Posted on 04/22/2024 7:51:20 PM PDT by yesthatjallen
In sunny California, solar panels are everywhere. They sit in dry, desert landscapes in the Central Valley and are scattered over rooftops in Los Angeles’s urban center. By last count, the state had nearly 47 gigawatts of solar power installed — enough to power 13.9 million homes and provide over a quarter of the Golden State’s electricity.
But now, the state and its grid operator are grappling with a strange reality: There is so much solar on the grid that, on sunny spring days when there’s not as much demand, electricity prices go negative. Gigawatts of solar are “curtailed” — essentially, thrown away.
In response, California has cut back incentives for rooftop solar and slowed the pace of installing panels. But the diminishing economic returns may slow the development of solar in a state that has tried to move to renewable energy. And as other states build more and more solar plants of their own, they may soon face the same problems.
“These are not insurmountable challenges,” said Michelle Davis, head of global solar at the energy research and consulting firm Wood Mackenzie Power and Renewables. “But they are challenges that a lot of grid operators have never had to deal with.”
Solar power has many wonderful properties — once built, it costs almost nothing to run; it produces no air pollution and generates energy without burning fossil fuels. But it also has one major, obvious drawback: The sun doesn’t shine all the time.
SNIP
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
It reduces reliability rather than improving it.
I have so far a little over 2KW of electric panels, AGM deep cycle batteries and several Victron charge controllers.
I have everything to do with communications off the grid and my System 2000 boiler off grid.
I charge my power tool, lawnmower, phones, laptop, tablets and Kindle off grid.
The REAL difference in energy use is heating our hot water and some of the house with solar.
That is easily and relatively cheaply stored in an insulated tank.
We have an induction range and two self installed Mr. Cool mini-splits, so we may never get entirely off the grid.
Those mini splits are so efficient, our overall heating bill in northern NH, even with the price of electricity doubled last year and high heating oil prices is 1/3 to 1/2 less than before, keeping the house as warm or warmer.
There's their problem. They should have put their Green Energy plans where the sun doesn't shine.
Batteries?
So “free energy” is great and all, except ain’t nobody gonna make any money!
This from the Department of the Interior website. That’s something for a desert!
More than 250 different crops are grown in the Central Valley with an estimated value of $17 billion per year
Approximately 75% of the irrigated land in California and 17% of the Nation’s irrigated land is in the Central Valley
Using fewer than 1% of U.S. farmland, the Central Valley supplies 8% of U.S. agricultural output (by value) and produces 1/4 of the Nation’s food, including 40% of the Nation’s fruits, nuts, and other table foods.
The predominate crop types are cereal grains, hay, cotton, tomatoes, vegetables, citrus, tree fruits, nuts, table grapes, and wine grapes.
Just like the water conservation crap.
And the state wants to add a tax on electricity based on income. 😱💩🖕
Grid operators are used to dispatchable power where they can take bids for more power (offer a higher price) or stop taking bids (offer a very low price).They have not had to deal with the irrationality of an energy source that goes off every night, goes off when it gets cloudy, and frequently makes peak power just when you don't need it (mid day in spring and fall).
Trying to integrate such an energy source into the system is close to impossible.
Ms. Davis, you say these are not insurmountable challenges. Please explain how you propose to surmount these challenges? You need huge, economical energy storage systems which do not exist and won't ever exist.
Hey its the wash post what do they know about calif
Sorry, but there is no such thing as a “fossil fuel.” Petroleum, yes.
Idiots.
They could sell excess capacity to surriunding states. Just morons.
Exactly.
Yes. Shows the ignorance of our most prestigious journalistic institutions.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. During the 1973 oil embargo our local utility company, Orange & Rockland encouraged everyone to cut down on their gas and electric usage. I remember in the fall helping my dad put up clear plastic sheets over the windows to cut down on drafts. My mom set the thermostat on 68, and warned us in no uncertain terms to keep our hands off of it. Like many of our neighbors our next utility bill was significantly lower than usual. A few days later their spokeswoman, Linda Winikow, (who the local feminists were grooming to be the 1st woman Gov of NY, and she would have a good shot if not for a nasty scandal she was involved with) announced on the local radio station, with a straight face that O&R will raise electric and gas rates due to LOWER REVENUES CAUSED BY PEOPLE CURTAILING THEIR UTILIES USAGE. Even as a young skull full of mush I realized early on what racket the eco BS is.
Well, and apparently the occasionally hail storm.
Gravity power: You have surplus electricity? Pump water into a reservoir with a hydroelectric dam. When you need electricity, run the water back out through a hydroelectric generator.
Thermal: I read about one plant that uses geothermal heat to make steam and generate electricity in a power plant. They store excess heat in huge, insulated tanks of liquid sodium. During peak demands they use this heat to make more power. Don't know why you couldn't use solar instead of geothermal...
Kinetic: How about a huge flywheel spinning in a vacuum? You spin it up with excess power in the daytime and run generators with it when it's dark.
Some of these ideas are in use today. Maybe not real efficient but if all you use is waste/excess/surplus/FREE electricity, how efficient does it need to be?
And therein is the rub.
ONCE BUILT.
They never factor in construction from gathering raw materials, etc, to disposal.
You dirty rascal
“When keeping it solar gets real....”
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