Base load is the minimum power necessary to meet customer demands at any given time. It is energy that must be there when a customer turns on a computer, lights, or refrigerator whether or not the sun is shining or the wind is blowing. Coal has been the traditional base load power supply.
Without sufficient levels of locally produced renewable energy, Aspen cannot provide reliable, clean and sustainable base load to the system into the future, and must instead rely upon supplemental purchases of costly, and non-local sources of energy which can be dirty or unreliable.
These are the "holy grail" of base load renewables:
- Hydropower
- Geothermal
- Biomass