Comment Re:Incandescent will be best for the environment. (Score 2, Interesting) 278
No.
You have limited understanding of how electricity is generated (it's OK, so do I). Most of the first half of your post is correct. (It's the parenthesized part where you go off the rails.)
Not all power plants are base load (the ones you describe), the daily variation is taken up by 'dispatchable power'; plants with throttles. Those vary from hydro to combustion turbines (jet engines hooked to generators). Load following can't really be seen in hourly load graphs. It's all about instantaneous control and is a king kameahmeaha bitch. That's where you see the gigawatt resistors (at the end of transmission lines, to dump the reflection when it trips).
If base load is dumping power, a neighboring area almost always buys it. It happens very rarely, usually associated with very bad weather forecasting. Spinning reserve violations (not having enough extra power to cover any one plant falling down) are much, much more common then dump power. Solar helps with spinning reserve anywhere it makes sense (if you are winter/night peaking solar almost certainly makes no sense). If solar becomes truly economic it will change the peak for areas. Which will change power pricing. Lock your surplus power buyer into a rate if you can.