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California exceeds 100% of energy demand with renewables over a record 30 days

electrek.co

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Re: California exceeds 100% of energy demand with renewables over a record 30 days

#111

Post by moystard »

sveme wrote: post #107
moystard wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will import from the French grid like all French neighbours that abandoned their nuclear programs.

Same old, same old. In an interconnected grid, everyone is importing and exporting from and to everyone. Germany (which you are referring to), is still an exporter of electricity.

Not since 2023.

https://www.energate-messenger.com/news/239393/germany-becom...

Additional article highlighting the role of electricity exporter of France: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-07/france-is...

Re: California exceeds 100% of energy demand with renewables over a record 30 days

#112

Post by wffurr »

Throe848rn wrote: post #91

"Energy demand" is a huge stretch. It is just electricity. It does not cover energy used in transportation (car, ships, flight) and energy used to produce imported goods. It also does not cover recycling and renewal. Even food gets like 60% of energy from fertiliser, that is not included here! Anyway, I am just silly old person. So let's march towards bright future. We need solar powered battle tanks and solar powere…

You joke, but the US DoD sees advantages with distributed energy production in resilience to attack: https://www.acq.osd.mil/eie/Downloads/OE/2023%20Operational%...

Re: California exceeds 100% of energy demand with renewables over a record 30 days

#113

Post by raphaelj »

ta1243 wrote: post #85
bosie wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear helps to reliably produce electricity when there is a peak demand or renewable has a problem producing (no sun, draught)

So you need nuclear to be scaled to the maximum demand?

People always forget that a mostly nuclear grid also require a some kind of storage or demand scalability.

Re: California exceeds 100% of energy demand with renewables over a record 30 days

#115

Post by throwaway473825 »

ctrw wrote: post #23
Roritharr wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you, as a German paying absurd electricity prices I applaud this nuance.

If no one can afford electricity we can reach 100% renewables easily.

While true, Germany's absurd electricity-to-gas price ratio makes electrification an uphill battle:

https://www.ehpa.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Additional-s...

Re: California exceeds 100% of energy demand with renewables over a record 30 days

#116

Post by Throe848rn2 »

wffurr wrote: post #112
Throe848rn wrote: post #91

"Energy demand" is a huge stretch. It is just electricity. It does not cover energy used in transportation (car, ships, flight) and energy used to produce imported goods. It also does not cover recycling and renewal. Even food gets like 60% of energy from fertiliser, that is not included here! Anyway, I am just silly old person. So let's march towards bright future. We need solar powered battle tanks and solar powere…

You joke, but the US DoD sees advantages with distributed energy production in resilience to attack: https://www.acq.osd.mil/eie/Downloads/OE/2023%20Operational%...

Why joke? US should power all of its military equipment from solar energy, world would be much better space.

As for distributed energy, it is not "production" but "storage". Even desert people with Toyotas can do it.

Re: California exceeds 100% of energy demand with renewables over a record 30 days

#117

Post by MaxBarraclough »

darkwater wrote: post #47
ktzar wrote: post #9

Spain as a whole 45 million country with diverse geography and scattered population is producing 75 percent of its electricity from renewables and gas and carbon have been down to almost technical zero. It's rained a lot over the last month's and water reservoirs are used as battery. I made a website to track this: https://energy.antizone.online During the day, a huge chunk of the produced energy is sold to other cou…

> It's rained a lot over the last month's and water reservoirs are used as battery. IN PARTS of the country. In other regions (Catalunya, Andalucia) there is an ongoing drought which is severely impacting everyone and yeah, hydro-electrical companies had done some, let say questionable decisions regarding their water reservoirs.

> IN PARTS of the country

Figures. The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.

...I'll show myself out.

Re: California exceeds 100% of energy demand with renewables over a record 30 days

#118

Post by timr »

baseline-shift wrote: post #38
callalex wrote: post #5

For a few minutes at low demand time. These kinds of over-grand claims are seriously harmful to the cause of promoting renewables because it makes it seem like we’re almost there and can stop caring. Just look at the excellent, accurate, and up-to-the-hour charts put out by the electricity market itself and you will see where and when the challenges we face still are. https://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.…

This is incorrect. It is not for a few minutes! We are way way past that at this point. The renewable generation meeting the total demand is over most of the day. Because of solar PV, the cheapest generation now, the daytime electricity supply is actually more than we need in California. Solar farms (and also wind farms)get curtailed here due to supplying more than the grid can take at times; this is usually for seve…

Those graphs clearly say that the state is pulling from non-renewable sources (primarily natural gas and "imports") between the hours of 7PM and 7AM. As I look at the page, right now (3:30AM local time), California is producing less than it needs, and the deficit is about 15,000MW. It isn't even close.

It's fine to say that California is producing more than it needs on net, but adding up total production over 24h and subtracting total consumption over 24h and seeing a positive value isn't meaningful if you're actually dependent on conventional sources for 12 hours a day.

But sure, it's more than a few minutes.

Re: California exceeds 100% of energy demand with renewables over a record 30 days

#119

Post by jorvi »

ktzar wrote: post #97
bosie wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear helps to reliably produce electricity when there is a peak demand or renewable has a problem producing (no sun, draught)

Nuclear doesn't scale quickly. It already adapts from 4GW to 7GW in Spain, but it does it slowly and ahead of weather conditions. What is needed is more co-located battery storage, and more gravity (solid or water) storage.

Nuclear is never meant to scale, you want to run the plant at 100% as much as possible to recoup costs. It is baseload power and you deal with peaks using peaker plants and batteries.

Re: California exceeds 100% of energy demand with renewables over a record 30 days

#120

Post by adrianN »

raphaelj wrote: post #113
ta1243 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you need nuclear to be scaled to the maximum demand?

People always forget that a mostly nuclear grid also require a some kind of storage or demand scalability.

With nuclear you have the option of running the reactors at 50% peak and produce energy at approximately twice the cost per kWh.
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