Comment by spenrose | Hacker News Reader

Comment by spenrose | Hacker News Reader

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1. It's complicated.

2. Peak curtailment is mid-April through June: peak hydro and solar production, plenty of wind, and little HVAC load: http://www.caiso.com/informed/Pages/ManagingOversupply.aspx

3. Yes, you can see that batteries are charging from solar on CAISO Today's Outlook.

4. There is an enormous amount of home solar which shows up as a drop in "Demand": http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/index.html#section-... . Set the date widget to April 8, and notice "demand" rise to 20GW at the 11:15 partial eclipse peak and drop almost 6GW over the next couple hours. Figure > 10 GW of peak output from home solar

5. Grid and home solar together (> 25GW) are roughly comparable to total load (~26GW on this cool spring day).

6. Neither the transmission nor the distribution networks can efficiently send supply to load; both have bottlenecks.

7. This waste is an opportunity for more batteries, grid-scale electrolysis, etc.

8. A GWh is worth roughly $50,000. In the context of California's (~$4T/year ÷ 365=)$10B of daily economic activity, wasting $500k is not that big a deal. Particular matter from the state's natural gas plants kills many people a day.

Got sucked into this (shakes fist). EIA.gov estimates 16.6 GW nameplate of behind-the-meter solar at end of 2023 (having grown ~150MW/m through the year; it was 14.5 in January), generating 1.7 TWh/month in December and 3TWh in high summer, or 50GWh/day in winter and 100GWH/day in summer. If the growth continues at that rate, in July we will have 17.6GW generating 3.4TWh. Note that California has mandated panels on new buildings ...

* https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/eia861m/

What will the plan be to meet demand before sunrise? They've gone so heavy on solar there's not much scope to add wind to cover pre-sunrise. I assume they just keep installing more lithium ion batteries to the point they can run them all night, but I read somewhere that the cost sweet spot for lithium ion is 2-3 hours, although I don't know how reliable that claim was

The most recent(?) state plan: https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2022-11/2022-sp.p... . On page 203 you see the plan is 20GW of offshore wind, an enormous amount of storage and new solar, and smaller contributions from everything else. I'd bet enhanced geothermal and heat and iron storage would be weighted higher today. If we can permit it, we'll do it.

A lot is hanging on that 20 GW offshore wind. Would be a bummer to see permits canceled due to politics... I have a feeling the next administration may not have any good will toward California.

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