Join us today for the third leg of Ars UNITE, our week-long virtual conference on the ways that innovation brings unusual pairings together. Today, we're focusing on the future of solar energy. The unusual pairing here is the new tech of renewable power getting mashed up with the old-school economics of the grid. We'll be talking about the future of the grid, storage, and more on our YouTube channel at 1pm Eastern time.
As we described in our feature, the grid, both physically and economically, was built based on a couple of assumptions. One is that the energy sources on it would have inertia. That typically comes in the form of generators, which contain large chunks of spinning metal. As the amount of power on the grid fluctuates with changes in supply and demand, the inertia of these spinning objects slows down the fluctuations, helping keep the grid stable and allowing its operators time to respond.
The second assumption is that power sources on the grid would always have a minimum price for the power they generate. For fossil fuel plants, this is simply set by the price of the fuel and the average cost of maintenance.
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