Of course electricity at night is highly desirable. But there are no economic incentives to build it.

From a purely financial point of view, base load is not appealing. Whereas cheap solar is appealing. If I have a billion$ to invest, I know which one I'm choosing. I'm maximizing return, not "societal good". Which is why govt is best placed to build base load, since they optimize for societal good, not profit.

To make base load appealing to investors we need expensive power at night. But that's countered by local battery storage.

To be clear, this is not a "what we need" argument. It's a capital argument. Private Power suppliers chase profit, and there's more profit in daytime power than nighttime power.

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johncolanduoni 3 days ago | parent [-]

> Of course electricity at night is highly desirable. But there are no economic incentives to build it.

Wait, what? Who is going to accept having no power at night at their house? Ignoring the fact that the intra-utility trade does provide a direct economic incentive, nobody is going to live somewhere the power companies can’t keep the lights on 24 hours a day most days (in the developed world anyway).

	▲	bruce511 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		You're looking at this from the consumer point of view. But consumers provide income, not capital. Consumers may, or may not, have a choice of power providers. They can choose to "accept" what is on offer, or remove themselves from the grid. But they have very little negotiating power. Actually it's pretty easy for (residential and office consumers to spend their own capital on batteries and inverters. Most homes consume (or can be set to consume) reasonably low power at night. A 20 kw/h battery will cover most homes easily. (Solar panels aren't necessary for this.) The capital cost, and savings therefrom, put a hard limit on what suppliers can charge for night time power. And of course storage is just as attractive to suppliers. (More capital-attractive than say a nuclear plant.) As consumers we are used to simply announcing our needs. And assuming companies will expend any capital necessary to meet those needs. In practice it doesn't work that way, as rural phone/internet/cable consumers will testify. Once you see electricity generation as a capital issue, not a consumer issue, things get clearer.