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Comment by philipkglass | Hacker News Reader

California's renewables mix is currently solar-heavy. Water depth increases steeply off its coast so traditional fixed bottom offshore turbines don't have many viable locations. Floating wind would be a great complement to solar there if the technology matures.

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See Duck curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve

Essentially, solar is great from 8am to 4pm, and California has replaced about half of their load during those hours with solar. However, they have negligible renewable capacity during other times of the day, including peak demand from 6-10pm.

There's a more up-to-date version of California's Duck Curve here: https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/confronting-duck-curve-...

Solar is so cheap that it's now worth it to point solar arrays towards the 5pm sun angle, for utility-scale deployments that get time-of-day pricing.

I live on the Central Coast and it never struck me as very windy around here, at least compared to other places I've been. I looked it up and as I thought, the winds are further North:

2020 Offshore Wind Resource Assessment for the California Pacific Outer Continental Shelf https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy21osti/77642.pdf

It gets plenty windy just a few miles out into the Pacific Ocean. Pay attention to the marine forecast for a few months and notice how often they include small craft advisories.

Most of the wind is 4-12 miles offshore, as the wind rolls down the coast it's blocked by the mountains that run along the coast. At 25 miless offshore you get into mesoscale wind patterns which are extremely stable and aren't impacted nearly as much by day/night cycle, and can be forecasted with great reliability days and sometimes weeks in advance, particularly in the summer once the north pacific high settles in between CA and HI.

Much of the West Coast is in the same boat.

It's interesting tech, but a big part of offshore wind power is bringing the power back to shore. Onshore wind and solar are going to have the advantage there for the foreseeable future.

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