Posted on 04/23/2025 9:23:51 AM PDT by bigdaddy45
NEW YORK, April 22 (Reuters) - Power grid use in the far northeast United States registered an all-time low over the weekend as mild weather and rooftop solar panels slashed demand on the regional electrical system, grid operator ISO New England said on Tuesday.
The U.S. power grid is shifting as climate change, the rise of renewable electricity generation and the electrification of buildings and industries like transportation upend long-held supply and demand trends.
On April 20, power demand on the New England power grid dropped to 5,318 megawatts after three consecutive years of registering record lows, ISO New England, the grid operator, said in a statement. This record was more than 1,200 megawatts, or about 20%, lower than last year's. After reaching a trough in the afternoon, power demand more than doubled on the grid throughout the day as the sun set, rooftop solar energy diminished, and homes and business drew more power from the grid. At its peak on the day, so-called behind-the-meter solar peaked at about 6,600 megawatts.
"The trend toward more 'duck curve' days, when demand is lowest in the afternoon instead of overnight, illustrates the region’s changing resource mix, and the role different types of resources play over the course of a day," ISO New England said.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
“climate change”
Leftist propagandists think if they say it often enough it will stick.
That grift is so over...
Those solar panels produce a LOT of heat.
LOL...there may be less demand during daylight hours, but no change at night. There are NO utility-scale energy storage solutions.
So you need to build the same amount of capacity as if there was no daytime solar...IF you want to keep the lights and electric blanket on at night.
> same amount of capacity
Same capacity, less overall usage, somewhat lower operating costs.
But it’s more efficient to run at higher utilization, so cost per kilowatt hour goes up.
New England grid demand hits record low as industry flees in record numbers. /fixed
Panels on roof, block heat from attic spaces
Milder weather would seem to indicate less demand due to reduced heating requirements. Not because of rooftop solar. Then again, I did see a clip of algore bellowing his demand for less oil usage.
The problem with solar and wind is that it doesn’t really change overall planned grid capacity, but instead merely amplifies peaks and troughs.
On pleasant spring days, there will certainly be a great reduction in grid demand, with neither heating nor cooling needed, and localized home solar or wind providing much of the supply.
But on very hot, placid summer days, or very cold, dark snowy evenings - those people using “renewables” will expect to draw power from the grid, so that generating capacity has to be available - even if its used only part of the time.
Thus investment, building and total depreciation costs are the same, or even higher.
weather’s been nice and in the mid 60s - really good for this time of year.
Electric heat gets turned off
Why do I feel like this is misleading to the point of being total BS.
Meanwhile hydro, trash to energy and nuclear sources are essentially discouraged in the United States.
Don’t be silly. Nobody here in New England uses electricity at night.
Except to charge their cars. Watch TV. Keep the lights on.
We have plenty of electricity generated by solar panels, wind mills, Seabrook Nuclear power plant(50% of NH needs), wood burning plants, hydro electric dams(in Canada) and natural gas plants supplied by LNG coming into Boston.
It was an unseasonably warm and sunny weekend. Zero AC kicked in, so they got the best of the shoulder season.
Gotta luv them solar panels eh? 😂
Nice try, Reuters. However, you still get an F for many reasons. No use going further, you are all still mere journalists. Leave the real science to those who actually do it.
Uhmmmmm......That’s called “spring”. It’s most easily identified by that time of year where it’s not too cold, and not too warm. This writer would find that the gas usage in his car has dropped precipitously because he takes the metro bus to work every day, yet is puzzled on the phenomenon.
bingo
This time of year here in NH my furnace and pellet stove stop running. My AC is not running. Similar to mid/late September. This is the lowest time of the year for electricity demand.
Oh woopie.
Next they’ll be informing us of our windmill windfall.
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