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 ...
Start taxing them when they produce too much power.
Or pass laws that mandate they cover their panels 40% of the time.
Bewahahah..
The renewable energy binge is a serious engineering problem. The more intermittent and inconsistent power penetrates the grid, the less stable it becomes. Without any meaningful existing storage capacity and none on the horizon, these anomalies will only get worse. And the cost will, as Obama wanted, “skyrocket.”
Well it do in Phoenix and they are offering them here as well. We are known as ‘The valley of the sun’.
And in the summer to some we are locally known as ‘The valley of the fu* sun’.
“Solar panels have one major, obvious drawback:
The sun doesn’t shine all the time.”
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Someone needs to invent “Lunar Panels”!!!
Export excess power.
Give me my genius award.
Subsidize the addition of capacity... then penalize them for... adding capacity... Sounds like more Liberal/Democrat stupidity to me.
Union sunblockers with tarps and bucket lifts coming to a democratic run city near you.
Clearly more evidence of Cloward Piven economics...
Central Valley is not dry desert landscapes.
Use the excess power to energize the landscape lights along the many pathways from Honduras to the US
Many electric car owners would go out of their way to get cheap electricity. They just need the info when to plug in.
The solar panels work too well! Stop them, for we, the corporate scum, aren’t getting our billions!
Sky-high demand in the morning would be replaced by almost zero demand in the middle of the day, when solar power could generate virtually all electricity people needed. Then as the sun set, demand surged up again.
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This means that operators must build the same fossil fuel generating capacity as would be needed without any solar panels. Add that it takes about an hour to spin up a fossil fuel generator. The delay leaves generator operators providing excess power in case clouds roll in. Somebody’s gotta pay for that.
The article itself says it. The do not need more solar "development."
But at least they *care* more than you.
The Telsa Powerwall handles this for you and your Telsa. You just need about $80K to setup the system and buy the car.
There are these mysterious items that store energy for use later. Assaults? No, something close though.
“care” - meaning desiring for human beings to die and to steal as much money from those who remain living as possible. Not a fan.
It seems like Wickard v. Filburn must apply here permitting the commerce department to enter the scene and quickly solve this issue.
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