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> A quick search says in 2018 CA's electrical generation capacity was 80GW (which I assume has only gone up). So this 97% is a bit misleading, no? It doesn't re
by mschaef 4y ago
> A quick search says in 2018 CA's electrical generation capacity was 80GW (which I assume has only gone up). So this 97% is a bit misleading, no? It doesn't represent 97% of total CA electricity usage... it's less than 30%?
Their full installed generation capacity is 80GW, but there's huge variability in actual load. As I write this, current load is around 21GW, on a range of between 18.7GW and 27GW over the day. It gets into the 40's in the summer.
https://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/default.aspx https://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/default.aspx
There's a significant need for reserve capacity to deal with this load variability, as well as plant failures, etc.