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It's the article's title, for sure, but it feels misleading to call a reduction in incentives from a successful program (rooftop solar generating 11% of Califor

It's the article's title, for sure, but it feels misleading to call a reduction in incentives from a successful program (rooftop solar generating 11% of California's power is amazing) a strike against the goals of that program. LEDs/CCFLs being subsidized until consumers switched over to them (I know the story is more complex than this) made sense too.

ThatPlayer 3y ago
California's grid already has so much power during peak solar that energy is exported to other grids. So adding more solar is diminishing returns. https://www.eia.gov/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard/electric_overview/balancing_authority/CISO https://www.eia.gov/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard/electr...
- miguelazo 3y ago
  This is also a positive given the trajectory of EV adoption and projected increases in demand.
- miguelazo 3y ago
  And yet they're still running natural gas plants during those peaks and have an aging nuclear facility that accounts for much of their clean energy that was scheduled to close in 2025.
  - ThatPlayer 3y ago
    Because natural gas plants don't just turn on and off. They're engines that take time to ramp up and down. If you can't ramp up fast enough to meet demand when solar ramps down as the sun sets, you have power outages. Adding more solar makes this problem worse. They call it the duck curve: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve
    - miguelazo 3y ago
      Yeah. Another reason why gas plants will soon be obsolete. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/giant-batteries-drain-economics-gas-power-plants-2023-11-21/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/giant-batteries-drai...