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Their math seems off. I really don't see how you get to 97% renewable when the state was burning natural gas to generate 2.8 GW of non-renewable power and had

Their math seems off. I really don't see how you get to 97% renewable when the state was burning natural gas to generate 2.8 GW of non-renewable power and had about 1.1 GW of nuclear at the time. There might be some funny math here where they assign all of the "dirty" power generated in the state to exports and can claim that that California is running on renewable power. Source: https://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.html https://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.html

rtkwe 4y ago
The energy is pretty perfectly fungible so it makes about as much sense credited to the state as it does to the wider grid. If you just look at CA it generated 97% of its energy needs in state from renewable energy at that time. That it was connected to a larger grid so it was generating excess power dirtily doesn't really change that math.
- trenchgun 4y ago
  You basically just told us you don't understand how electric grids and electricity markets function.
- rogers18445 4y ago
  In that case the metric of how much power the state requires in the context of renewable energy is useless. Instead state the % of overall energy production in the state being renewable.
  - SamBam 4y ago
    Disagree. "97% of some state's energy production was renewable" doesn't tell you much, because they could be a state that hardly burns any fossil fuels. "California managed to produce enough renewable energy to power 97% of the needs of a state the size of California" actually tells you how much renewable energy it generated, and why that's a big deal.
    - trenchgun 4y ago
      The problem is that it's just not true, when formulated in that way.
    - rogers18445 4y ago
      In that case, you need to provide additional information. Because this coverage is not consistent, since renewables are intermittent and storage appears to be a dream.
- ploxiln 4y ago
  Electrical power is fungible, but the time it is available is not. There is usually near-peak power usage just after sun-down. So while a large amount of "clean" power was generated in the middle of the day and sold to other states, after sun-down a significant portion of the power used in the state was "un-clean". Even if California made it the final 3% to reach 100% renewable energy (by the headline metric), it will still depend on a significant amount of non-renewable energy for significant parts of every single day (or else it will have blackouts).
  - asdfaoeu 4y ago
    That's true but no one is suggesting they stop now right? This is just a milestone.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - onion2k 4y ago
    Even if California made it the final 3% to reach 100% renewable energy (by the headline metric), it will still depend on a significant amount of non-renewable energy for significant parts of every single day (or else it will have blackouts). It's not like you can ramp a coal-fired or nuclear power station up and down on a whim either though. It takes time and planning to modify the output if you don't have storage capacity. Power companies do a lot of predictive analysis to forecast demand and make sure they're running a little ahead. Here in the UK we even have a term called "TV pickup" where the electricity demand for the country increases significantly immediately after popular TV shows when we all go and put our kettles on for another cup of tea[1]. Power demand varies a lot, and in a reasonably predictable way, so you're fine so long as you have a mix of generation technologies. For most places that'll end up being solar, wind and nuclear, with extensive storage capacity. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_pickup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_pickup
    - midasuni 4y ago
      TV pick-up used to be a thing when 17 million people watched Corrie in real time. Those types of real time viewing figures are limited to live England matches in the euros/World Cup, and very unusual events like the PM’s covid broadcast back in 2020 I’m surprised the US doesn’t have the phenomenon during the super bowl. I guess the lack of kettles and the main attraction of the Super Bowl being the adverts dampens it down though.
- usrn 4y ago
  The implication here is that you don't need the non-renewable part. That's not true if you have to have it when the renewable part isn't producing power.
- rmbyrro 4y ago
  We're they keeping the dirty generation at surplus level for safety precautions, due to renewable sources unreliability? If yes, I think the math is misleading. It doesn't matter if you generate 97% from renewables if you can't trust it and still need to keep dirty sources, even during renewable peak...
40four 4y ago
Yeah I’m no expert, but I’m highly skeptical of this claim as well. My intuition is telling me that this is most likely classic Orwellian ‘doublespeak’ from the powers that be. That being said, it might still be a good signal that investments in renewable electricity infrastructure could be accumulating up to critical mass in some areas. And that is encouraging.
StopDarkPattern 4y ago
Law Makers seem off. Why are they not taxing people their life savings yet for all that revenue they're STEALING from the electric companies!? FFS THIS IS MADNES/S
outside1234 4y ago
It was only 97% for a brief Sunday afternoon - not at night not even a major portion of the day
- Ekaros 4y ago
  Oh how I wait for the days of using solar to heat my home during blizzard night... People posting these headlines make it seem like utopia.
  - ben_w 4y ago
    I don’t know where you live, but the Californian power grid is part of the Western Interconnection that goes from the Mexican-American border to half way through Canada[0]. Are blizzards in the USA ever that big? As for “at night”, it is possible to get batteries of household scale. Plus insulation is getting better and cheaper, so the power required to maintain any given temperature isn’t as high as it used to be. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Interconnection https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Interconnection
    - himinlomax 4y ago
      > Are blizzards in the USA ever that big? At times of the year when there are blizzards, I seriously doubt the rest of solar installations in the US are going to be running anywhere near capacity.
      - ben_w 4y ago
        First: So? PV is so cheap overcapacity isn’t unreasonable. Second: My first visit to the USA, I saw people surfing in Asilomar on Christmas Day/Boxing Day and it remained warm and sunny throughout my stay in California, yet a few days into that trip New York was suffering a blizzard that Trump was trying to argue disproved global warming: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_2014_North_American_cold_wave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_2014_North_American_cold...
AdamJacobMuller 4y ago
> assign all of the "dirty" power generated in the state to exports Hilarious, how to lie with statistics 101.
Buraksr 4y ago
I believe that what is happening is that the rated capacity of a power plant is its maximum output times its capacity factor. Say we have a solar plant that produces a maximum of 1 GW in optimal conditions with a .15 capacity factor. This plant is not a 1GW plant but a 150MW one. In general fossil fuels have capacity factors around .55, nuclear about .9, hydro about .4, and solar is between .1-.3 So you can imagine a scenario where we have 200MW of natural gas and 200MW of solar, and a grid load of 300MW. The natural gas could produce 400MW, powering the grid alone. Similarly, we could have up to 1 GW of solar, more than enough. But the averages are what is important, and what we use in ratings. These stories are mostly “feel good” and without meaning imo. We will hit 100% energy from renewables for x minutes, long before we have enough power for the grid. If we were trying to make all the renewables come online at once, you don’t actually need that much capacity to hit 100%. The capacity factor says we only need 1/5 of the grid as solar to hit “100%” renewables. The reason we haven’t is intentional, we want more consistent power from these typically inconsistent renewable sources.
- Buraksr 4y ago
  I should have mentioned explicitly that: average power = capacity factor * max power Thus it is clear why nuclear is .9, it doesn’t vary much in its generation. The max is only a bit more than the average. Capacity factor is in some sense, but not exactly, the variability.
gumby 4y ago
Also the article talks about the "grid". California buys most of its renewable power from out of state (mostly hydro from WA). The wording of the article doesn't say that but also doesn't appear to constrain its definition to domestic production.
barfingclouds 4y ago
Yeah California imports green energy from other states, and based on what you’re saying exports dirty energy. Maybe even to those same states. The only critique I’ll say though is nuclear is definitely clean energy.

rtkwe 4y ago

The energy is pretty perfectly fungible so it makes about as much sense credited to the state as it does to the wider grid. If you just look at CA it generated 97% of its energy needs in state from renewable energy at that time. That it was connected to a larger grid so it was generating excess power dirtily doesn't really change that math.

trenchgun 4y ago
You basically just told us you don't understand how electric grids and electricity markets function.
rogers18445 4y ago
In that case the metric of how much power the state requires in the context of renewable energy is useless. Instead state the % of overall energy production in the state being renewable.
- SamBam 4y ago
  Disagree. "97% of some state's energy production was renewable" doesn't tell you much, because they could be a state that hardly burns any fossil fuels. "California managed to produce enough renewable energy to power 97% of the needs of a state the size of California" actually tells you how much renewable energy it generated, and why that's a big deal.
  - trenchgun 4y ago
    The problem is that it's just not true, when formulated in that way.
  - rogers18445 4y ago
    In that case, you need to provide additional information. Because this coverage is not consistent, since renewables are intermittent and storage appears to be a dream.
ploxiln 4y ago
Electrical power is fungible, but the time it is available is not. There is usually near-peak power usage just after sun-down. So while a large amount of "clean" power was generated in the middle of the day and sold to other states, after sun-down a significant portion of the power used in the state was "un-clean". Even if California made it the final 3% to reach 100% renewable energy (by the headline metric), it will still depend on a significant amount of non-renewable energy for significant parts of every single day (or else it will have blackouts).
- asdfaoeu 4y ago
  That's true but no one is suggesting they stop now right? This is just a milestone.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- onion2k 4y ago
  Even if California made it the final 3% to reach 100% renewable energy (by the headline metric), it will still depend on a significant amount of non-renewable energy for significant parts of every single day (or else it will have blackouts). It's not like you can ramp a coal-fired or nuclear power station up and down on a whim either though. It takes time and planning to modify the output if you don't have storage capacity. Power companies do a lot of predictive analysis to forecast demand and make sure they're running a little ahead. Here in the UK we even have a term called "TV pickup" where the electricity demand for the country increases significantly immediately after popular TV shows when we all go and put our kettles on for another cup of tea[1]. Power demand varies a lot, and in a reasonably predictable way, so you're fine so long as you have a mix of generation technologies. For most places that'll end up being solar, wind and nuclear, with extensive storage capacity. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_pickup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_pickup
  - midasuni 4y ago
    TV pick-up used to be a thing when 17 million people watched Corrie in real time. Those types of real time viewing figures are limited to live England matches in the euros/World Cup, and very unusual events like the PM’s covid broadcast back in 2020 I’m surprised the US doesn’t have the phenomenon during the super bowl. I guess the lack of kettles and the main attraction of the Super Bowl being the adverts dampens it down though.
usrn 4y ago
The implication here is that you don't need the non-renewable part. That's not true if you have to have it when the renewable part isn't producing power.
rmbyrro 4y ago
We're they keeping the dirty generation at surplus level for safety precautions, due to renewable sources unreliability? If yes, I think the math is misleading. It doesn't matter if you generate 97% from renewables if you can't trust it and still need to keep dirty sources, even during renewable peak...

40four 4y ago

Yeah I’m no expert, but I’m highly skeptical of this claim as well. My intuition is telling me that this is most likely classic Orwellian ‘doublespeak’ from the powers that be. That being said, it might still be a good signal that investments in renewable electricity infrastructure could be accumulating up to critical mass in some areas. And that is encouraging.

StopDarkPattern 4y ago

Law Makers seem off. Why are they not taxing people their life savings yet for all that revenue they're STEALING from the electric companies!? FFS THIS IS MADNES/S

outside1234 4y ago

It was only 97% for a brief Sunday afternoon - not at night not even a major portion of the day

Ekaros 4y ago
Oh how I wait for the days of using solar to heat my home during blizzard night... People posting these headlines make it seem like utopia.
- ben_w 4y ago
  I don’t know where you live, but the Californian power grid is part of the Western Interconnection that goes from the Mexican-American border to half way through Canada[0]. Are blizzards in the USA ever that big? As for “at night”, it is possible to get batteries of household scale. Plus insulation is getting better and cheaper, so the power required to maintain any given temperature isn’t as high as it used to be. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Interconnection https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Interconnection
  - himinlomax 4y ago
    > Are blizzards in the USA ever that big? At times of the year when there are blizzards, I seriously doubt the rest of solar installations in the US are going to be running anywhere near capacity.
    - ben_w 4y ago
      First: So? PV is so cheap overcapacity isn’t unreasonable. Second: My first visit to the USA, I saw people surfing in Asilomar on Christmas Day/Boxing Day and it remained warm and sunny throughout my stay in California, yet a few days into that trip New York was suffering a blizzard that Trump was trying to argue disproved global warming: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_2014_North_American_cold_wave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_2014_North_American_cold...

AdamJacobMuller 4y ago

> assign all of the "dirty" power generated in the state to exports Hilarious, how to lie with statistics 101.

Buraksr 4y ago

I believe that what is happening is that the rated capacity of a power plant is its maximum output times its capacity factor. Say we have a solar plant that produces a maximum of 1 GW in optimal conditions with a .15 capacity factor. This plant is not a 1GW plant but a 150MW one. In general fossil fuels have capacity factors around .55, nuclear about .9, hydro about .4, and solar is between .1-.3 So you can imagine a scenario where we have 200MW of natural gas and 200MW of solar, and a grid load of 300MW. The natural gas could produce 400MW, powering the grid alone. Similarly, we could have up to 1 GW of solar, more than enough. But the averages are what is important, and what we use in ratings. These stories are mostly “feel good” and without meaning imo. We will hit 100% energy from renewables for x minutes, long before we have enough power for the grid. If we were trying to make all the renewables come online at once, you don’t actually need that much capacity to hit 100%. The capacity factor says we only need 1/5 of the grid as solar to hit “100%” renewables. The reason we haven’t is intentional, we want more consistent power from these typically inconsistent renewable sources.

Buraksr 4y ago
I should have mentioned explicitly that: average power = capacity factor * max power Thus it is clear why nuclear is .9, it doesn’t vary much in its generation. The max is only a bit more than the average. Capacity factor is in some sense, but not exactly, the variability.

gumby 4y ago

Also the article talks about the "grid". California buys most of its renewable power from out of state (mostly hydro from WA). The wording of the article doesn't say that but also doesn't appear to constrain its definition to domestic production.

barfingclouds 4y ago

Yeah California imports green energy from other states, and based on what you’re saying exports dirty energy. Maybe even to those same states. The only critique I’ll say though is nuclear is definitely clean energy.