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

Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

electrek.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 405 posts

Re: Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

#381

Post by epistasis »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #380
epistasis wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're building them, but not using them. They get built because their market has messed up pricing for providing generation capacity, far in excess of the need for capacity. So the coal plants get built, and not used much. In particular, they are replacing coal plants meant for baseload with newer and far more efficient coal plants meant for more intermittent use, but that amount of use will go down drastically in…

You don't think maybe there's a need for a base capacity that isn't dependent on whims of weather? You think it's more likely that China is sitting on totally unused generators? I'm not sure what this is.

> You think it's more likely that China is sitting on totally unused generators?

It's not "think" it's "data" that's been in the news a lot this year, after being projected for many years:

https://www.woodmac.com/press-releases/chinas-coal-fired-pow...

https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-coal-power-drops-in-chi...

Re: Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

#382

Post by zahlman »

epistasis wrote: post #272
verdverm wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is there such a disconnect?

Transmission and distribution costs: i.e. the grid. California is a massive state, has very rugged terrain, and there's a ton of deferred maintenance on transmission lines that are more than 50 years old, that are at huge risk of causing massive wildfires that destroy entire towns. This has been terribly mismanaged, because like most places with regulated monopoly utilities, the regulatory body is opaque and not very…

> I remember one case where PG&E got approval to charge for grid maintenance, spent hundreds of millions, had ~$100M leftover, then declared "oh we did it cheaper than we expected, executive bonuses all around the C-suite with the extra!" And then we had multi-billion dollar wildfires the following year.

... Is PG&E also expected to do the forestry management? Or what other maintenance could they have done with the money?

Re: Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

#383

Post by tonymet »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #81
tonymet wrote: post #64

*electricity . Gas is heavily used for heating , cooking & industrial uses (e.g. drying agriculture like hops, boilers etc). I raise this point since policymakers get confused and try to ban gas, only to realize how critical gas is for food & industrial applications that consumers enjoy after the fact.

You're correct that this ought to say "electricity" and not "power". But I think you're wrong to think that gas is "critical" to any of the things you've listed. "Currently used" ... yes. "Not replaceable by electricity" ... no (unlike, e.g. air travel).

Good discussion thanks i got some new ideas out of it

Re: Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

#384

Post by dnautics »

ceejayoz wrote: post #35
dnautics wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no, but renewables do speak for themselves in dollars and cents, even if they dont have subsidy. now should petrochem subsidies end too? probably yes.

> renewables do speak for themselves in dollars and cents Yes. But administration opposition can change that math, as they have with the tariffs.

they're not going to. solar and wind producers in texas are rich republicans.

Re: Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

#385

Post by ZeroGravitas »

wallst07 wrote: post #375
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not by percentage. They're just bigger and generate more electricity total. So you could flip the stat and say they produce more fossil energy than any other state. I can't quickly find 2025 stats but in recent years they've been 50% higher than the next state in both coal and gas fired electricity (in absolute terms). Wikipedia has tables sortable by column by source by total and percentage from 2022 to get a rough…

Absolute values matter more IMO. Any time people use % or per capita, it means they live in a city. I see this quite often, and it's just a way to skew rhetoric. Just my opinion.

That's fine, but that means the absolute value of all the coal and gas they burn matters more too.

Re: Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

#386

Post by _whiteCaps_ »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #358
jphil529 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really curious about the difficulty of doing a self install with Solar. I'm moderately handy (built a Sauna from no plans) and confident with electrical. Any gotchas?

I don't have solar myself but I worked for a solar tech company for a couple of years I think the biggest gotcha we dealt with was that you can't (or shouldn't) just wire solar into your house and call it a day. You have to let your electrical company know, there are permits and inspections that need to be done before you wire your solar into the public grid. There may also be some relevant bylaws you should know abo…

I 100% agree with having inspections if you're grid tied. You don't want your system energizing the neighbourhood when the power goes out!

Re: Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

#388

Post by pstuart »

wallst07 wrote: post #347
mrhottakes wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of people call renewable energy woke

"Plenty" Plenty of people stick things in their butt and go to the emergency room. So what.

You seem to be aggrieved by my "politicization" of the topic of renewables.

It's absolutely the case and I take no pleasure in bringing the matter up but it's relevant to the discussion.

The Trump admin has been very vocal that it wants to only support fossil fuels and nuclear, and that wind and solar are woke and must be destroyed. I would love to be proven wrong but I don't think thats possible.

There's an insane amount of wealth tied to fossil fuels (from energy giants down to field workers and well-owners). They all have an incredibly strong bias to keep that money train coming, and the demonization of renewables is directly tied to that.

Re: Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

#389

Post by Paradigma11 »

erelong wrote: post #9

I know some people who are adamantly against solar and wind (personally I like both but I can see some shortcomings - for example I have heard that ai datacenters are using gas at times because of its flexibility) So what are some of the best talking points to "sell" solar and wind to the unconvinced? Or will they just adopt it once it's seen everywhere?

Show them actual lower consumer prices in lock step with an increased percentage of renewable energy. But you cant.

Re: Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

#390

Post by nonethewiser »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #218
zahlman wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Take a look at California. Their grid is routinely, daily, generating ~84% of its power from renewables [1] (with ~25GW of existing solar PV capacity, ~6GW of wind, and ~6GW of hydro). > ... Not everywhere is California, but solar and batteries are the cheapest form of generation in 90%+ of the world [5]. ... Then why is electricity so expensive there compared to the US average?

It's not. California has the cheapest wholesale electricity prices in the country. It's the only place in the country with a wholesale rate below $100 / MWh, and California is way below $100. https://cleantechnica.com/2026/05/30/california-lowest-whole... Retail prices are of course super high in California, but that has nothing to do with generation.

Actually, solar is a reason for both of these:

1. California wholesale prices are the lowest in the country

2. California consumer prices are the highest in the country

That's no coincidence. Solar credits in 1 and debits in 2, so to speak.

One reason wholesale electricity prices are so low is because there is an excess in solar. Rates go negative midday when demand is lower. That really brings down the average. But why are they negative? Oversupply. CAISO curtailed 3.4 million MWh in 2024 alone, up 29% from 2023, 93% of it solar. [0]

And how can CAISO deal with this?

Spend more money on the grid. Batteries and transmission infrastructure. The high transmission and delivery costs, which you identified as the reason for the disconnect, is partially the function of so much solar generation. You can't just separate the two.

Also, that Clean Technica source is shit. It's a solar advocacy group. They have completely withheld important context. And a simple average of prices is dumb.

Its not even clear if the price is from traded volume or listed price. Mark Jacobson (underlying BlueSky post) states its from the EIA but the EIA has both - trade price and list price by hour. Is it a simple average that includes a negative price that may not actually be traded? This would artificially lower the wholesale price.

A better metric would be load weighted price. What did energy cost when people consumed it?

[0] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=65364

Post reply on HN