As noted in this column earlier (here), the existence of “hidden” or behind-the-meter solar has changed the shape of electricity demand in New England. It creates what is known in the industry as a duck curve, because the 24-hour chart looks vaguely duck-ish, if you don’t know what a duck looks like.
ISO-New England, the folks who run the six-state grid, had a little fun with this phenomenon in a press release that discussed how on two recent sunny days the electricity demand in mid-afternoon dipped below the demand in the middle of the night.
The press release headline? “Quack! Quack! New England sees back-to-back afternoon demand lows”
The release said these were the fifth and sixth time that this once-unknown phenomenon of midday demand lulls had happened.
Now if we could only store that energy for use other times of the day. Anyone out there with a Tesla Power Wall yet??
No Power Wall here, but we do have a 12kW sonnenBatterie ECO (https://sonnenusa.com/en/sonnenbatterie/) unit.