This is super cool! For California, my understanding (from PG&E materials) was that highest demand and carbon intensity was around 3pm to 9pm. The graph here seems to show that even though demand/supply is smaller at night, we have very little non-solar renewables so that carbon intensity is pretty bad all night as well... If that's true, I'm curious why PG&E makes it sound like electricity use at night is not as bad. Do they anticipate bringing more wind online and are trying to get ahead with the messaging to the public?
You have a different definition of “bad” than PG&E. You are trying to minimize the release of CO2, they are trying to minimize the spending of dollars. As a huge generalization, building a power plant is more expensive than running it, so being able to run it 24/7 is generally more profitable than having to use “peaker” plants that are only running and profiting from 4-9pm.
In the industry the "duck curve" drives a lot of decision making and messaging around the grid in California.
Energy use late at night is not as bad, because there's less of it used. It's the 3-9pm (Usually I hear 4-9, but same thing) hours when solar supply drops off and demand peaks at the same time that they are speaking about. People plugging in cars to L2 chargers when they get home, lights all go on, AC on, etc. It's usually just talked about in the context of grid availability, not so much with GHG emissions, but things are changing in that direction as regulations continue to change.
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