For example, he cites a 51% increase in electricity prices in California. When doing so, he doesn’t mention factors like climate change related weather disasters (fires, anyone?) and the huge costs associated with those disasters and boosting resiliency.
Does anyone have a sense if this reporter has a history of anti-clean energy writing?
yoortyyo on
Its like saying dams throw away power when they draw down for spring run off
leapinleopard on
EV’s. And cheap charging are the fix. Creates clean air too.
iqisoverrated on
Sigh…It only makes sense to start building battery storage (which Calfornia is doing) when you have excess. Before that they would just be unused assets that sit around and cost money…which would hike energy prices because someone would be paying for them – and that someone is certainly not the ‘money fairy’.
So yes: there will always be some excess/curtialment during the storage buildup. The other way around (building batteries before you have anything to store) would be expensive.
DA2710 on
Not if they would embrace bitcoin mining . It would be a generational opportunity
Mental5tate on
Now they have too much rechargeable batteries? Overconsumption itching new for America..
corrupt politicians doing corrupt politics
Patereye on
The transition to electric vehicles are going to double the consumption in California.
Still-Chemistry-cook on
It’s not a problem. Derp.
AkatoshChiefOfThe9 on
Sounds like the private energy companies aren’t properly incentivised to build storage or to upgrade/ maintain the grid.
I honestly think utilities should be ran by State and local governments. If your priority is profit then everything else will be second to it. That includes transitioning to meet a
> goal of 100% renewable energy by 2045.
mic92077 on
Biggest waste of money
Manny_Bothans on
Maybe they locate all the AI shit beside the excess solar and quit burning dino juice to power the plagarism machine? – oh wait, they need a shit ton of water to cool the plagarism machine and the excess solar isn’t usually next to the excess water… so nevermind… maybe also power the weather machine with the excess solar too?
Electricalthis on
Use all the excess energy to make a big ass ice cube maker to help cool down the ocean if we have the technology to fuck the planet up we must make
technology to help the planet out
Grouchy-Ad4814 on
And there could be much much more pumped to the grid but PG&E limits generation off previous consumption when overall consumption only increases with electrification. Energy is cheap when compared to transmission and distribution costs. PG&E needs eliminated for its archaic grid.
I would love to just disconnect from the grid and micro grid but… not allowed.
>An underground energy storage system utilizing heavy lift equipment and the force of gravity will soon be installed in a repurposed mine shaft at the 4,737-foot-deep Pyhäsalmi Mine in Finland. The project marks an innovative testbed for one of Europe’s oldest and deepest underground mines, containing copper, zinc, and pyrite.
>Scottish startup Gravitricity partnered with Callio Pyhäjärvi, an organization coordinating activities to reuse the mine for underground energy projects. The company will deploy its gravity energy storage system, GraviStore, to generate and store electricity by raising and lowering weights inside an unused 1,738-foot-deep auxiliary shaft along the 0.9-mile-deep mine.
BigMax on
I think “huge problem” is overstated.
This is oversimplifying, but… let’s say I put solar panels on my house. And I generate all the power I need during the day, even store some at night. But at peak time, 4pm, when the sun is still out, batteries are fully charged, there’s some energy that’s now unused, and “lost.” And maybe my battery runs out by 5am, and I need to use grid power from 5-6 until solar kicks back in.
Is that ideal? No, of course not. But is it a “huge problem” for me? No, of course not. I’m still covering 23 hours of my power use with solar, and while I’m “losing” some of that power, it’s not like its wasted, there’s no fuel or resource being used up.
And as other posters have pointed out, this is kind of what you want, right?
You don’t build batteries when there isn’t enough power, there’s no point to them. You build out power, then when you have excess, it’s really easy to make the case to spend the money to build battery storage. That’s where they are now, with a very clear case for spending that money to build out storage. If they build storage first, they’d be throwing money away on nothing, on the hope that maybe someday it would be used.
shaftalope on
PGE just installed half a city block of large container sized batteries to store solar/wind excess power here in Palm Springs. They made over 21 billion in profit so maybe build more storage and make deals with adjacent states to sell excess power?
Ok_Giraffe8865 on
Megapack battery storage, but Newsome does not like Musk, so just waste it in protest.
kjbaran on
Just dump it into a Wardenclyffe Tower/ Tesla Tower
mafco on
This is just dumb. Curtailment isn’t a “problem”. As grids achieve high levels of renewables this is just normal operation. All grids have reserve capacity. These journalists have no clue – calculating the value of the “wasted” sunlight is ignorant at best. And it also gets reduced as new loads, such as EV charging and home heating electrification are added, grid storage is added or transmission lines are upgraded. Overbuilding wind and solar is a must in achieving the lowest cost reliable power grid.
Do they ever complain about all of the idle fossil fuel capacity on the grid doing nothing?
Joclo22 on
Stephen Council should be ashamed for writing this. No solar power plant in California has ever paid to take energy off its hands. This is total hogwash.
There is no technical reason why a solar power plant would ever not be able to stop producing.
Source: I’ve been designing solar power installations since 2006.
GorillaP1mp on
I wish these articles would take the time to dive into the filings and see exactly why the rates have risen so much in the last 3 years. Spoiler alert, it has NOTHING to do with renewable generation. It really sucks because there’s plenty to be upset about, some filings are borderline criminal acts. But it’s complicated, and it takes a lot of reading, and you have to pay attention, so instead we will just blame solar.
GorillaP1mp on
Here’s what you do. You take all that solar power generated at 2:00pm and you sell it to the East Coast where it’s 5:00pm. In the winter it’s dark by that time and regardless of time of year, that’s right during peak demand time. You’re selling this “excess” power that costs nothing to produce and sell it to an area charging the highest time of day rates, and then you credit your customers the netted profit, lowering their bills a pretty significant amount. Problem solved.
Dwip_Po_Po on
The east coast will gladly have what is not used in cali
gorbachevi on
but we keep hearing how there is not enuff electricity for electric cars … what about storage ??
National-Treat830 on
It’s BS. Curtailment is one thing, but even in the shoulder season, with lots of batteries, we’re not switching off gas generation or charging the batteries near their full capacity. We could double it and use it all up, and we will.
Ok_Fig705 on
California’s governor is so stupid…. But go on keep giving free money to PGE
goforkyourself86 on
Does anyone on here have any clue how the western interconnected grid works?
If it were true that california had so much excess power on the grid rolling they have rolling brown outs?
Why do they need the 500KV lines from up in oregon and Washington?
KurtiZ_TSW on
Bitcoin mining solves this – it converts excess energy to money, making expansion of green energy viable and lucrative
Flash_Discard on
Desalinization plants…boom, problem solved..
bluehawk232 on
I like how this is supposed to be the big negative. We have too much clean energy. Okay, so we then find and develop ways to store and transport it and better utilize it. Wow. Or should we just say let’s go back to gas and oil
mhatrick on
Why would the state waste money on batteries and other storage methods, when 5 million people in the state drive around big batteries every day in their cars. Just make charging cheap or free during times of excess.
MickFu on
We toured a geothermal plant in Iceland this summer.
“We never adjust the production or our free energy. When we have surplus we just use the electricity to make hydrogen.”
Maybe an opportunity for California?
Doug12745 on
Most states would like to have that problem to solve. Seems like a blessing in disguise. Think outside the old box on useful ways to reallocate that energy. Water from the Colorado is drying up. Someone else said to restart desalinization to replace the coming shortage of the Colorado. I’m sure that some of your eggheads in Silicon Valley can figure these issues out given the chance.
Afternoon_Jumpy on
That’s why electricity in California is so cheap. Wait…
UnmixedGametes on
Well, color me unsurprised. The laissez faire economy is pretty much useless when it comes to allocating macro level decisions about infrastructure. Sure, it’s all “tech bros can” attitudes when it is a new app to order pizza from a car, but that attitude won’t solve major energy transition issues. It is almost as if Hayek, Buchanan, and all the other libertarian frat boys have led the good old USA down a social and economic blind alley.
Call us back when you get to the forehead slapping and “gosh, darn, this is the sort of problem that needs State level planning and Federal coordination to actually *work*”
thecoastertoaster on
Power desalination plants with it and solve the persistent drought issues.
Oh wait, nah let’s just complain instead.
aussiegreenie on
In most markets, solar energy is restricted very often.
silverelan on
If there’s free electricity, someone will take advantage of it
Basement_Chicken on
My wife has just suggested this: Desalination plants consume enormous amounts of electricity and have been unprofitable because of that. Here we go- both water shortage and electricity overage problems are solved. Start building!
SweatyCount on
Why not shut off hydropower plants during peak solar output and use them energy later? Is there something being done about that?
Pretend_Computer7878 on
too much power but they dont have enough to power ev’s and let you guys use air conditioners
CriticalUnit on
**California can’t use all its solar power. That’s a huge opportunity.**
netraider29 on
Can’t this be used for the crazy amount of power consumed by data centers ?
43 Comments
This is a horrible article, in many ways.
For example, he cites a 51% increase in electricity prices in California. When doing so, he doesn’t mention factors like climate change related weather disasters (fires, anyone?) and the huge costs associated with those disasters and boosting resiliency.
Does anyone have a sense if this reporter has a history of anti-clean energy writing?
Its like saying dams throw away power when they draw down for spring run off
EV’s. And cheap charging are the fix. Creates clean air too.
Sigh…It only makes sense to start building battery storage (which Calfornia is doing) when you have excess. Before that they would just be unused assets that sit around and cost money…which would hike energy prices because someone would be paying for them – and that someone is certainly not the ‘money fairy’.
So yes: there will always be some excess/curtialment during the storage buildup. The other way around (building batteries before you have anything to store) would be expensive.
Not if they would embrace bitcoin mining . It would be a generational opportunity
Now they have too much rechargeable batteries? Overconsumption itching new for America..
corrupt politicians doing corrupt politics
The transition to electric vehicles are going to double the consumption in California.
It’s not a problem. Derp.
Sounds like the private energy companies aren’t properly incentivised to build storage or to upgrade/ maintain the grid.
I honestly think utilities should be ran by State and local governments. If your priority is profit then everything else will be second to it. That includes transitioning to meet a
> goal of 100% renewable energy by 2045.
Biggest waste of money
Maybe they locate all the AI shit beside the excess solar and quit burning dino juice to power the plagarism machine? – oh wait, they need a shit ton of water to cool the plagarism machine and the excess solar isn’t usually next to the excess water… so nevermind… maybe also power the weather machine with the excess solar too?
Use all the excess energy to make a big ass ice cube maker to help cool down the ocean if we have the technology to fuck the planet up we must make
technology to help the planet out
And there could be much much more pumped to the grid but PG&E limits generation off previous consumption when overall consumption only increases with electrification. Energy is cheap when compared to transmission and distribution costs. PG&E needs eliminated for its archaic grid.
I would love to just disconnect from the grid and micro grid but… not allowed.
Aren’t there a lot of old mine shafts in Cali?
>An underground energy storage system will pull heavy weights through an [unused mine shaft to generate and store electricity](https://eepower.com/news/gravity-system-aids-energy-storage-in-unused-mine-shaft/#) for a rural power grid in central Finland.
>An underground energy storage system utilizing heavy lift equipment and the force of gravity will soon be installed in a repurposed mine shaft at the 4,737-foot-deep Pyhäsalmi Mine in Finland. The project marks an innovative testbed for one of Europe’s oldest and deepest underground mines, containing copper, zinc, and pyrite.
>Scottish startup Gravitricity partnered with Callio Pyhäjärvi, an organization coordinating activities to reuse the mine for underground energy projects. The company will deploy its gravity energy storage system, GraviStore, to generate and store electricity by raising and lowering weights inside an unused 1,738-foot-deep auxiliary shaft along the 0.9-mile-deep mine.
I think “huge problem” is overstated.
This is oversimplifying, but… let’s say I put solar panels on my house. And I generate all the power I need during the day, even store some at night. But at peak time, 4pm, when the sun is still out, batteries are fully charged, there’s some energy that’s now unused, and “lost.” And maybe my battery runs out by 5am, and I need to use grid power from 5-6 until solar kicks back in.
Is that ideal? No, of course not. But is it a “huge problem” for me? No, of course not. I’m still covering 23 hours of my power use with solar, and while I’m “losing” some of that power, it’s not like its wasted, there’s no fuel or resource being used up.
And as other posters have pointed out, this is kind of what you want, right?
You don’t build batteries when there isn’t enough power, there’s no point to them. You build out power, then when you have excess, it’s really easy to make the case to spend the money to build battery storage. That’s where they are now, with a very clear case for spending that money to build out storage. If they build storage first, they’d be throwing money away on nothing, on the hope that maybe someday it would be used.
PGE just installed half a city block of large container sized batteries to store solar/wind excess power here in Palm Springs. They made over 21 billion in profit so maybe build more storage and make deals with adjacent states to sell excess power?
Megapack battery storage, but Newsome does not like Musk, so just waste it in protest.
Just dump it into a Wardenclyffe Tower/ Tesla Tower
This is just dumb. Curtailment isn’t a “problem”. As grids achieve high levels of renewables this is just normal operation. All grids have reserve capacity. These journalists have no clue – calculating the value of the “wasted” sunlight is ignorant at best. And it also gets reduced as new loads, such as EV charging and home heating electrification are added, grid storage is added or transmission lines are upgraded. Overbuilding wind and solar is a must in achieving the lowest cost reliable power grid.
Do they ever complain about all of the idle fossil fuel capacity on the grid doing nothing?
Stephen Council should be ashamed for writing this. No solar power plant in California has ever paid to take energy off its hands. This is total hogwash.
There is no technical reason why a solar power plant would ever not be able to stop producing.
Source: I’ve been designing solar power installations since 2006.
I wish these articles would take the time to dive into the filings and see exactly why the rates have risen so much in the last 3 years. Spoiler alert, it has NOTHING to do with renewable generation. It really sucks because there’s plenty to be upset about, some filings are borderline criminal acts. But it’s complicated, and it takes a lot of reading, and you have to pay attention, so instead we will just blame solar.
Here’s what you do. You take all that solar power generated at 2:00pm and you sell it to the East Coast where it’s 5:00pm. In the winter it’s dark by that time and regardless of time of year, that’s right during peak demand time. You’re selling this “excess” power that costs nothing to produce and sell it to an area charging the highest time of day rates, and then you credit your customers the netted profit, lowering their bills a pretty significant amount. Problem solved.
The east coast will gladly have what is not used in cali
but we keep hearing how there is not enuff electricity for electric cars … what about storage ??
It’s BS. Curtailment is one thing, but even in the shoulder season, with lots of batteries, we’re not switching off gas generation or charging the batteries near their full capacity. We could double it and use it all up, and we will.
California’s governor is so stupid…. But go on keep giving free money to PGE
Does anyone on here have any clue how the western interconnected grid works?
If it were true that california had so much excess power on the grid rolling they have rolling brown outs?
Why do they need the 500KV lines from up in oregon and Washington?
Bitcoin mining solves this – it converts excess energy to money, making expansion of green energy viable and lucrative
Desalinization plants…boom, problem solved..
I like how this is supposed to be the big negative. We have too much clean energy. Okay, so we then find and develop ways to store and transport it and better utilize it. Wow. Or should we just say let’s go back to gas and oil
Why would the state waste money on batteries and other storage methods, when 5 million people in the state drive around big batteries every day in their cars. Just make charging cheap or free during times of excess.
We toured a geothermal plant in Iceland this summer.
“We never adjust the production or our free energy. When we have surplus we just use the electricity to make hydrogen.”
Maybe an opportunity for California?
Most states would like to have that problem to solve. Seems like a blessing in disguise. Think outside the old box on useful ways to reallocate that energy. Water from the Colorado is drying up. Someone else said to restart desalinization to replace the coming shortage of the Colorado. I’m sure that some of your eggheads in Silicon Valley can figure these issues out given the chance.
That’s why electricity in California is so cheap. Wait…
Well, color me unsurprised. The laissez faire economy is pretty much useless when it comes to allocating macro level decisions about infrastructure. Sure, it’s all “tech bros can” attitudes when it is a new app to order pizza from a car, but that attitude won’t solve major energy transition issues. It is almost as if Hayek, Buchanan, and all the other libertarian frat boys have led the good old USA down a social and economic blind alley.
Call us back when you get to the forehead slapping and “gosh, darn, this is the sort of problem that needs State level planning and Federal coordination to actually *work*”
Power desalination plants with it and solve the persistent drought issues.
Oh wait, nah let’s just complain instead.
In most markets, solar energy is restricted very often.
If there’s free electricity, someone will take advantage of it
My wife has just suggested this: Desalination plants consume enormous amounts of electricity and have been unprofitable because of that. Here we go- both water shortage and electricity overage problems are solved. Start building!
Why not shut off hydropower plants during peak solar output and use them energy later? Is there something being done about that?
too much power but they dont have enough to power ev’s and let you guys use air conditioners
**California can’t use all its solar power. That’s a huge opportunity.**
Can’t this be used for the crazy amount of power consumed by data centers ?