Economics
High peak loads drive the capital expenditures of the electricity generation industry. The industry meets these peak loads with low-efficiency peaking power plants, usually gas turbines, which have lower capital costs and, since the recent drop in natural gas prices have low fuel costs as well. A kilowatt-hour of electricity consumed at night can be produced at much lower marginal cost. Utilities have begun to pass these lower costs to consumers, in the form of Time of Use (TOU) rates, or Real Time Pricing (RTP) Rates. Stored solar thermal energy has the potential to provide cheaper peak-demand power than any other energy source.
Read more about this topic: Thermal Energy Storage
Famous quotes containing the word economics:
“The animals that depend on instinct have an inherent knowledge of the laws of economics and of how to apply them; Man, with his powers of reason, has reduced economics to the level of a farce which is at once funnier and more tragic than Tobacco Road.”
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
“I am not prepared to accept the economics of a housewife.”
—Jacques Chirac (b. 1932)
“The new sound-sphere is global. It ripples at great speed across languages, ideologies, frontiers and races.... The economics of this musical esperanto is staggering. Rock and pop breed concentric worlds of fashion, setting and life-style. Popular music has brought with it sociologies of private and public manner, of group solidarity. The politics of Eden come loud.”
—George Steiner (b. 1929)