Energy storage of intermittently generated wind or solar electricity is important. But because there really hasn't been a good discussion of what the opponents to wind and solar mean by their term of 'base load', the present lack of storage may not be a factor in the near term.

'Bbase load' presently includes loads that are essential, plus loads that are not essential but exisit only because the economics work out in favor of using more energy rather than less energy. For commercial and industrial users, cheaper electric rates are offered to those users who can manage their loads to even out their day/nite or winter/summer usage. For example, a commercial building that has an extensive night time lighting system that operates when their daytime AC load is gone will have an electric rate advantage over some other customer without the night time light load, or without the daytime AC load.

To me, the term 'base load' presently includes loads that now exist only because the marginal generating cost for coal plants has been cheap. When the energy cost of fossil fuels rises sufficiently and the cost is passed on to consumers in higher bills, those consumers of electricity will quickly redefine their meaning of 'base load' in a way that shows that they have many loads which are really just intermittent loads that had previously been considered too cheap to bother turning off or managing. The technology to manage electric loads at the residential level already exists, and could be employed much more extensively than it is now.