Solar power glut boosts California electric bills. Other states reap the benefits

[Zorro]

California is making so much solar energy that large commercial operators are increasingly forced to stop production, raising questions about the state’s costly plan to shift entirely to carbon-free sources of electricity.

In the last 12 months, California’s solar farms have curtailed production of more than 3 million megawatt hours of solar energy, either on the orders of the state’s grid operator or because prices had plummeted because of the glut, according to an analysis of data by The Times.

That’s enough to power 518,000 California homes for a year, based on average electricity usage.

To avoid overloading the power grid, California sometimes must stop producing solar and wind power. So far in 2024, the state has curtailed generation by 3.2 million megawatt hours — enough to power more than half a million homes for a year.

The amount of curtailed solar power has more than doubled from 1.5 million megawatt hours in 2021, state records show, and is up eight times from levels in 2017.

https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-11-24/california-has-so-much-solar-power-that-increasingly-it-goes-to-waste

An unintended consequence of excess solar power production is that the state sells the excess to neighboring states, which effectively lowers the cost of electricity to their customers. So California residents are actually subsidizing those lower rates to non-Californians.

[TheRickles]

1. It's behind a paywall - how does a glut lead to higher prices?

[Zorro]

2. From the article

"The solar glut also means higher electricity bills for Californians, since they are effectively paying to generate the power but not using it.

California’s electric rates are roughly twice the nation’s average, with only Hawaii having higher rates. Rates at Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric increased by 51% over the last three years.

“Ratepayers aren’t getting the energy they’ve paid for,” said Ron Miller, an energy industry consultant in Denver. He calculates that the retail value of the solar energy thrown away in a year would be more than $1 billion."

California residents pay higher rates to allow utility companies to build alternative energy source systems, but the excess generated capacity isn't able to be used in-state -- so that excess capacity is sold at rates lower than the cost of generation, sometimes at a negative cost to energy brokers.

[TheRickles]

4. Thanks! But why can't the excess be sold to other states and brokers at normal rates?

[brush]

3. What a rip off of California rate payers. They stop producion so rate prices won't go down, or the authorities sell...

the excess power to neighboring states, thus subsidizing their customers' lower rates.

Seems they need to increase their energy storage capacity by quite a lot instead of ripping off rate payers.

[kirby]

5. What also sucks...

Electricity flows to the nearest demand. So when your solar panels generate excess current not used by your own home, it flows to your neighbors house. However the power company only pays/credits you the wholesale rate, while the neighbors electric meters turns and the power company bills them the retail rate. They make a huge profit from that fact.

[hunter]

6. It's a damned lie that solar and wind power cost less than fossil fuels or nuclear.

Cost of electricity with nuclear:

Capital cost of nuclear power plant plus Maintenance costs.

Fuel and safe disposal costs are not a large part of the equation.

Cost of electricity with fossil fuels:

Capital cost of fossil fuel power plant plus Maintenance costs plus fuel costs.

Fossil fuel waste is simply dumped everywhere without account and will eventually destroy this world as we know it.

Cost of electricity with fossil fuels, wind, and solar:

Costs of fossil fuel power plants (including ALL environmental and Capital costs) plus Capital costs of wind and solar plants, including distribution, plus Maintenance costs of wind and solar minus the fossil fuel equivalent cost of wind and solar power produced when there is a demand for it.

Because the capacity factors of wind and solar are so poor, about 16% in the case of home solar, 25% in the case of large scale desert solar, and around 30% for wind, fossil fuel primary power will always be required. Adding batteries to these hybrid systems will only increase the cost of electricity further.

Wind and solar power cannot displace fossil fuels entirely, which is what we need to do.

Nuclear power is the only energy resource capable of displacing fossil fuels entirely, and it can do so for less cost and much smaller environmental impacts than hybrid solar / wind / battery / fossil fuel systems.

If we build nuclear power plants then we don't need wind or solar power, which brings great distress to solar and wind advocates who inevitably become tacit supporters of the filthy natural gas industry and environmentally destructive battery and hydroelectric storage schemes.

[Nigrum Cattus]

7. "Nuclear power is one hell of a way to boil water" Albert Einstein

https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/radwaste.html
And very dirty as well

[hunter]

8. "Dirty" compared to natural gas?

Surely you must be joking.

The difference is that nuclear waste can be contained. Fossil fuel waste cannot, it's simply dumped everywhere. Some of that fossil fuel waste is radioactive, carcinogenic, etc., etc.. Natural gas accidents can destroy entire neighborhoods, flames spewing toxins everywhere. Worst of all, fossil fuel waste causes global warming.

Nuclear waste won't destroy the world as we know it. Fossil fuel waste will, and is doing so as I write this.

We've been very well trained to ignore the dangers of fossil fuels, most of all the very real threat of global warming.

Wind and solar promotion is climate change denial "light" (as in light beer) and will only prolong our dependency on fossil fuels, doing nothing in the long run to reduce the total amount of greenhouse gasses humans dump into earth's atmosphere.

[CoopersDad]

9. The author is an idiot. I'm so tired of hacks talking about energy.

I toured the site of the world's largest grid scale battery a few weeks ago, a Vistra-PG&E site at Moss Landing.

The article in the LA Times is shitstirring and seems aimed to discourage investment in renewables.

With more storage, we'll be able to reach carbon-free production in due time.

The only scary thing going on is the looming demand of data centers.