Re:California strikes another blow against rooftop solar
by ThatPlayer on Friday November 17, 2023 @04:52PM
(#38310985)
California's grid already has so much power during peak solar that energy is exported to other grids. So adding more solar is diminishing returns.
https://www.eia.gov/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard/electr...
Re:California strikes another blow against rooftop solar
by miguelazo on Sunday November 19, 2023 @01:26PM
(#38335912)
And yet they're still running natural gas plants during those peaks and have an aging nuclear facility that accounts for much of their clean energy that was scheduled to close in 2025.
Re:California strikes another blow against rooftop solar
by ThatPlayer on Friday December 01, 2023 @02:58AM
(#38484317)
Because natural gas plants don't just turn on and off. They're engines that take time to ramp up and down. If you can't ramp up fast enough to meet demand when solar ramps down as the sun sets, you have power outages. Adding more solar makes this problem worse. They call it the duck curve: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve
Re:California strikes another blow against rooftop solar
by miguelazo on Tuesday December 05, 2023 @07:49PM
(#38539088)
Yeah. Another reason why gas plants will soon be obsolete.
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/giant-batteries-drai...
LEDs/CCFLs being subsidized until consumers switched over to them (I know the story is more complex than this) made sense too.