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Comment by simianparrot | Hacker News Reader

Ok but what about when it’s night time or cloudy?

Solar + battery + wind actually do pretty well. There's a bit of a de-correlation between solar and wind that makes the mix more resilient than either alone. We can't do 100% in most places yet, but it's pretty straightforward to move to a much higher percentage of them in our grid mix than we have now, California possibly excepting. (But even in California you see battery starting to extend how much we can do with solar as prices continue to drop.)

And the plummeting price of solar modules makes it more cost effective to over provision for the case of clouds, and/or to mount solar panels to optimize for morning and evening production as well.

California has energy costs more than double most other states so it’s probably not the best argument for “it’s so easy to go mostly renewable.” A lot of things are feasible if you’re willing to [force everyone in the state to] spend 2x. Whatever California is trying to do in the past 20 years has been extraordinarily regressive.

It hasn’t, it is actually showing the way forward for a more dynamic energy mix. Regressive is continuing with the same 150y fossil fuel receipt for energy despite continuous advances in various clean technologies. California has multiple natural issues with regular fires and dry air that makes energy management very expensive.

Our energy costs are due to the distribution network and the massive amount of deferred maintenance on it that has come due in the last decade, accelerated by the Camp fire court case. There was a two year period a few years ago where power went out at least once a week while SDGE replaced every power pole in the rural east county by flying them in on helicopters. That's largely what we're paying for.

As the above poster said.

Generation costs are a small part of most consumers' bills, but particularly in CA.

If you look at the location marginal pricing map from CA ISO: https://www.caiso.com/todays-outlook/prices

You'll see that right now (before solar has really kicked in), The price for the next megawatt hour of generation is $49 -- i.e., under 5c per kWh. That's comparable to the average price in PJM (east coast) at the same time:

https://www.caiso.com/todays-outlook/prices

vs https://pjm.com/

The big problem for California is that cheap generation via solar doesn't move the needle as much on consumer bills because of the transmission and distribution costs. In San Francisco, for example the distribution fee is over $0.20/kWh. That's twice what mine is in Pittsburgh. In contrast, the generation pricing is only about $0.04/kWh more than mine:

https://www.pge.com/tariffs/assets/pdf/tariffbook/ELEC_SCHED...

though this pricing does favor behind the meter generation such as residential solar.

In terms of consumer bills, California is actually among the states with typical spending on such things. Your actual energy bill in California is not that high. There are 14 American states where residential energy bills are higher than California's.

People are always pointing out the marginal volumetric costs of electricity, which is indeed very high. But that is just reflection of the fact that we use so little energy because of our history of efficiency laws and the mild climate, so the fixed charges and taxes that combine into the volumetric price are much higher than in other states. And our extremely large fleet of behind the meter solar panels also contributes to the higher volumetric price of grid electricity. All together, this doesn't tell us much about whether renewables are a good policy or not.

Agreed. The point I'm trying to make is that the breakdown of California's costs shows that it's not actually the generation cost, i.e., whether or not the generation is solar or fossil is not really the thing that's making the difference.

(When you factor in behind the meter, solar is, in fact, probably reducing the average cost to consumers.)

Cost of electricity and cost of energy should be considered in a conversation about renewables vs fossil fuels.

Many of those other states avoid high electricity costs because they are cold states that don't use electricity for heat.

If the homes heated by gas or oil all switched to grid electricity, that would in all likelihood reduce the marginal volumetric price of electricity by amortizing the fixed costs over a larger volume.

Texas and Florida both have a lot of solar as well, with TX likely passing CA on battery storage over the next few years. Those states also have much cheaper energy than CA.

California's energy problems aren't due to the source of their energy.

PG&E being a for profit company, and also that whole Enron thing doesn’t help.

Not sure how they're allowed to generate a profit or distribute dividends given the cost of the wildfires started by their complete and total failure to maintain equipment to minimum safety standards.

That's where the battery comes in.

Yes, I am over-simplifying the very complex problem of grid management, but so are you.

Molten salt solar power doesn't care. It remains hot.

Advancements in solar also are improving with clouds.

Also, you know, batteries. When someone makes it cost effective to install a device to sell your car battery power on the grid we'll also have a better time managing the grid during spikes... Would be nice if that also did home battery backup in blackouts... 70 kWh would get me through most of the ones I've experienced.

Molten salt solar power plants are completely obsolete. See for ex. Ivanpah being shut down early because the power its generating is too expensive compared to Solar PV: https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/solar/once-an-engineeri...

Molten salt absolutely does care, keeping it molten controls how much power can be withdrawn. It’s a form of thermal battery (and an inefficient one).

If the sun is shining vs not (and if further withdrawal will freeze the salt) absolutely controls power output.

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