Sofia + 35 SP August 22, 2018 California’s solar energy production has surged so much that the state might be taking a break from new renewable projects beginning next month. Currently, California is regularly shunting electricity to Arizona and other states, sometimes paying them to do so, just to avoid overloading its own current lines. Sounds like a good problem to have! https://www.zmescience.com/science/california-renewable-energy-18082018/ Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Stormysaga + 62 AB August 22, 2018 What they need is a mix of additional storage and wind and maybe even some out of state solar that has a different generation profile. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BlackTortoise + 103 CM August 22, 2018 This is why the upcoming massive investment in grid storage will pay off. The grid-storage year-on-year growth rate is super high, and in particular California is looking into plans to start getting rid of even natural gas plants, requiring lots of grid storage. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tom Kirkman + 8,860 August 22, 2018 7 hours ago, BlackTortoise said: California is looking into plans to start getting rid of even natural gas plants, Um ... just .... I don't even ... Yeah, good luck with that. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Rodent + 1,424 August 23, 2018 8 hours ago, Sofia said: Currently, California is regularly shunting electricity to Arizona and other states, sometimes paying them to do so, just to avoid overloading its own current lines. Sounds like a good problem to have! No, paying someone else to take your electricity sounds like a very bad problem to have. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
John Foote + 1,135 JF August 24, 2018 A very unbalanced system. Wind and solar is a great 10~15% solution, but without breakthroughs in storage and time-load shifting, it doesn't make economic sense. It probably will one day, but not today. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
markslawson + 1,057 ML August 25, 2018 On 8/23/2018 at 1:43 AM, Sofia said: California’s solar energy production has surged so much that the state might be taking a break from new renewable projects beginning next month. Currently, California is regularly shunting electricity to Arizona and other states, sometimes paying them to do so, just to avoid overloading its own current lines. Sounds like a good problem to have! https://www.zmescience.com/science/california-renewable-energy-18082018/ As Rodent and John Foote have observed the California problem with renewables is a bad one to have. Germany has a similar problem in that they can't shut down brown coal plants when the wind blows (they can be shut down - but restarting them takes a whole day so they don't dare). Germany then dumps its excess power on Poland and the Czech Republic who have been complaining to the EU about this new form of German aggression. Its messing up their grids. Without some form of storage non-hydro renewables are inherently grossly inefficient. Taking them beyond 10-15 per cent of supply, as John Foote, has observed, without a lot of hydro on the system, is asking for trouble. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
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