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I feel like this is one of the biggest missed opportunities. Why do we insist on our energy system to be infinitely flexible and full power available 24/7? Is a

I feel like this is one of the biggest missed opportunities. Why do we insist on our energy system to be infinitely flexible and full power available 24/7? Is a habit of doing the laundry at night worth more than additional millions of tons of CO2 in the atmosphere? I understand convenience, laziness and inertia (resisting change) but I also think changing the times when we click "power on" is a simpler solution than mining millions of tons of more lithium, no?

zdragnar 3y ago
You would have to retrofit every residence to handle daily brownouts (circuits for lights, furnaces and medical equipment stay on, everything else off). You would have to completely rebuild most of the manufacturing industry, as many plants have startup times measured in hours or days. It'd be cheaper to just build nuclear.
- awestroke 3y ago
  Industry uses most of the energy. The industry is already moving towards their own price optimizing energy usage and/or storage.
pjc50 3y ago
Like computing, having high uptime has a value all its own compared to an unreliable system. Countries which do have regular brownouts you find people buying their own (inefficient, polluting) generators to get round it. Smart demand-response may yet become a thing, but it's not yet a commodity product. You need a system to send out "turn off" notifications, and a system for measuring that in realtime, and a system for paying people. Some grids _do_ have this, but only for very large consumers.
- bluGill 3y ago
  Many grids do have this for normal residences, but it only covers your air conditioner not everything (and maybe water heater). By running your AC on half duty cycle all day your house still stays cool enough and they are able to reduce substantial peak demand. For most people HVAC and water heating are the two biggest demands, and also ones where simple management can result in a substantial changes in demand without affecting your comfort.
  - badtension 3y ago
    Making thermostats that are aware of dynamic energy pricing or, better yet, are in part controlled by the energy company (I want my house to be 21-24 C, I don't care when the cooling happens) would give us massive flexibility. All power hungry devices should at least have that capability (maybe other than the kettle, lol). This is literally a cost of $20 hardware in many cases.
    - bluGill 3y ago
      In most houses the HVAC and water heater are the only devices that the user can accept not being in full control. Everything else is like the kettle: when you turn it on you want it on now.
adwn 3y ago
> Why do we insist on our energy system to be infinitely flexible and full power available 24/7? I like to heat my home during winter. We have a (modern, highly efficient) heat pump, so we need most electricity during January, just when the least amount of solar insolation is available [1] and when it sometimes stays cloudy and below 0°C continuously for days. But I guess we'll just have to be more flexible and turn off heating, light, and electricity in general for a week, no big deal. [1] I wonder if there's a causal relation between cold weather and low solar insolation?
- lazide 3y ago
  Regarding [1] - are you being sarcastic?
  - adwn 3y ago
    Is that a serious question?
    - lazide 3y ago
      Yes. The dominant (essentially only at the surface) source of heat on the planet is the Sun? When would insolation NOT correlate with temperature?
      - adwn 3y ago
        Of course it was sarcasm. I meant to highlight the major problem for using renewables for heating: you'll need most of the power when the least amount of daily solar insolation is available – in winter. This means you either need a lot of storage capacity, or a lot of transfer capacity from far away places, to cover several days of dunkelflaute [1]. This problem is solvable, but it's hard and expensive to solve in practice. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkelflaute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkelflaute
        lazide 3y ago
        I couldn’t tell because many people make arguments (or imply) that it doesn’t matter with an apparently straight face all the time! Including large scale gov’t programs. Including other comments on this exact thread where people did exactly that.
digging 3y ago
It's often >90 degrees Fahrenheit at night in for months on end where I live, and houses are built cheaply and in a style completely unfitting a hot climate (that is, thin walls, dark roofs, fully aboveground, thoughtless window placement, etc. Standard American Dumbass style). It's unhealthy to sleep in these conditions without AC, even fatal for some. So yes, we could survive without power at night. We just have to rebuild every building. As a long-term ideal I don't disagree with you. We should be building for resilience. But that's not a solution to climate change.
adrianN 3y ago
Demand shaping is part of the plan, but opportunities are currently limited. For most applications demand can only be shifted by a short time.
- badtension 3y ago
  Water heating, AC, fridges and freezers, maybe even EV charging (in some cases) could be done at any time during the 24 hour period, if setup with proper hysteresis.
  - adrianN 3y ago
    Shifting some load by a couple of hours is indeed often possible, shifting it by 12 hours is already difficult.
    - badtension 3y ago
      Interesting, I would have thought in many cases it is maybe not trivial, but easily doable at worst. Do you have some personal experience with that?
      - adrianN 3y ago
        A friend is working at Siemens R&D on this topic.

zdragnar 3y ago

You would have to retrofit every residence to handle daily brownouts (circuits for lights, furnaces and medical equipment stay on, everything else off). You would have to completely rebuild most of the manufacturing industry, as many plants have startup times measured in hours or days. It'd be cheaper to just build nuclear.

awestroke 3y ago
Industry uses most of the energy. The industry is already moving towards their own price optimizing energy usage and/or storage.

pjc50 3y ago

Like computing, having high uptime has a value all its own compared to an unreliable system. Countries which do have regular brownouts you find people buying their own (inefficient, polluting) generators to get round it. Smart demand-response may yet become a thing, but it's not yet a commodity product. You need a system to send out "turn off" notifications, and a system for measuring that in realtime, and a system for paying people. Some grids _do_ have this, but only for very large consumers.

bluGill 3y ago
Many grids do have this for normal residences, but it only covers your air conditioner not everything (and maybe water heater). By running your AC on half duty cycle all day your house still stays cool enough and they are able to reduce substantial peak demand. For most people HVAC and water heating are the two biggest demands, and also ones where simple management can result in a substantial changes in demand without affecting your comfort.
- badtension 3y ago
  Making thermostats that are aware of dynamic energy pricing or, better yet, are in part controlled by the energy company (I want my house to be 21-24 C, I don't care when the cooling happens) would give us massive flexibility. All power hungry devices should at least have that capability (maybe other than the kettle, lol). This is literally a cost of $20 hardware in many cases.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    In most houses the HVAC and water heater are the only devices that the user can accept not being in full control. Everything else is like the kettle: when you turn it on you want it on now.

adwn 3y ago

> Why do we insist on our energy system to be infinitely flexible and full power available 24/7? I like to heat my home during winter. We have a (modern, highly efficient) heat pump, so we need most electricity during January, just when the least amount of solar insolation is available [1] and when it sometimes stays cloudy and below 0°C continuously for days. But I guess we'll just have to be more flexible and turn off heating, light, and electricity in general for a week, no big deal. [1] I wonder if there's a causal relation between cold weather and low solar insolation?

lazide 3y ago
Regarding [1] - are you being sarcastic?
- adwn 3y ago
  Is that a serious question?
  - lazide 3y ago
    Yes. The dominant (essentially only at the surface) source of heat on the planet is the Sun? When would insolation NOT correlate with temperature?
    - adwn 3y ago
      Of course it was sarcasm. I meant to highlight the major problem for using renewables for heating: you'll need most of the power when the least amount of daily solar insolation is available – in winter. This means you either need a lot of storage capacity, or a lot of transfer capacity from far away places, to cover several days of dunkelflaute [1]. This problem is solvable, but it's hard and expensive to solve in practice. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkelflaute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkelflaute
      - lazide 3y ago
        I couldn’t tell because many people make arguments (or imply) that it doesn’t matter with an apparently straight face all the time! Including large scale gov’t programs. Including other comments on this exact thread where people did exactly that.

digging 3y ago

It's often >90 degrees Fahrenheit at night in for months on end where I live, and houses are built cheaply and in a style completely unfitting a hot climate (that is, thin walls, dark roofs, fully aboveground, thoughtless window placement, etc. Standard American Dumbass style). It's unhealthy to sleep in these conditions without AC, even fatal for some. So yes, we could survive without power at night. We just have to rebuild every building. As a long-term ideal I don't disagree with you. We should be building for resilience. But that's not a solution to climate change.

adrianN 3y ago

Demand shaping is part of the plan, but opportunities are currently limited. For most applications demand can only be shifted by a short time.

badtension 3y ago
Water heating, AC, fridges and freezers, maybe even EV charging (in some cases) could be done at any time during the 24 hour period, if setup with proper hysteresis.
- adrianN 3y ago
  Shifting some load by a couple of hours is indeed often possible, shifting it by 12 hours is already difficult.
  - badtension 3y ago
    Interesting, I would have thought in many cases it is maybe not trivial, but easily doable at worst. Do you have some personal experience with that?
    - adrianN 3y ago
      A friend is working at Siemens R&D on this topic.