[Wally_Kalbacken]

The fundamental problem in electricity production and distribution is coincident demand. Too many people want to use electricity at the same time. What seems crazy about this is really not so crazy at all - you want to store power (potential) so you have it to overlay (other production methods) during peak power demand hours.

Likewise the fundamental problem with a power generation technology like wind is it has no necessary coincidence with the demand for electricity. And with vehicles like the Chevy Volt - you have limited range (which might cause people to charge them at work (adding to coincident demand) and commuting patterns that make overnight only charging impractical.

With electricity - it’s not what people demand it is when they demand it that creates the fundamental problem.

[muawiyah]

Down the road we'll get some relief to the problem when we have devices in line with our major appliances that regulate power demand, not just an on/off switch.

An example ~ your A/C is running. You are not running in and out and nobody is at home, yet, you don't want to come home to a hot steamy jungle that takes 6 hours to cool that evening. The A/C controller could switch over to a Relative Value of 10 degrees less than outside ambient rather than running on the Absolute Value of 70 degrees.

Your washer/dryer could easily be regulated to deal with variable power requirements depending on humidity levels (hey, mine already does eh).

All of our expensive LED lighting systems could be made even more efficient with simple motion detectors (turning them off when no one is around).

And so forth.

[loungitude]

I think that you did not mean to respond to me. I just pointed out that it is not new technology. I understand it clearly and do not think that it is crazy in any way.

[bigbob]

Exactly right. A peaker plant operates on the marginal rate difference, essentially time-shifting energy from off-peak production to times when demand (and thus wholesale cost) is highest. I’d like to see analysis of a wind-hydro peaker, in which wind would be used to pump water into a reservoir which would then be used to drive a hydro to produce electricity when needed. It seems vastly simpler and with much greater capacity than electrical methods, e.g. capacitor or battery banks.