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160 points riordan | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.209s | 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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cbmuser ◴[] No.45958287[source]
Or just build out nuclear like France and pay just 20 Cents per kWh.

https://particulier.edf.fr/content/dam/2-Actifs/Documents/Of...

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1. rldjbpin ◴[] No.45963616[source]
does it matter much when in the end pricing is decided by merit-order system [1]? i.e. when you are dependent on other sources or neighbouring markets with very different composition.

not to say it is remains costlier than conventional sources, albeit not accounting for externalities.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merit_order