A Fox's Daybook

California started a program to make solar panels more affordable by offering very low interest rates for solar panels, to allow people to benefit from their lifetime $/energy cost that's below fossil fuels, without having to worry about the high frontloaded cost. However they did not do this for batteries. And power grid quality batteries with massive energy storage and serious charge-discharge lifetimes, are expensive.

And they did this because while solar panels are cheaper than fossil fuels per kilowatt hour of electricity over their lifetime, solar panels plus batteries are not. And California wanted a supplemented free market solution and didn't really want to think about the part that direct government intervention in the form of taxation and paying for this change would be necessary.

So everyone in California just kept adding solar panels to the grid with no disconnect mechanisms, until eventually it hit a point where at noon, solar panels generated more power than the entire grid needed. With no batteries to store the excess. This is a motherfucking power grid killer. It is a scenario where people get left in the fucking dark for months because of how badly it destroys the powergrid.

So the power grid authorities did the only thing they could do. They called up every industrial plant with heavy duty equipment and ovens they could and paid them to turn it on full blast (because using that equipment costs money in wear and tear even without the electricity cost). And in doing so, avoided disaster.

(image credit Energy.gov)

This curve describes power loading on the electrical grid during a high-solar-energy, low-solar-power day (a typical day in California for example). As seen, the load reaches its lowest point at approximately 1-2 PM, which is peek solar hours - at this point certain electrical providers will actually drop their price per kilowatt hour to encourage people to use power less their infrastructure be damaged. then at approximately 5-8 PM the energy consumption MASSIVELY increases - this is when people go home for the day, turn on their AC, stove, and whatnot, just as solar power is waning, causing the large overloading ramp.

This curve tells us a few things:

Prime time to consume power in high-solar areas is at peak solar, avoid consuming power later on if possible (an individual person won't contribute overmuch to this, but the load increase has been proven to come from the residential power sector as a whole).

Practical energy storage solutions must be implemented alongside solar generation else this effect will only get worse and worse - the average Californian grid engineer is a nervous wreak over this since its only a matter of time before the whole grid goes down because of it. Practical methods include pumped hydro (not great in drought areas, but an effective bulk storage method), flywheel storage, and MAYBE batteries (specifically redux-flow batteries - shipping-container sized batteries that may not store a lot of energy, but they are safer more ecologically viable than lithium ion)

Failing energy storage solutions, other forms of power need to be implemented alongside solar - solar is what is known as a non-dispatchable energy source - meaning that its power output can't (generally) be user-adjusted - so however much power it creates is put on the grid (other forms of non-dispatchable power include wind and some wave energy). To "smooth" the duck curve, solar installations could be replaced with either dispatchable power (hydropower, any steam-turbine based reactor, geothermal, etc) or dispatchable power that operates at different peak hours.

A final option is to implement variable loads - mass loads that turn on during solar peak hours and are off at other times. This is less than ideal since it doesn't really solve the issue, just hides it, but it does mean more consistent loading that hopefully the CAISO (California independent system operator) will interpret as greater demand for more redundant lines. Practical uses for this energy include desalinization plants, electrolysis for hydrogen fuel production, or a big siren that blares "California is experiencing technical difficulties, please stand by"

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