Germany’s solar power suppliers are destabilizing big power companies.

> Until researchers can find a way to store energy at a large scale, coal and nuclear plants—which can’t simply be switched on and off at will—must be kept running to guarantee a steady stream of electricity when the sun isn’t shining.

This is simply wrong – natural gas plants can already be switched off and on in a matter of minutes to secure appropriate supplies in case the sun isn’t shining anywhere AND there is no wind whatsoever. There is absolutely no need for nuclear or even coal plants as a ‘steady stream of electricity’ (though fusion is still pretty cool :)).

SMA, a big German inverter company, shows the daily amount of PV generated in the country. Today, they hit nearly 18 GW. I'll bet they have at least one 30 GW day this year, once the sun finally comes out.

http://www.sma.de/en/company/pv-electricity-produced-in-germ...

The real problem is the battery. It is not improving as fast as everything else...

If this is really such a large problem for the companies, they should switch to setting rates based on real-time availability rather than traditional peak hours.

Who cares? That's what disruptive innovations do. They destabilize and mostly eliminate the incumbents. The future is everyone having their own energy source at home, fully decentralized, without the need for "power companies". I'm thinking even beyond solar here, although solar will definitely be the majority of this in the next few decades.

German energy prices are like 2$ KW/h or one of the most expensive in the world. Its not hard to disrupt that when put in context