California renewable energy production with falling demand

[mspohr]

Software could have prevented California’s rolling blackouts

 

[AceSkywalker]

So what's the plan to keep the lights on in California during the late summer? Worst case scenario is that these rolling blackouts become more and more common and rates slowly creep up, to the ire of ratepayers who will definitely be taking their frustration out on the utilities and politicians.

Press pause on decommissioning nuclear and NG power plants?
Be more aggressive with pushing homeowners into installing rooftop PV and batteries to become 100% self sufficient through property tax breaks?
Decentralized microgrids?
Super aggressive targets to build out utility scale solar and batteries?

 

[mspohr]

So what's the plan to keep the lights on in California during the late summer? Worst case scenario is that these rolling blackouts become more and more common and rates slowly creep up, to the ire of ratepayers who will definitely be taking their frustration out on the utilities and politicians.

Press pause on decommissioning nuclear and NG power plants?
Be more aggressive with pushing homeowners into installing rooftop PV and batteries to become 100% self sufficient through property tax breaks?
Decentralized microgrids?
Super aggressive targets to build out utility scale solar and batteries?

Batteries, PV, wind, microgrids. Doing all of that now. Blackouts were caused by NG plants failing so that's not a solution.

 

[iPlug]

So what's the plan to keep the lights on in California during the late summer?

No forecast for late summer power outages.

 

[mspohr]

More on the response to the blackouts

Distributed Energy Helped Fight California’s Grid Outages, But It Could Do Much More

 

[mspohr]

The U.S. Energy Storage Boom Is About To Begin | OilPrice.com

 

[David_Cary]

You can deal with these demand swings fairly easily and significantly cheaper than batteries. But there is a point where you cannot. But we are far from that point. California is reasonably ahead of other places but still not as far along as they could be.

I find it really helped to have a solar setup and monitor your usage patterns - at least in my area, monitoring is generally included with solar installs. You see how much the evening is an issue, particularly in later summer. You can then easily change that by adjusting a/c timing.
And people - including myself - respond to incentives.

In my last house, I got a large rebate to agree to go to a demand based rate for 5 years. So I cooled the house in the middle of the day and coasted in the evening. We also were off peak from 1-4 pm in the winter so I ran the heat pumps hard then.

New house, no more demand based rate - in fact no TOU option. So I come home and plug the car in. The a/c coasts all day and fires up at 6 pm to cool the bedrooms for sleep. I use very little electricity when the sun shines.

The other thing this has taught me is that the commercial demand for electricity during the day eclipses what my residential use is so the utility doesn't provide me any option to change patterns. The demand rate I had was likely an experiment with residential incentives. And they decided that it wasn't helpful - today - in my area.

But CA - different story. They have gone a long time without rolling blackouts so they obviously have been doing something. And they can do a lot more - even before batteries.
The rate boogeyman may come to some extent but around here, our rates are going up to pay for cleaning up coal....

 

[SageBrush]

The other thing this has taught me is that the commercial demand for electricity during the day eclipses what my residential use is so the utility doesn't provide me any option to change patterns.

Overall, industrial, commercial and residential each pull about 1/3 of the total US electric power. Any one locale may of course be different or an outlier. Industry is the group most often subject to demand charges and it is thought that they will be the first major private consumers of storage to mitigate those charges.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Overall, industrial, commercial and residential each pull about 1/3 of the total US electric power. Any one locale may of course be different or an outlier. Industry is the group most often subject to demand charges and it is thought that they will be the first major private consumers of storage to mitigate those charges.

And if they're going to get storage, they're more likely to get local solar generation (or vice versa), which is a double gut punch to utilities under the current pricing model.

 

[SageBrush]

And if they're going to get storage, they're more likely to get local solar generation (or vice versa), which is a double gut punch to utilities under the current pricing model.

Yup, for the most part.

Co-ops are a bit different story since they pretty much just pass through the wholesaler volumetric and demand charges. The monthly fee they tack on top is unaffected. If the co-op tacks on its own demand charge then their revenue from their infrastructure investment is impaired.

 

[MlTaylor619]

You can deal with these demand swings fairly easily and significantly cheaper than batteries. But there is a point where you cannot. But we are far from that point. California is reasonably ahead of other places but still not as far along as they could be.

I find it really helped to have a solar setup and monitor your usage patterns - at least in my area, monitoring is generally included with solar installs. You see how much the evening is an issue, particularly in later summer. You can then easily change that by adjusting a/c timing.
And people - including myself - respond to incentives.

In my last house, I got a large rebate to agree to go to a demand based rate for 5 years. So I cooled the house in the middle of the day and coasted in the evening. We also were off peak from 1-4 pm in the winter so I ran the heat pumps hard then.

New house, no more demand based rate - in fact no TOU option. So I come home and plug the car in. The a/c coasts all day and fires up at 6 pm to cool the bedrooms for sleep. I use very little electricity when the sun shines.

The other thing this has taught me is that the commercial demand for electricity during the day eclipses what my residential use is so the utility doesn't provide me any option to change patterns. The demand rate I had was likely an experiment with residential incentives. And they decided that it wasn't helpful - today - in my area.

But CA - different story. They have gone a long time without rolling blackouts so they obviously have been doing something. And they can do a lot more - even before batteries.
The rate boogeyman may come to some extent but around here, our rates are going up to pay for cleaning up coal....

So...do you think Duke Energy is missing an opportunity by incentivizing solar but not batteries for nighttime supplement? After all, even their own solar farms are useless at night.

 

[paulinSD]

We have a lot of battery capacity in California from the cars sitting in our garages. Charge those unused EV's during the day and have them feed back to the grid at peak demand. I believe the main barriers to using this approach are:
Tesla, the largest supplier of EV's in CA, says vehicle-to-grid charging invalidates their warrantee.
Local utilities won't allow it.
This could be fixed with some well crafted legislation, IMHO.
(I believe that Nissan Leafs already have are allowing the VtoG connections.)

 

[Bill25cycle]

So what's the plan to keep the lights on in California during the late summer? Worst case scenario is that these rolling blackouts become more and more common and rates slowly creep up, to the ire of ratepayers who will definitely be taking their frustration out on the utilities and politicians.

Press pause on decommissioning nuclear and NG power plants?
Be more aggressive with pushing homeowners into installing rooftop PV and batteries to become 100% self sufficient through property tax breaks?
Decentralized microgrids?
Super aggressive targets to build out utility scale solar and batteries?

]

Nuclear Plant(S)? They've only got one left.... Of course when everyone complained about buying Nuclear Power from Arizona - everyone who was complaining about it instantly clammed up, when Arizona suggested disconnection, hehe.

I'm a NY Stater - possibly only the SECOND worst state in the country. At least in my end of the state they keep the lights on , at around 1/2 the price. Downstate has the same trouble (political and non > including electricity troubles ) that California has. but like them, Electricity has been the least of the problems.

Think: Big democratic cities' downtowns now destroyed.
High income taxpayers moving out.
Smaller businesses don't have looting insurance.

You know things have changed when ARCH Conservatives Don Lemon and Chris Cuomo have said the 'violence-free protests' haven't worked, and the only thing left is to blame it on Trump, now that they've seen unexpected (to them) polling.

 

[iPlug]

Nuclear Plant(S)? They've only got one left.... Of course when everyone complained about buying Nuclear Power from Arizona - everyone who was complaining about it instantly clammed up, when Arizona suggested disconnection, hehe...

Nuclear power imports for the most recent available year (2018) were only 7,573 GWh, or 2.65% of CA total electric system generation.

 

[David_Cary]

So...do you think Duke Energy is missing an opportunity by incentivizing solar but not batteries for nighttime supplement? After all, even their own solar farms are useless at night.

My guess is that (in NC at least) have renewable targets to hit which is why they incentivize solar. There is no government target for battery. Solar alone matches the a/c load and nighttime is still relatively too low to worry about. We have our Nuclear that covers the nighttime just fine.
In my opinion (and limited knowledge), it would make more sense to have TOU or demand charges before incentivizing or building batteries.
It is interesting to me how NC is number 3 in the nation for solar installs yet we don't have a TOU rate even available. I have a co-op at the beach and no TOU rate (although I haven't asked - I really doubt it).

 

[TEZLA3]

If PG&E management had spent the money on the available power in the US grid instead of thinking about their bonuses, there would be no rolling blackouts.

Software could have prevented California’s rolling blackouts

 

[FringeGlock]

You can deal with these demand swings fairly easily and significantly cheaper than batteries. But there is a point where you cannot. But we are far from that point. California is reasonably ahead of other places but still not as far along as they could be.

I find it really helped to have a solar setup and monitor your usage patterns - at least in my area, monitoring is generally included with solar installs. You see how much the evening is an issue, particularly in later summer. You can then easily change that by adjusting a/c timing.
And people - including myself - respond to incentives.

In my last house, I got a large rebate to agree to go to a demand based rate for 5 years. So I cooled the house in the middle of the day and coasted in the evening. We also were off peak from 1-4 pm in the winter so I ran the heat pumps hard then.

New house, no more demand based rate - in fact no TOU option. So I come home and plug the car in. The a/c coasts all day and fires up at 6 pm to cool the bedrooms for sleep. I use very little electricity when the sun shines.

The other thing this has taught me is that the commercial demand for electricity during the day eclipses what my residential use is so the utility doesn't provide me any option to change patterns. The demand rate I had was likely an experiment with residential incentives. And they decided that it wasn't helpful - today - in my area.

But CA - different story. They have gone a long time without rolling blackouts so they obviously have been doing something. And they can do a lot more - even before batteries.
The rate boogeyman may come to some extent but around here, our rates are going up to pay for cleaning up coal....

 

[FringeGlock]

California has coal mines?

 

[SageBrush]

This could be fixed with some well crafted legislation, IMHO.

The current Tesla OBC is one way

V2G is a ways off, but on-demand G2V is a low hanging fruit that will let utilities build out PV without large amounts of curtailment.

 

[mspohr]

While coal or lignite of some kind has been found in 47 of California's 58 counties, significant quantities have been mined only at Mt. Diablo in Contra Costa County, Corral Hollow in nearby Alameda County, Stone Canyon in Monterey County, and Alberhill in Riverside County, as well as Ione in Amador County.Dec 27, 1989