Comment by ZeroGravitas
2 days ago
One of the good things about solar is the lack of a mismatch between solar production curve and human needs.
People use more energy during the day.
People, globally, use more energy in the summer.
This might not be intuitive if you live nearer the poles, but that's not representative of where the global population live.
And in some of those places, like California people obsesses about the "peak" that is left after you subtract all the solar energy, even if it's lower than the previous real peak.
Luckily that fake peak is immediately after sunset and so easily beaten with a small amount of battery, leaving a much cheaper and easier problem to solve as the peaks are really what drives electricity costs, dictating transmission size and standby capacity.
this is often repeated, but is not entirely true.
Peak electrical demand does not coincide with solar generation. Generally, peak demand is either early in the morning or the late afternoon, when solar production tapers. In order to make up the difference, you'd need a couple thousand megawatt-hours of battery capacity for most regions. You'd also need this to happen twice a day - either side of typical working hours.
This is true in Tokyo and Mumbai. Tokyo's data is here https://www.tepco.co.jp/en/forecast/html/calendar-e.html
Mumbai's peak electricity demand is typically in the late afternoon, when solar output starts to dip.
The solution to this is not more battery capacity, but varied power sources. Wind, solar, gas, nuclear, etc.
Your link shows that yesterday had the highest peak demand of the month and it was between 1-2pm.
Spot checking July 2019 the oldest year it had, it's peak day also had the peak at the same time.
Do we have different definitions of "late afternoon"?
I also don't understand the link's differentiation between "demand" and "usage", but "demand" is higher and nearer noon it seems.
It's also not clear if home solar is accounted for and is a factor. You'll see a "demand dip" when behind the meter solar is generating if you're only seeing the grid side of things. Some grids estimate and include it or call it out separately.