California has a lot of renewables, but retail prices have increased rapidly.

Unconstrained distribution costs because of lack of political will to aggressively regulate (PG&E, etc). Mostly a California problem, as long as PG&E is permitted to extract executive comp and profits while minimizing infrastructure investment. Supply costs are plunging during the day due to utility scale solar output.

The reason PG&E rates are skyrocketing in California - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40128003 - April 2024 (26 comments)

After 111 years, SF finally moving to oust PG&E and create a public-power system - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39587901 - March 2024 (13 comments)

https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insight... | https://archive.today/PeDeH ("April 2024: CAISO sets back-to-back solar peak records in April; power spot prices plunge")

> Spot power prices have been trending lower year on year on lower natural gas spot prices and more renewable generation supply, including hydropower following years of drought.

> CAISO has 19.011 GW of installed solar generation capacity, which accounts for the majority of renewable resources on the grid at 62%, according to the Key Statistics report. Solar capacity has increased nearly 15% compared to a year ago and 26% from two years ago.

> There are currently 28.6 GW of solar projects in the CAISO generation queue, including 13.8 GW that have executed interconnection agreements and nearly 4.5 GW of those have on-line dates expected listed for 2024. Only two solar projects slated to come online in 2024 do not have batteries connected.

https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/US-CAL-CISO ("ElectricityMaps.com: California CAISO Zone")

California has a PG&E regulatory capture problem.

Electricity is very cheap next door in Arizona