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Originally Posted by WestCoastEcho
No, amazingly, the imports are coming from Alberta, with their coal and gas fired power plants.
The problem is that solar and wind are both intermittent sources of electricity; they don't provide a constant load throughout the day that would allow them to be the backbone of a power grid. That means you have other sources of power available, either via natural gas fired power plants, hydro, or the ability to import electricity from other jurisdictions to quickly backup solar and wind.
And because the power output can be highly variable, it creates planning problems to anticipate the amount of power being generated, and the ability to rapidly adjust to the changes in power supply from solar and wind to ensure that there's a balance in the power grid to prevent a brownout or an overload.
Because solar and wind create such problems in the power grid in regards to consistency, it also creates a demand for more reserve power availability to respond at a moment’s notice to ensure the grid remains balanced; this often means more natural gas fired power plants or hydro.
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Conventional hydro works great with intermittent sources. The reservoirs act as a big battery and the generators can be adjusted rapidly compared to thermal. Hydro systems are ultimately dependent on how much water can go through the turbines, so those intermittent sources allow for the water use to be deferred.
Most of our hydro dams only average something like 50% of the peak capacity. They would run out of water if they tried to produce their peak capacity all the time. Using wind/solar/whatever to satisfy some of the demand just means you get to save that peak capacity for when you need it.
Wind, RoR and solar could be expanded many times over in BC before we get into peaking issues. Even after our current system is maxed out, there's probably more pumped storage potential in BC than in most other parts of the world.