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Originally Posted by Julio
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VPPs are just one way that "baseload" is not necessarily going to be the same in the future. Yes, there will be predictive loads (hospitals, some industry, etc) but with distributed assets and flexible loads we will see the transition to renewables much easier than now even without large grid storage.
Northern inland climates like Alberta will always be a bit tough because the seasons are quite pronounced and the temperature varies a lot, but for most of the population of the world, responding to price signals will give a lot of flexibility for the grid. Right now grid operators need to run with all kinds of safety margins because it's a bit of a guess work with renewables as you can't turn it up or down when you need to. Add in hundreds of thousands of individual inputs and outputs on the grid with distributed stuff and your begin to see why grid operators and utilities don't like the idea of everyone having solar and a battery. The good news is there are companies using large AI resources to find ways to manage grids with high penetrations of distributed resources like:
https://www.camus.energy/ .
As for overloaded distribution with high penetration distributed renewables and storage, this is where we're going to have to start using "smart" assets to manage the lower voltage systems or it's going to be a complete nightmare. It can be done, but it's going to require institutional re-learning. Traditionally, utilities needed to be slow moving and made large infrastructure plans from a top down model. When things become less predictable, you necessarily will have to start being more nimble and using new technologies to control ever more unpredictable power flows. I found this Dutch thread really enlightening (the translated version is pretty good):
https://twitter.com/user/status/1728427333491761474
Holland has some of the highest distributed PV in the world. Better to learn from their growing pains than having to figure it out yourself!