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RE: Promises promises
By porkpie on 3/22/2010 5:57:53 PM , Rating: 2
Your electric company is in NC. Locations that currently have higher peak energy demand at night are in northern (and thus very cold) locations. Also remember that northerly climes tend to get a much higher percentage of their total energy needs from oil and gas heating, rather than electric heat pumps (which are less efficient as ambient temperature drops).

But that's a side issue. The real point is that any serious usage of solar power would reverse the situation, causing night time demand to be greater than day.

And yes, while that would still reduce coal and oil usage, it can't make a very large dent in it. The only thing that can is nuclear...and if we have to build nuclear plants anyway, its far cheaper and more sensible to run them during the day, as well as the night.

Conclusion? Even if we solve the cost problems, solar is really only viable for a peak-shaving approach, rather than substantially filling our energy needs.

