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160 points riordan | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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bryanlarsen ◴[] No.45955571[source]
Baseload generation is useless in 2025. It's in the name; it's called "base load", not "base generation".

Base generation was a cost optimization. Planners noticed that load never dropped below a specific level, and that cheapest power was from a plant designed to run 100% of the time rather than one designed to turn on and off frequently. So they could reduce cost by building a mix of base and peaker generation plants.

In 2025, that's no longer the case. The cheapest power is solar & wind, which produces power intermittently. And the next cheapest power is dispatchable.

To take advantage of this cheap intermittent power, we need a way to provide power when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing. Which is provided by storage and/or peaker plants.

That's what we need. If added non-dispatchable power to that mix than we're displacing cheap solar/wind with more expensive mix, and still not eliminating the need for further storage/peaker plants.

If non-dispatchable power is significantly cheaper than storage and/or peaker power than it's useful in a modern grid. That's not the case in 2025. The next cheapest power is natural gas, and it's dispatchable. If you restrict to clean options, storage & geographical diversity is cheaper than other options. Batteries for short term storage and pumped hydro for long term storage.

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XorNot ◴[] No.45957289[source]
In 2025 the power consumption of my state (NSW, Australia) on any given day will be greater then 5 GW. https://www.aemo.com.au/energy-systems/electricity/national-...

This "there is no base load" idea is a ridiculous myth trivially disproven: every grid on the planet has continuous demands on it and they're quite significant (5 GW is about 50% the day time peaks).

It doesn't matter what the cost is, because later this evening or tomorrow morning I can guarantee you the same thing: my state will need at least 5GW of power to literally keep the lights on.

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1. fulafel ◴[] No.45961130[source]
> my state will need at least 5GW of power to literally keep the lights on.

I think this abstraction is missing the elasticity of demand that can by unlocked by end-to-end dynamic pricing. Probably if the production was cut in half for some day, and hourly price hiked up until demand matches production, customers would still choose to keep most of the lighting while postponing some more energy intensive loads.