Comment on Rooftop solar panels are flooding California’s grid. That’s a problem. As electricity prices go negative, the Golden State is struggling to offload a glut of solar power

Wanderer@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

People don’t seem to have read the article or seem to understand anything at all.

“These are not insurmountable challenges,” said Michelle Davis, head of global solar at the energy research and consulting firm Wood Mackenzie Power and Renewables. “But they are challenges that a lot of grid operators have never had to deal with.”

And

Solar can still grow in California. In the summer, when high air conditioning use strains the grid, solar can be useful even in the middle of the day. Denholm says that as solar continues to drop in price, installing solar that is curtailed regularly can still be cost-effective. “Throwing away some amount of renewable energy can absolutely make economic sense,” he said.

People want their cake and to eat it too. The grid is old as fuck and is build for a easy system where plants can reliably come online and run all day. They have inertia ans can balance the grid. The value of a traditional plant is higher than that of a solar plant. Solar absolutely has additional costs to the grid and that shouldn’t be ignored. So the only way for solar to compete is to be cheaper, which it is. But those added costs need to be recouped. That’s all that the article is saying.

This about of solar is absoultely causing the grid problems that no grid in the world has ever seen before solar became a thing. But it can be fixed, it just takes investment.

source
Sort:hotnewtop