This is such an important issue that seems to be completely ignored, especially by the “electrify everything” crowd. Peak demand is going to switch from summer to winter, and to meet it,we will need a massive overbuilding of renewables - one study suggests “ All of our building electrification scenarios resulted in substantial increases in winter electrical demand, enough to switch the grid from summer to winter peaking. Meeting this peak with renewables would require a 28× increase in January wind generation, or a 303× increase in January solar, with excess generation in other months. Highly efficient building electrification can shrink this winter peak—requiring 4.5× more generation from wind and 36× more from solar.” Another energy export calls for massive buildouts of hydrogen infrastructure “stored in salt caverns, in pressure vessels, as a liquid in insulated tanks, or as ammonia. It will be moved around, cheaply via pipelines, or at a higher cost by ship, train, or truck. And it will need to be strategically positioned to cover the risk of supply shocks, whether they be the result of normal weather patterns, extreme weather events and natural disasters, conflict, terrorism or any other cause.” All of which can be replaced with efficiency, reducing demand and turning our buildings into thermal batteries.
This is such an important issue that seems to be completely ignored, especially by the “electrify everything” crowd. Peak demand is going to switch from summer to winter, and to meet it,we will need a massive overbuilding of renewables - one study suggests “ All of our building electrification scenarios resulted in substantial increases in winter electrical demand, enough to switch the grid from summer to winter peaking. Meeting this peak with renewables would require a 28× increase in January wind generation, or a 303× increase in January solar, with excess generation in other months. Highly efficient building electrification can shrink this winter peak—requiring 4.5× more generation from wind and 36× more from solar.” Another energy export calls for massive buildouts of hydrogen infrastructure “stored in salt caverns, in pressure vessels, as a liquid in insulated tanks, or as ammonia. It will be moved around, cheaply via pipelines, or at a higher cost by ship, train, or truck. And it will need to be strategically positioned to cover the risk of supply shocks, whether they be the result of normal weather patterns, extreme weather events and natural disasters, conflict, terrorism or any other cause.” All of which can be replaced with efficiency, reducing demand and turning our buildings into thermal batteries.