Report came out even later this year (released just earlier this month) - here's the annual update on the California Electrical Grid:
2019 California Electrical Grid Source data:
2019 Total System Electric Generation
Highlights comparing 2019 to 2018:
(note units are percent total system power)
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coal mix continues to decrease and only 2.96% (vast majority remains imported)
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natural gas use resumed its decrease (was downtrending but spiked to 34.91% of power mix in 2018), now down to 34.23%
-nuclear remains nearly stable, at 8.98%; almost 2/3 of this is from the Diablo Canyon in-state plant, currently scheduled to be decommissioned in 2025
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large hydro increased from 10.68% to 14.62%
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non-large hydro renewables grew and continue to climb, continuing a long trend, although slowing the rate from the prior year, to a current level of 31.70%
-this was mostly due to a decrease in annual
wind production, down from 11.46% to 10.17%
; in 2018 wind briefly retook the renewable lead from solar; solar had taken the lead for the first time in 2017 and has now resumed the lead
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solar (1 MW and larger facilities) continued to grow robustly, increased to 12.28% (11.40% in 2018)
-still, the impact of 1+ MW solar is greatly underestimated as “behind the meter” (BTM) home solar is not measured as only units generating 1MW+ are counted; for some reason, there was no update in this report - the 2018 report noted “BTM residential solar generation was estimated to be 13,582 GWh, a 20 percent increase from 2017”; at that time
California probably received ~17% total system electric generation from all sources of solar PV, higher now
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California total system electric generation continues its downward trend,
down 2.7 percent, or 7,784 GWh, from 2018; previously major factors cited were energy efficiency programs and residential installs of BTM residential solar PV systems that directly displaced utility-supplied generation.
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California's non-carbon dioxide emitting electric generation categories (nuclear, large hydroelectric, and renewables) accounted for 57 percent of its generation, compared to 55 percent in 2018. As a result, in-state generation increased by 3 percent (5,633 GWh) to 200,475 GWh. This increase was due, in large part, to increased generation from in-state large hydroelectric power plants, up 11,049 GWh (50 percent) from 2018. The gain from hydroelectric generation was offset by a 15 percent decrease in net imports to 77,229 GWh, down 13,418 GWh from 90,647 GWh in 2018.
