Yesterday, California achieved the astonishing feat of generating 80% of its daily power from renewable energy sources, but this news is often a mixed blessing that energy advocates need to understand.
Here’s why:
The problem is that there have been many times in the summer when the California Independent System Operator (ISO) has been overwhelmed with too much green energy production. When the “grid” starts producing too much energy on a hot summer day, the over-supply of electricity can cause blackouts.
As a result, California actually has to pay other states to accept our surplus energy to prevent rolling blackouts. Here’s a story on this in the LA Times: https://lat.ms/3siJwEf
The solution: Energy Storage – and why energy advocates like us to understand the concept.
The next big push in sustainability for California is to become a pioneer in energy storage technology. This technology could be vastly improved super-efficient batteries, such as Elon Musk’s “power wall,” or new improvements such as vanadium batteries. Other non-battery energy storage solutions may not come from the private sector because they involve the type of government coordination that built the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) which is the USA’s largest power source.
Less of a comment than an inquiry. Could you explain why the article, discussing California’s energy use, is referring to an image by the Tennessee Valley Authority and data from their platforms in TN, GA, KY, and NC? While I am happy to see that over half of the power generated by the TVA are low pollution sources, if CA is basing its 80% claim on power being transmitted from the other power grids then I would have to wonder how the actual CA grid would look in comparison. If the TVA images and data are simply being shown to compare here, I would really appreciate greater clarity on it. Thank you,