Since it was determined that electricity could be produced from the sun, the electrical industry has lagged behind in not considering it not as a viable addition to its production fleet. However, two facts should be kept in mind when it comes to the electricity sector. The first thing to remember is that electricity must be provided to their customers regardless of the weather or time of day. Second, power companies are like any other business; their job is to make money. Due to these two facts, solar energy, in its current technological state, has no place in the current production fleet of the electricity industry. The figure on the right shows the load on a typical weekday in summer. There are two notable peaks from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. and from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. The first spike is due to people getting up for work and going through their normal morning routine at the same time. The second peak is when people come home from work and turn on the TV, air conditioning, make dinner, etc. During these two sharp peaks, the generation still has to meet both of these demands. Generation can be seen in two different ways. The first being the most obvious way to separate the types according to the source of production (nuclear, coal, natural gas, diesel, hydroelectric). The second way to view production is to classify it based on duration and daily production capacity. Nuclear, steam and combined cycle power plants operate 24/7 and take into account the base load of a system. They only stop due to breakdowns, both planned and unplanned. These factories do not shut down on a daily basis because they are long processes to follow both during shutdown and during startup. Some startup routines can last up to a week. Looking at middle of paper......like UPS for critical customers (hospitals, fire stations and police stations). However, using solar energy at a residential level poses a tricky situation for utilities. The use of solar energy at a residential level is theoretically the biggest competitor to power companies in the future. In the future, solar power could be an effective addition to power companies' fleets to help meet peak hour demand, but without advances in solar panel efficiency and battery storage, solar energy has no place in the electricity industry. theenergycollective.com/jemillerep/178096/expanded-wind-and-solar-power-increase-need-natural-gas http://nuclear.duke-energy.com/2013/06 http://www.duke-energy. com/commercial-renewables/washington-white-post.asp http://www.nccoast.org/Article.aspx?k=5bf5f271-88de-4d76-a53f-2fd2f106a73a http://www.denverncnews.com/?p=3998