Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

California grid set record of 97% renewable power on April 3

solarpowerworldonline.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 282 posts

Re: California grid set record of 97% renewable power on April 3

#31

Post by jhgb »

no-dr-onboard wrote: post #26

Disclaimer: this comment is not about environmentalism or even the environmental impact. I’m not wading in those waters with HN. It’s difficult to see this as a net positive given the financial hardship brought about to even make this headline a reality (note that even the headline is misleading and requires context). It’s a bit like the person who goes out and purchases a vehicle, spends countless hours away from hi…

What financial hardship? Pretty much all the other pathways are even more expensive, either in externalities or in internalized costs. There really are not that many realistic options that remain open (at least in the US).

Re: California grid set record of 97% renewable power on April 3

#32

Post by ajsnigrutin »

kelnos wrote: post #7

The grid operator cited is the California Independent System Operator. How much of CA's electricity consumption is fed by that operator? In the article they mention 23GW from wind and solar. A quick search says in 2018 CA's electrical generation capacity was 80GW (which I assume has only gone up). So this 97% is a bit misleading, no? It doesn't represent 97% of total CA electricity usage... it's less than 30%?

April 3rd was a sunday, and probably a very sunny one, with temperatures in ranges where a lot of people don't really need AC nor electrical heating.

What do you do when it's not sunny, very cold/hot, no wind, and businesses and factories are open?

Somehow we talk a lot about solar, and not enough about nuclear.

Re: California grid set record of 97% renewable power on April 3

#33

Post by bombcar »

haliskerbas wrote: post #8
pmalynin wrote: post #2

Then why is it so damn expensive. Honestly one of the reasons I can’t wait to own a house is to purchase enough solar panels and batteries to give a huge middle finger to PG&E and go off-grid

I’ve been trying to do the math for my own home, are solar panels actually cash flow positive, once you account for efficiency decrease overtime etc.? It always seemed like one barely breaks even in 2 decades

It can be cash flow positive if you do a bunch of the work yourself and plan accordingly.

https://www.sevarg.net/tag/solar/

From my point of view the nice thing about it is reducing or eliminating recurring expenses.

Once your recurring expenses drop below passive income you are pretty well set.

Re: California grid set record of 97% renewable power on April 3

#34

Post by emteycz »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #18
Arubis wrote: post #12

Article doesn't get into this level of detail, but I'd be interested in how they define "renewable". Does it include hydropower, which is renewable but has strong non-carbon-related undesirable environmental consequences? Is burned trash "renewable"?

> Does it include hydropower, which is renewable but has strong non-carbon-related undesirable environmental consequences? IIUC, the vast majority of ecological impact caused by hydro is already done. It is not making things exponentially worse. Am I missing something?

No hydro - no obstacle in the waterway, migration paths are affected but still functional. Hydro - it's a meatgrinder.

Re: California grid set record of 97% renewable power on April 3

#35

Post by samkater »

jweir wrote: post #10
pmalynin wrote: post #2

Then why is it so damn expensive. Honestly one of the reasons I can’t wait to own a house is to purchase enough solar panels and batteries to give a huge middle finger to PG&E and go off-grid

You do not pay market rate for electricity. Texas does allow consumers to pay market rate for electricity, you may have heard about last winter people getting bills in the several thousands of dollars when prices spiked. CAISO was 97% renewable for only a moment, not the entire day. The 3rd was a Sunday, not a peak day. And the average price for energy for the day was $30.77 (day head) $27.1 (real time) for TH_SP15_G…

My understanding, to put it in AWS EC2 pricing terms, is that we do not pay the market "spot" rate for electricity (variable, often less than what you might pay elsewhere, but could spike up) - which is what Texas allowed. Typically we pay the "on demand" rate which is fixed. Large energy users probably negotiate "reserved" pricing.

My point being, we pay the market rate, those massive hikes are just built-in over a long period of time.

Re: California grid set record of 97% renewable power on April 3

#36

Post by [deleted] »

jweir wrote: post #10
pmalynin wrote: post #2

Then why is it so damn expensive. Honestly one of the reasons I can’t wait to own a house is to purchase enough solar panels and batteries to give a huge middle finger to PG&E and go off-grid

You do not pay market rate for electricity. Texas does allow consumers to pay market rate for electricity, you may have heard about last winter people getting bills in the several thousands of dollars when prices spiked. CAISO was 97% renewable for only a moment, not the entire day. The 3rd was a Sunday, not a peak day. And the average price for energy for the day was $30.77 (day head) $27.1 (real time) for TH_SP15_G…

[deleted]

Re: California grid set record of 97% renewable power on April 3

#37

Post by jeffbee »

rubyist5eva wrote: post #19

Is this why Calfornia energy is so expensive and constantly having blackouts?

No, because California isn't constantly having blackouts. There was one really infamous (among habitual Fox News viewers) capacity-related blackout in late 2020, in which fewer than 1% of customers were disconnected for less than 1 hour. That was precipitated by the sudden shutdown of Diablo Canyon, a nuclear power station. California hasn't had a capacity-related intentional disconnect since then.

Re: California grid set record of 97% renewable power on April 3

#38

Post by jhgb »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #18
Arubis wrote: post #12

Article doesn't get into this level of detail, but I'd be interested in how they define "renewable". Does it include hydropower, which is renewable but has strong non-carbon-related undesirable environmental consequences? Is burned trash "renewable"?

> Does it include hydropower, which is renewable but has strong non-carbon-related undesirable environmental consequences? IIUC, the vast majority of ecological impact caused by hydro is already done. It is not making things exponentially worse. Am I missing something?

Depending on location, hydroelectric power can have (mostly because of decomposing vegetation) carbon-equivalent emissions ranging from several grams of CO₂ per kWh, all the way up to around two thousand grams (!) per kWh. This greatly depends on location, with shallow, large-area tropical dams being the worst offenders, and cold, high altitude Nordic dams being the most environmentally friendly.

Re: California grid set record of 97% renewable power on April 3

#39

Post by gibolt »

no-dr-onboard wrote: post #26

Disclaimer: this comment is not about environmentalism or even the environmental impact. I’m not wading in those waters with HN. It’s difficult to see this as a net positive given the financial hardship brought about to even make this headline a reality (note that even the headline is misleading and requires context). It’s a bit like the person who goes out and purchases a vehicle, spends countless hours away from hi…

Yes, it is. Solar pays for itself in raw kWh over ~8 years, probably even better at utility scale which negotiates huge panel purchases. Batteries cost more, but can apply stored power when they can earn the most (during peak), reducing viability of polluting alternatives.

The cherry on top is that all future energy uses no more material and creates no more pollution, with materials mostly all recyclable at end of life. Over a 30 year horizon, fossil fuel infra cannot compete.

Re: California grid set record of 97% renewable power on April 3

#40

Post by tppiotrowski »

> More than 15,000 MW of grid-connected solar power capacity and almost 8,000 MW of wind are now online.

> The system currently has more than 2,700 MW of storage, most of it in lithium-ion batteries, and that number is projected to grow to about 4,000 MW by June 1.

Storage should be in MWh I assume? Anyways, those batteries can hold 11 minutes of peak solar power production.

But by June 1st, battery capacity is set to go up by 50% while new solar production will only go up about by 5%.

Post reply on HN