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This is a cool milestone, but it belies the current state of CA renewables, shown here at a very fine grain (data not current, need to go back a week): http://w

This is a cool milestone, but it belies the current state of CA renewables, shown here at a very fine grain (data not current, need to go back a week): http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.html http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.html To summarize, CA has to burn a lot of natural gas and import a lot of (mostly non-renewable) electricity from other states at night, and even more in the shoulder periods at morning and evening. Only untold billions in new batteries at the expense of ratepayers, and (barring storage breakthroughs) new nuclear or geothermal generation will fundamentally change this situation. A cool thing is that you can see grid demand drop hard during the days when behind-the-meter rooftop solar is on.

julienb_sea 4y ago
This is inevitably the case with renewable options that don't offer on-demand capacity (i.e. not hydro). The success metric for renewable adoption must take into account the need for on-demand generation, at present the most viable and cleanest option being natural gas.
- belorn 4y ago
  The condition that renewables success currently require fossil fuel is the point of contention between those who advocate for renewables vs those that advocate in favor of nuclear. Take away natural gas and the success metric for renewable goes away.
mschuster91 4y ago
The interesting thing to know is what amount of the base load is used for which purposes. A tax on all non-renewable power could be used to incentivize a reduction of carbon-emitting base load on the grid - either by shutting down stuff like street lights, advertising and other wasteful usage, or by providing on-site battery storage. In any case, reducing light pollution would be a worthy goal on its own. The income from said tax could then be used to build out the transnational capacity of the grid, to subsidize transformations that save energy or to build out grid-scale battery storage.

julienb_sea 4y ago

This is inevitably the case with renewable options that don't offer on-demand capacity (i.e. not hydro). The success metric for renewable adoption must take into account the need for on-demand generation, at present the most viable and cleanest option being natural gas.

belorn 4y ago
The condition that renewables success currently require fossil fuel is the point of contention between those who advocate for renewables vs those that advocate in favor of nuclear. Take away natural gas and the success metric for renewable goes away.

mschuster91 4y ago

The interesting thing to know is what amount of the base load is used for which purposes. A tax on all non-renewable power could be used to incentivize a reduction of carbon-emitting base load on the grid - either by shutting down stuff like street lights, advertising and other wasteful usage, or by providing on-site battery storage. In any case, reducing light pollution would be a worthy goal on its own. The income from said tax could then be used to build out the transnational capacity of the grid, to subsidize transformations that save energy or to build out grid-scale battery storage.