This all feels like a buffering problem. Can power companies not just buy big batteries... you wouldn't even need that many, just enough to signal generators to do the right thing.
(Also no idea all the gadgets in-between house and generators, but assuming all the gadgets can handle load going in and out)
And there are other approaches to power storage. Thermal power storage is popular / useful with large solar installations. Hydro dams associated with a reservoir often have pumped storage where they can pump water back into the reservoir and then use it when its needed.
The signaling and frequency matching is still an issue.
I recall a company I worked at in California had two sets of generators. They had a diesel emergency generator for the data center and also a set of natural gas generators to cut down on power costs (when the price went high). The issue with the natural gas ones is that they needed something else to provide the utility frequency, something about them not being stable/consistent on their own.
> An electrical power system containing a 10% contribution from PV stations would require a 2.5% increase in load frequency control (LFC) capacity over a conventional system an issue which may be countered by using synchronverters in the DC/AC-circuit of the PV system. The break-even cost for PV power generation was in 1996 found to be relatively high for contribution levels of less than 10%. While higher proportions of PV power generation give lower break-even costs, economic and LFC considerations impose an upper limit of about 10% on PV contributions to the overall power systems.
The key point to this is that if solar power is increased, then the grid as a whole needs to also increase its power to get back in control of the load frequency. That is likely what you're seeing. By itself, this storage isn't sufficient for answering that issue. Ideally, the solar systems would have their own local batteries and respond as part of a smart grid to contribute according to the load frequency. ... But that costs more money for the installation and consumers are hesitant to do that.
Very true. If you're pushing power out onto the grid, you're no longer a consumer but rather a producer and there are other issues that come into play.
Twenty, thirty years ago the amount of power from rooftop installations being pushed out onto the grid was minimal compared to the size of the grid and it wasn't an issue.
If you had an energy producer that was producing 10% of the power and doing significant swings in its production without participating on the wholesale energy market (and not signaling those swings)... the regulators would have shut them down.
But when you've got 10,000 people each contributing 0.001% of the grid power (and all having the same swings)... and not participating on the wholesale market and not signaling their swings, that can be disruptive (and damaging).
(Also no idea all the gadgets in-between house and generators, but assuming all the gadgets can handle load going in and out)