this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2024
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If the excess energy cannot be stored, it should be used for something energy intensive like desalination or carbon capture.
Heck pumping water uphill for all I care. The more potential energy the better.
Many places actually do pump water uphill into reservoir lakes for hydroelectric dams. In that case it is a form of energy storage, a literal water battery.
Unfortunately, it's not always a feasible option. For instance, in the great planes there's not much of an uphill to pump the water to.
I've seen some interesting ideas from Low Tech Magazine - one that I found particularly interesting was flywheel energy storage. Take a heavy disk or drum and spin it up with excess electricity, then discharge the spin from the battery when the Sun goes down.
Make hydrogen?
Yes we need more long time energy storage. It helps to balance the energy grid and it helps for days when not enough energy is produced. Batteries aren't really the answer, but pumping water uphill might be.
Hydrogen production
Bitcoin mining
Aluminium Smelting and recycling.
A giant laser to carve my portrait on the moon
That would make more sense than "Bitcoin mining" at least. Go for it!
Or just fill debts. Overclock every air conditioner freezer and industrial coolant system for those hours, store that not-heat. Do cpu intensive processes, time industrial machinery to be active during those hours, Sure, desalination, but pumped hydro(even just on a residential scale, more water towers, dammit!) or... Anything.
OR we could just decline to build them because they're... Sometimes too good to make a profit off of?
Even simpler than that - set your house to heat or cool based on the timing of the cheap energy (as explained by Technology Connections)
Or heck, have fun with it. It's leftover
Or worst case, power some down. Excess electricity that can’t be used is a problem, it’s just that while solar may not be the easiest energy source to fix that problem with, it’s probably the second easiest behind wind. You can literally put retractable awnings over solar panels if you need to
Or lcd, fewer moving parts. That is quite an easy solution
Shit I’d never even considered using liquid crystals to modulate shading. And you could probably make it fail safe.
Like a Phase Plasma Rifle with a 40-Watt range.
You mean just juice your veins?
Subsidized ElectroBoom videos 🤑
Kinky