Something that works only during certain times of day and weather is not reliabl... | Hacker News

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		nimos on Sept 9, 2016 \| parent \| context \| favorite \| on: Costa Rica has gone 76 days using 100% renewable e... Something that works only during certain times of day and weather is not reliable from the perspective of generating electricity. The fact that your solar installation is in good working condition means it works reliably but that doesn't make it a reliable source of electricity. Whether or not something is a reliable source of electricity or works reliably are two separate things and OP is talking about the latter. Can I flip a light switch at any time and reasonably expect solar to provide me electricity? No. Then it's not reliable source of electricity.

msisk6 on Sept 9, 2016 | [–]

From a grid scale perspective, reliability means it can be scheduled for a certain amount of energy. In some areas solar is very reliable.

Gas, coal, and nuke generation goes down for maintenance all the time. But if it can be scheduled so energy demand is met all is good.

snovv_crash on Sept 9, 2016 | [–]

Maybe not reliable, but very predictable.

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