The merit order is a way of ranking available sources of energy, especially electrical generation, in ascending order of their short-run marginal costs of production, so that those with the lowest marginal costs are the first ones to be brought online to meet demand, and the plants with the highest marginal costs are the last to be brought on line.
Read more about Merit Order: The Merit Order in The British Electricity Market, The Effect of Renewable Energy On Merit Order, The Effect of Intermittency On Merit Order
Famous quotes containing the words merit and/or order:
“But the mark of American merit in painting, in sculpture, in poetry, in fiction, in eloquence, seems to be a certain grace without grandeur, and itself not new but derivative; a vase of fair outline, but empty,—which whoso sees, may fill with what wit and character is in him, but which does not, like the charged cloud, overflow with terrible beauty, and emit lightnings on all beholders.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“It is only because a person has volitions of the second order that he is capable both of enjoying and of lacking freedom of the will.”
—Harry Gordon Frankfurt (b. 1929)