IIRC, California overproduces electricity during sunny summer days due to solar, but solar production drops in the evenings right when demand is peaking due to people getting home from work and cooking dinner and whatnot. There are better applications for that energy than desalination though - battery storage right now, and maybe running electrolyzers for green hydrogen production someday in the future.
Do we have numbers on how much electricity actually gets discarded (in a year)? Sure, we don’t use that much during the day. But I bet companies are happy electricity is cheaper during daytime when we work. And we can cut down on natural gas during the day. And use it for air condidioning specifically when it’s warm anyways. I wonder how much excess is actually left after all of that.
IIRC, California overproduces electricity during sunny summer days due to solar, but solar production drops in the evenings right when demand is peaking due to people getting home from work and cooking dinner and whatnot. There are better applications for that energy than desalination though - battery storage right now, and maybe running electrolyzers for green hydrogen production someday in the future.
Do we have numbers on how much electricity actually gets discarded (in a year)? Sure, we don’t use that much during the day. But I bet companies are happy electricity is cheaper during daytime when we work. And we can cut down on natural gas during the day. And use it for air condidioning specifically when it’s warm anyways. I wonder how much excess is actually left after all of that.