logoalt Hacker News

lucb1eyesterday at 11:47 PM0 repliesview on HN

(It's past the edit/deletion window for my other comment, so placing a new one to reply to the edit)

Sure, but they're not infinitely large. I realized that it would be more accurate to mention this and edited that into the sentence after the one you quoted (you probably saw only the earlier version -- fair enough!), but either way, the average power consumption needs to be above the average water flow for it to not be 'wasted' (when the electric dam is already there anyway) so that part is basically free energy which we might as well use

Like, when electricity prices are negative in my area, I'm charging my EV (albeit a tiny one) no matter if I'm planning to drive tomorrow because there is a surplus anyhow and there might not be one when I want to charge next. Even without dynamic pricing, it costs me the same 35ct/kWh but there's just no reason not to, that I know of, until demand exceeds supply again. Even if they never shut down the coal plants (even during the heart of summer) and some of my electrons will be from coal, afaik every additional Wh used will come from the renewables rather than (like at night when the renewables have a fixed maximum supply) from the coal/gas plants. We don't have enough hydro storage around here to store even a single night's supply