The Solar Energy Output In California Being Throttled

Seldom we need significant changes in the world, but they happen anyway. Without substantial changes, the oversupply of renewables will stall efforts to overhaul the power sector. Californians are owning a sunny spring, which means the state’s solar farms and rooftop panels are immersing the grid with electricity.  The sun never ceases shining!

The difficulty is, they’re generating so much that plummeting prices and mandates by the state’s grid operator are forcing renewable power plants to throttle back a generation. In April, California solar and wind farms shut down or wheeled back nearly 95,000 megawatt-hours of power, a new record, according to the California Independent System Operator, which manages the vast majority of the state’s electricity. That’s sufficient to power more than 30 million addresses for an hour.

This oversupply of solar is occurring because California has added vast amounts of renewable energy production in recent years, principally to meet policy mandates requiring half the state’s electricity to come from carbon-free sources by 2030. With extra production coming online in the next few years, the state is on speed to reach that target a decade ahead of schedule.

California’s recently affirmed rule demanding most new homes to include rooftop solar panels will further aggravate this problem because it adds solar supply even as it reduces demand.  Demand is vital to inform supply.

Clean Energy Is Here!

It’s excellent news for climate goals and decreasing carbon effusions. But that success is also producing specific challenges, placing both economic and physical forces on the power system. Economic pressures are usually a bad thing for consumers.

These restrictions could discourage further deployment of renewable energy, undermining broader efforts to overhaul the power sector. Indeed, that’s partly why the pipeline for other solar projects is now narrowing in California.

Several states and countries will experience similar growing pains as they ramp up renewable production. “This is a leading indicator of trouble for the whole country,” declares James Bushnell, an energy economist at the University of California, Davis.

The primary problem is that within a given region, electricity generation from every solar panel increases and reduces at the same times, as the sun rises and goes back down. On top of that, solar production peaks in the middle of the day, when electricity needs decreases. People use power at different times, but most humans use the most at the same time.

As it stands, California’s scheme has a diminished ability to store that power, send it elsewhere, or weigh it out with other renewable resources like wind. So the more solar California adds, the less valuable it becomes.

Are We Looking For A Solar Deal?

Speaking, the answer is affirmative. But cost and price are not equivalent terms. In a regularly functioning market, estimates that regularly drop to zero will eat deeply into the profits of power plant operators, actively discouraging companies from bringing more facilities online.

“This value deflation dilemma could halt solar’s rise down the road,” corresponds Varun Sivaram, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, in his latest book Taming the Sun.

Significantly enhancing the supply of renewable sources will place growing pressure on wholesale energy prices across the board, especially squeezing the profits of inflexible generators like solar, wind, and nuclear, according to a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory study released last week. If solar produces 30 percent of the grid’s demands and wind supplies 10 percent, the prices for energy from those sources will fall 39 percent in the New York market in 2030, and 27 percent in California, the researchers discovered.

Here at HahaSmart, we are a vital part of your step into the solar revolution. We will bring you the lowest prices possible! Pricing is important for purchasing.  We must be informed with data in order to make good purchasing decisions.  We want to know everything we can about the products we are looking to purchase so that we can make sure that it is the good or service we are looking for.   In addition to price, when determining the best solar panel for your installation situation, it is essential to consider both how it is manufactured and what materials to use.

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