Did you know that electricity must be used the moment it’s generated? That’s right – electricity travels from the power plant, wind turbine or solar panel to your home in less than a second. It either gets used or keeps moving, because it physically doesn’t have the patience to hang around until you need it.

On a small scale, batteries have been our way of overcoming this quirk of physics; you can allow electricity to fill a battery with its power to be deployed when it’s needed. However, when it comes to power at a larger scale than smartphones or electric cars – say, the greater electric grid, for instance – batteries cannot yet keep up with the amount of electricity needed to power entire communities.

This is why baseload electricity is so important.

Baseload electricity comes from sources that operate continuously to meet regular power demand 24/7, like coal plants, natural gas plants and nuclear plants. Other sources, like wind turbines and solar panels, are more weather-dependent. If it’s nighttime or overcast, solar panels can’t produce much power. If the wind also isn’t blowing at that time, turbines also can’t produce power. If a grid system doesn’t have access to baseload power, electricity stops when the weather says so. Don’t get me wrong, renewables are, and should be, part of our energy mix, and we should approach energy solutions with an all technology on deck strategy.  

As more baseload power plants are being retired from the grid, we are relying on more weather-dependent energy sources to meet a growing demand for electricity. Grid operators and regulators are already sounding the alarm that a lack of stable baseload energy will make planning for future demand more difficult and will test the reliability of the electric grid sooner than we think. As a country built on reliable power, it’s a test we cannot fail.

Eventually, we may have utility-scale battery storage that lasts for longer than four hours, and the other technologies we need to further rely on weather-dependent energy resources. Until then, we must protect the baseload resources that keep our homes, businesses, schools, hospitals, farms, and our economy humming.

Jared