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Always fun to check out the live CAISO grid chart showing where CA's energy is coming from: https://www.gridstatus.io/live/caiso https://www.gridstatus.io/live

Always fun to check out the live CAISO grid chart showing where CA's energy is coming from: https://www.gridstatus.io/live/caiso https://www.gridstatus.io/live/caiso At its peak today (May 29), solar was 75% of CA's power generation. And at the peak yesterday (7 PM, May 28), batteries provided 25%. Seems like solar often produces more than 100% of CA's demand during the daytime and is curtailed. Maybe to charge batteries?

quietthrow 1y ago
Genuine question: If CA is mostly getting its energy from Solar why is my energy bill so high especially during winters? Or does solar energy while clean does not necessarily mean cheap?
- _aavaa_ 1y ago
  Most of that is not generation, but for transmission, distribution, and grid upgrades. Specifically burying the lines so they survive forest fires.
  - amluto 1y ago
    Go pick a few PG&E tariffs, look at the unbundled prices, compare them, and then try saying that it’s legitimate transmission and distribution costs again with a straight face…
    - _aavaa_ 1y ago
      Blame it on the continual rate increases for the sake of money if you’d like. But it isn’t expensive because generation is expensive.
    - BobaFloutist 1y ago
      I find the explanation that they neglected maintenance and upgrades in favor of dividends and stock pumping for years, and now we're paying off the last couple of decades of maintenance and upgrades in a new, more volatile wildfire climate for which PG&E has been assigned legal and financial liability. I agree that it doesn't necessarily reflect the individual marginal cost of an additional customer, but that makes sense, things rarely do.
- ZeroGravitas 1y ago
  Last year they got twice as much electricity from gas as they got from solar. They're doing well globally, and solar is generally ramping up quickly everywhere but headlines are more often about hitting 100% renewables for an hour or for a day, not over a year.
  - AtlasBarfed 1y ago
    So what you're saying is you need a secondary competitor in the market. Which would be home solar and storage
    - nostrademons 1y ago
      ...which they're trying to kill. Because customers of home solar & storage are generally quite happy to not be paying PG&E.
      - BobaFloutist 1y ago
        If you need the hookup at any point during the year, you have to pay for the hookup for the whole year. That's just fair to everyone else that didn't have $20,000 (or didn't own property) and don't want to subsidize your solar upgrade with their own rates.
        esoterae 1y ago
        I'm confused; which one is it? The property owner pays 20k, or the ratepayers are subsidizing it? Also, my pge statements now have a line item for transmission that's usually larger than my generation total. If I have 2x solar and I'm feeding my neighbor, are they paying the same "transmission" structure for the power I'm providing them?
        BobaFloutist 1y ago
        It's one or the other. Under NEM 2, ratepayers are subsidizing. Under NEM 3, the property owner is paying (more of) their fair share of transmission costs, and are being subsidized less, which people complain "kills" rooftop solar.
- thelastgallon 1y ago
  Answered here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39487714 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39487714 Most things in US are super costly because of monopolies, regulatory capture and perverse incentives: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive
- audunw 1y ago
  I don’t think you’ll see the full cost benefits of solar (and wind) until after the transition to 100% renewables (and maybe nuclear) is complete. There’s just too many big investments needed in the transition. That’s expensive. Repowering a solar or wind power plants is dramatically cheaper than building it from scratch.
burkaman 1y ago
Charging doesn't show up as curtailment, that is mostly due to grid congestion, as transmission lines reach their maximum capacity and physically can't get all the solar power to loads that need it. Also, nuclear plants can't be turned on and off very quickly so they stay on all the time, and some number of natural gas plants must stay running during the day so they are able to quickly ramp up when the sun goes down. So on a nice sunny day that isn't too hot there is a lot of solar power that physically cannot be used and so has to be curtailed. In peak summer when ACs are blasting you'll see less curtailment, and in the future as they keep building out battery storage you'll probably see less curtailment in general.
- AnthonyMouse 1y ago
  > some number of natural gas plants must stay running during the day so they are able to quickly ramp up when the sun goes down. Doesn't this only take a few minutes for a natural gas plant?
  - toomuchtodo 1y ago
    Combined cycle fossil gas units can take up to 12 hours from cold start to full output, roughly 25% can be up to speed within an hour (EIA). ~7-30MW/minute. Once through peakers can ramp faster, but are less efficient (they’re essentially jet engines bolted to the ground), and more expensive than battery storage. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=45956 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=45956 https://www.lazard.com/media/xemfey0k/lazards-lcoeplus-june-2024-_vf.pdf https://www.lazard.com/media/xemfey0k/lazards-lcoeplus-june-...
  - burkaman 1y ago
    In addition to what the sibling comment says, a few minutes is fine for predictable changes like sunset, but you also need enough dispatchable power online to deal with unexpected changes. What if a transmission line goes down and cuts off a big solar farm? Other plants must respond within a literal second to fill the gap and prevent a cascading failure of the whole grid like what happened in Spain recently. That doesn't have to be natural gas, batteries and hydro and even other curtailed solar plants can fill this role if there are enough of them, but we're not there yet.

quietthrow 1y ago

Genuine question: If CA is mostly getting its energy from Solar why is my energy bill so high especially during winters? Or does solar energy while clean does not necessarily mean cheap?

_aavaa_ 1y ago
Most of that is not generation, but for transmission, distribution, and grid upgrades. Specifically burying the lines so they survive forest fires.
- amluto 1y ago
  Go pick a few PG&E tariffs, look at the unbundled prices, compare them, and then try saying that it’s legitimate transmission and distribution costs again with a straight face…
  - _aavaa_ 1y ago
    Blame it on the continual rate increases for the sake of money if you’d like. But it isn’t expensive because generation is expensive.
  - BobaFloutist 1y ago
    I find the explanation that they neglected maintenance and upgrades in favor of dividends and stock pumping for years, and now we're paying off the last couple of decades of maintenance and upgrades in a new, more volatile wildfire climate for which PG&E has been assigned legal and financial liability. I agree that it doesn't necessarily reflect the individual marginal cost of an additional customer, but that makes sense, things rarely do.
ZeroGravitas 1y ago
Last year they got twice as much electricity from gas as they got from solar. They're doing well globally, and solar is generally ramping up quickly everywhere but headlines are more often about hitting 100% renewables for an hour or for a day, not over a year.
- AtlasBarfed 1y ago
  So what you're saying is you need a secondary competitor in the market. Which would be home solar and storage
  - nostrademons 1y ago
    ...which they're trying to kill. Because customers of home solar & storage are generally quite happy to not be paying PG&E.
    - BobaFloutist 1y ago
      If you need the hookup at any point during the year, you have to pay for the hookup for the whole year. That's just fair to everyone else that didn't have $20,000 (or didn't own property) and don't want to subsidize your solar upgrade with their own rates.
      - esoterae 1y ago
        I'm confused; which one is it? The property owner pays 20k, or the ratepayers are subsidizing it? Also, my pge statements now have a line item for transmission that's usually larger than my generation total. If I have 2x solar and I'm feeding my neighbor, are they paying the same "transmission" structure for the power I'm providing them?
        BobaFloutist 1y ago
        It's one or the other. Under NEM 2, ratepayers are subsidizing. Under NEM 3, the property owner is paying (more of) their fair share of transmission costs, and are being subsidized less, which people complain "kills" rooftop solar.
thelastgallon 1y ago
Answered here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39487714 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39487714 Most things in US are super costly because of monopolies, regulatory capture and perverse incentives: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive
audunw 1y ago
I don’t think you’ll see the full cost benefits of solar (and wind) until after the transition to 100% renewables (and maybe nuclear) is complete. There’s just too many big investments needed in the transition. That’s expensive. Repowering a solar or wind power plants is dramatically cheaper than building it from scratch.

burkaman 1y ago

Charging doesn't show up as curtailment, that is mostly due to grid congestion, as transmission lines reach their maximum capacity and physically can't get all the solar power to loads that need it. Also, nuclear plants can't be turned on and off very quickly so they stay on all the time, and some number of natural gas plants must stay running during the day so they are able to quickly ramp up when the sun goes down. So on a nice sunny day that isn't too hot there is a lot of solar power that physically cannot be used and so has to be curtailed. In peak summer when ACs are blasting you'll see less curtailment, and in the future as they keep building out battery storage you'll probably see less curtailment in general.

AnthonyMouse 1y ago
> some number of natural gas plants must stay running during the day so they are able to quickly ramp up when the sun goes down. Doesn't this only take a few minutes for a natural gas plant?
- toomuchtodo 1y ago
  Combined cycle fossil gas units can take up to 12 hours from cold start to full output, roughly 25% can be up to speed within an hour (EIA). ~7-30MW/minute. Once through peakers can ramp faster, but are less efficient (they’re essentially jet engines bolted to the ground), and more expensive than battery storage. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=45956 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=45956 https://www.lazard.com/media/xemfey0k/lazards-lcoeplus-june-2024-_vf.pdf https://www.lazard.com/media/xemfey0k/lazards-lcoeplus-june-...
- burkaman 1y ago
  In addition to what the sibling comment says, a few minutes is fine for predictable changes like sunset, but you also need enough dispatchable power online to deal with unexpected changes. What if a transmission line goes down and cuts off a big solar farm? Other plants must respond within a literal second to fill the gap and prevent a cascading failure of the whole grid like what happened in Spain recently. That doesn't have to be natural gas, batteries and hydro and even other curtailed solar plants can fill this role if there are enough of them, but we're not there yet.