have lower cost per unit of energy storage capacity than batteries, at the expense of lower (perhaps much lower) round trip efficiency.

This latter storage mode isn't needed until fossil fuels are almost entirely eliminated from the grid, since otherwise just use those instead for that long term firming.

The idea that the electricity supply system has to itself shoulder the burden of dealing with intermittency is also mistaken. If it's worthwhile users will be willing to dispatch at least some of their demand. I'm reminded of the argument against deregulation of telecom or airlines: that the new system wouldn't be as reliable or nice. But users were willing to make the tradeoff if the services were cheaper.

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hidroto a day ago | parent | prev [-]

geothermal power would make good base load.

	▲	mschuster91 21 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah but geothermal isn't without its own risks. For one it's not available everywhere, for it to be viable at scale you need some serious hot rock formation and a way to drill through to it, and finally geothermal energy has been linked with an increased risk of earthquakes.