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Comment by viewtransform | Hacker News Reader

California power generation profile yesterday showing solar and battery proportion.

https://engaging-data.com/california-electricity-generation/...

Is California enough to drag the rest of the country with them, though?

Texas, technically, generates more TWh than California. I think a data center boom followed by a bust would help a lot more than what California can do. Unlike in cars, CAs market size or regulations can’t help/hinder other fuel sources as much.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_renewab...

Interesting this doesn't get passed around as much, not only does Texas generate more than California, it's twice as much.

The % is lower, but still higher than the countries average.

Good point.

Are Texas and California enough to drag the rest of the US with them?

Grid-connected PV in Texas has grown between 33% and over 100% every year since 2008, which outpaces the growth of solar in the US in the same timeframe.

California's percentage of solar generation as a share of the entire solar generation in the USA has shrunk every year since 2016.

It's not been accurate to say that California is dragging the rest of the country with them for a long time when it comes to energy generation.

It doesn't need to. The reality is companies are going to go for whatever the cheapest cost for electricity is, and solar w/ batteries has taken that lead. Capitalism happens to align with a renewable energy green transition, regardless of whatever the US political engine wants. At the end of the day most companies are going to choose profit over political ideology.

You're right but the problem is subsidies change that math. If the US gov subsidizes oil, then the economics of that work out even if solar wins in a free market.

That's true, but also requires that companies believe those subsidies will remain in place over ~20-30 years. Assuming US elections remain fair, that's not going to be the case. By contrast solar / wind subsidies are effective since the bulk of their cost is up-front, so you can generally rely on getting full value out of those subsidies.

Subsidies can certainly delay things at this point, but it's hard to see how it'd stop it.

I agree. Subsidies will delay, but they will not change the outcome.

Considering we are racing against CO2 release and the warming planet, I worry that the delay makes a large difference in outcome, not for energy breakdown, but in quality of life for humanity.

Sadly they might not be allowed to choose profit. ~25% of US counties have adopted regulation effectively blocking new solar and wind (1). Up from 15% a year ago!

Peoples stupidity and self sabotage truly knows no bounds.

1 https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2026/02/2...

Other comments mentioned Texas, but check out the Ercot dashboard: https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards

Not only did solar and wind provide the vast majority of power during the day today, as I write this comment coal is neck-and-neck with storage as an energy resource - i.e. power that was saved during the day because it was so sunny.

Coal simply makes no economic sense as a power source for electricity generation anymore. Natural gas is still needed as base load for when renewables are insufficient, but in perhaps the "free market ideological capital" of Texas, the trend towards renewables + storage is simply the economic choice.

Today Texas kissed 50% generation from solar around 11:30AM and was generating 63% from wind last night.

What are your thoughts on oil?

What does it mean to do battery-based power generation?

It means you charge the batteries when you have extra power (like a sunny day), and you use that charge to handle the times you don't.

Hm, so that seems to kind of obscure how that power actually got generated. Maybe it was all coal, although that seems unlikely. It seems like battery usage is important to measure. But calling it generation seems to obscure something, unless they're double-counting the generation. That's misleading in another way though.

It's not coal.

Here's the chart with everything but battery+solar turned off.

https://imgur.com/a/5HfjAdI

Makes the scenario quite clear. No double counting.

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