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California went a record 98 days with 10 hours of electricity from renewables

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Re: California went a record 98 days with 10 hours of electricity from renewables

#21

Post by ZeroGravitas »

The article kind of jumbles the paper it's reporting on, the paper's headline might be better (or linking the paper directly):

"No blackouts or cost increases due to 100 % clean, renewable electricity powering California for parts of 98 days"

> This paper uses data from the world's 5th-largest economy to show no blackouts occurred when wind-water-solar electricity supply exceeded 100 % of demand on California's main grid for a record 98 of 116 days from late winter to early summer, 2024, for an average of 4.84 (and maximum 10.1) hours/day

Re: California went a record 98 days with 10 hours of electricity from renewables

#22

Post by AtlasBarfed »

Cerium wrote: post #18
rayiner wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the retail electric rate really almost $0.30? Here in Maryland, it’s half that, and charging my EV is like $0.11. At $0.30, having an EV wouldn’t be any cheaper than buying gas!

I wish it was $0.30... My rate is about 0.46.

If you look at lazards LCOE report over the past decade, solar and wind are plummeting the whole time.

We should be seeing historically low rates, but suspiciously the rates have been going up.

I get grid adaptation is a nice expense, but LCOE is LCOE: the leveled cost of energy.

Therr are lots of questions why America's economy had done better (statistically at least) than the rest of the world since covid... To me it is the rise of shale oil. Cheaper energy makes for a better economy.

Oil is a good short term help, but what we really need in America is an alternative energy strategy... A path to less than 10 cent energy from Alt energy.

It's won't happen under the Cheeto, but we are in the long term making ourselves less competitive worldwide not pursuing alt energy aggressively with a boatload of subsides.

Re: California went a record 98 days with 10 hours of electricity from renewables

#23

Post by danny_codes »

k310 wrote: post #5

My electric rates more than doubled. No doubt for different reasons, including previously shelved infrastructure improvements such as underground lines. For whatever reason, it hurts like hell.

The taxpayer is covering PG&E's wildfire liabilities and deferred maintenance costs. You know, instead of the PG&E shareholders. Capitalism only applies to poors, as we all know.

Re: California went a record 98 days with 10 hours of electricity from renewables

#24

Post by aeternum »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #21

The article kind of jumbles the paper it's reporting on, the paper's headline might be better (or linking the paper directly): "No blackouts or cost increases due to 100 % clean, renewable electricity powering California for parts of 98 days" > This paper uses data from the world's 5th-largest economy to show no blackouts occurred when wind-water-solar electricity supply exceeded 100 % of demand on California's main…

Why are the live statistics so different than the conclusions in the paper?

Here you can see that CA power is more than double the cost of PJM, Southwest, and Midcontinent power. Whenever I look at it, CA is still be burning a huge amount of natural gas, especially overnight.

https://www.gridstatus.io/live/caiso

Re: California went a record 98 days with 10 hours of electricity from renewables

#25

Post by vantassell »

k310 wrote: post #5

My electric rates more than doubled. No doubt for different reasons, including previously shelved infrastructure improvements such as underground lines. For whatever reason, it hurts like hell.

Rates are high because we’re paying for all the wildfires the electric utilities have started.

Re: California went a record 98 days with 10 hours of electricity from renewables

#26

Post by vantassell »

rayiner wrote: post #8
k310 wrote: post #5

My electric rates more than doubled. No doubt for different reasons, including previously shelved infrastructure improvements such as underground lines. For whatever reason, it hurts like hell.

Is the retail electric rate really almost $0.30? Here in Maryland, it’s half that, and charging my EV is like $0.11. At $0.30, having an EV wouldn’t be any cheaper than buying gas!

Once MD has a few 100k+ acre wildfires that the power utility is liable for, I’m sure your rate will go up too.

Re: California went a record 98 days with 10 hours of electricity from renewables

#27

Post by knuckleheadsmif »

vantassell wrote: post #25
k310 wrote: post #5

My electric rates more than doubled. No doubt for different reasons, including previously shelved infrastructure improvements such as underground lines. For whatever reason, it hurts like hell.

Rates are high because we’re paying for all the wildfires the electric utilities have started.

No rates are high excluding the wildfires which has a separate surcharge to finance.

But PGE having to provide power to wilderness areas in genera costs all PG&E customers to bear the cost and it’s a cost that Municipal power companies in CA don’t have and their rates an 1/2 or even more than PG&Es.

Re: California went a record 98 days with 10 hours of electricity from renewables

#28

Post by knuckleheadsmif »

Cerium wrote: post #18
rayiner wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the retail electric rate really almost $0.30? Here in Maryland, it’s half that, and charging my EV is like $0.11. At $0.30, having an EV wouldn’t be any cheaper than buying gas!

I wish it was $0.30... My rate is about 0.46.

In CA, in 2025, if you have PG&E it’s approx 55 cents/kwh at peak, non-peak rates are lower but the average ands up being close 50 cents. It’s close to the highest in the country.

Re: California went a record 98 days with 10 hours of electricity from renewables

#29

Post by knuckleheadsmif »

kylehotchkiss wrote: post #16
hedora wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every year, I run the numbers to see how many years it will take for going completely off grid (to avoid paying for prior and current corruption at PG&E) to pay for itself. Every year, it decreases.

SDG&E is equally bad or worse. And people in this region don’t all have Silicon Valley jobs to pay that bill. Apartments that barely run AC or heat often look at $300 monthly electric bills now.

Yup similar rates to PG&E although most of PG&Es customers don’t live in Silicon Valley.

Only Municipal power companies like in Sacramento, LA, Palo Alto & Santa Clara to name a few have rates that are 1/3 to 1/2 of PG&E rates. They pay a small grid interconnection fee to the other utilities but beyond that their cost structure is much lower and they don’t have to return dividends to stock holders.

Gas rates have a similar cost structure between municipal and public companies although for some reason there are fewer municipal gas companies at least for smaller cities.

Re: California went a record 98 days with 10 hours of electricity from renewables

#30

Post by ZeroGravitas »

aeternum wrote: post #24
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #21

The article kind of jumbles the paper it's reporting on, the paper's headline might be better (or linking the paper directly): "No blackouts or cost increases due to 100 % clean, renewable electricity powering California for parts of 98 days" > This paper uses data from the world's 5th-largest economy to show no blackouts occurred when wind-water-solar electricity supply exceeded 100 % of demand on California's main…

Why are the live statistics so different than the conclusions in the paper? Here you can see that CA power is more than double the cost of PJM, Southwest, and Midcontinent power. Whenever I look at it, CA is still be burning a huge amount of natural gas, especially overnight. https://www.gridstatus.io/live/caiso

The paper is about short periods of a day when renewables are meeting more than 100% of demand.

If that broke the grid then there would be little future in building out wind and solar beyond a small fraction of energy.

The paper demonstrates it's not a problem, so further progress to making all of the grid's energy clean can continue.

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