Solar not generating power at night is a good thing. Demand for electricity is lower at night, and turning on and off conventional power stations is not ideal. Solar helps level things out, meaning you need fewer conventional power stations to be built and kept in standby.
Not really much lower as you'd like to portray it. http://www.solstats.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/chart1...
Solar only works if you can produce energy and use it locally. As distance increases the energy loss is significant.
A LOT of the higher usage at night is due to the fact that night-time electricity is cheaper.
If you're going to run an aluminum smelting plant, for instance (uses TONS of electricity), it currently makes sense to run it full bore when electricity is cheapest - at night.
If daytime electricity were cheaper or even the same price, that graph would certainly look differently to how you're portraying it.
>Solar only works if you can produce energy and use it locally. As distance increases the energy loss is significant.
Much like with every other form of energy. Surplus solar gets exported right now - Germany sends it to France.
Mind you, both could be perfectly possible in the messed-up EEC energy market.
I think during summer they might import more too. During overcast and wind-free days, Germany is probably a net importer of France's excess nuclear power.
Demand is reduced almost by half at night.
That requires electricity, but those solar panels aren't going to be very effective when it is overcast and rainy.
Why not just go for getting a thorium reactor to work and then use them instead?
On stormy days, also, wind generators will be generating a lot more power than usual. They are more than likely capable of heating your blanket.
Although less efficient, power on days when intermittency is high can also be transferred from pumped water storage and from hundreds of miles away where it might be sunny and windy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_61400
I would imagine that high wind rating turbines are more expensive.
This is why I asked for figures on the overall effect - covering all models. I'm not seeing anything so far to convince me that its effect is more than negligible.
Good thing that wind turbine is going to be cranking. :-)