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California Has So Much Solar Power That Other States Are Paid To Take It (mic.com)
"On 14 days during March, Arizona utilities got a gift from California: free solar power," reported the Los Angeles Times. Mic reports:
California is generating so much solar energy that it is resorting to paying other states to take the excess electricity in order to prevent overloading power lines. According to the Los Angeles Times, Arizona residents have already saved millions in 2017 thanks to California's contribution. The state, which produced little to no solar energy just 15 years ago, has made strides -- it single-handedly has nearly half of the country's solar electricity generating capacity...
When there's too much solar energy, there is a risk of the electricity grid overloading. This can result in blackouts. In times like this, California offers other states a financial incentive to take their power. But it's not as environmentally friendly as one would think. Take Arizona, for example. The state opts to put a pin in its own solar energy sources instead of fossil fuel power, which means greenhouse gas emissions aren't getting any better due to California's overproduction.
The Los Angeles Times suggests over-construction of natural gas plants created part of the problem -- Californians now pay roughly 50% more than the rest of the country for power -- but they report that power supplies could become more predictable when battery storage technologies improve.
When there's too much solar energy, there is a risk of the electricity grid overloading. This can result in blackouts. In times like this, California offers other states a financial incentive to take their power. But it's not as environmentally friendly as one would think. Take Arizona, for example. The state opts to put a pin in its own solar energy sources instead of fossil fuel power, which means greenhouse gas emissions aren't getting any better due to California's overproduction.
The Los Angeles Times suggests over-construction of natural gas plants created part of the problem -- Californians now pay roughly 50% more than the rest of the country for power -- but they report that power supplies could become more predictable when battery storage technologies improve.
I might contact the state in sililicon valley to see if possible generate more revenue streams with electeicity stream or electricity link sharing.
-cremier
Preserving this energy for later would be the best thing to do. Now, how can we do that?
So why not take that excess electricity and make hydrogen out of it?
Seriously, they should instead focus on subsidies for energy storage.
As to solar, they should simply require that all new buildings of 5 stories and less, have enough on-site AE to equal or exceed the average monthly energy used of the HVAC.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The journalist is (a) clueless about energy production and (b) a careless writer.
Just one example of the latter: "free" is not "paying other states to take it". Which is it? I'm not going to bother to look, but what crappy writing and editing.
Maybe you should actually bother reading. From the article:
Why does California have to pay rather than simply give the power away free?
When there isn’t demand for all the power the state is producing, CAISO needs to quickly sell the excess to avoid overloading the electricity grid, which can cause blackouts. Basic economics kick in. Oversupply causes prices to fall, even below zero. That’s because Arizona has to curtail its own sources of electricity to take California’s power when it doesn’t really need it, which can cost money. So Arizona will use power from California at times like this only if it has an economic incentive — which means being paid.
In my opinion the article is actually pretty good.
Can some Slashdotter in the know advise on how Californian's are storing energy for use in the night? I am meant to understand that there are a number of options; Molten Salt, pumping water up a mountain and later utilizing gravity, compressed air in rocks or under the sea and of course batteries.
How much does Russia lay these days for posting crap online? Surely you are not actually this stupid.
It might not be 100% environmentally friendly, but it's more environmentally friendly than most alternatives. Anyway this has no relevance to the article, which is more about managing solar energy production and the transition to it from an infrastructure completely based on fossil fuel.
California companies are locating their data centers in neighboring states to take advantage of those state's cheaper power.
I'm then a little afraid what the "America of the future" will be...
...on those 14 days in March, electricity customers paid exactly the same price for electricity as they did the other 17 days in March, so how did that help the consumers in California?
Likewise, customers in the state that got 'free' electricity from California also paid exactly the same rate for electricity every day in March.
So I ask, who benefitted from all that 'free' excess solar electricity? I can tell you who suffered because of all that 'free' excess solar electricity, every consumer of electricity in California, because the utility company is required, by law, to pay a premium price for every solar generated KWh fed into their grid, whether they need it or not, whether or not they can resell it.
Ken
Negative prices happen everywhere, and it has little to do with solar.
For example, today at 5:00AM in Chicago, electricity prices were negative.
https://hourlypricing.comed.com/live-prices/
"Just one example of the latter: "free" is not "paying other states to take it""
Uh, to the other states, that is exactly that - free money and power. Where in your brain did this malfunction occur?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
This is why we need more solar across the nation and a better connected grid to transport it. Also, when there is to much sun solar plants can be disconnected and just not feed the grid. That is not very economical on these scales and any capitalist would defecate rubber nickles at the amount of lost income. As to needing fast (aka base load) power generation, Oregon has a surplus of power from wind farms. We have a very poor connection to Cali in order to offload that power to them under high demand.
Fuel Cells are just not cost effective at this time. According to NREL, they will be, around 2025. Until then, they are a joke.
OTOH, excess electricity can and should be stored in batteries, EVs, even weights that slide down the side of a mountain, or simply thermal. The later would be IDEAL at any manufacturing site that is dealing with high temps.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Mine bitcoins of course!
Use the excess to make good clean water, even on a part time basis. I seem to recall years of drought related headlines from California. Every little helps!
Also, when there is to much sun solar plants can be disconnected and just not feed the grid.
Wow.
Most solar plants (either domestic, built on private residences, or commercial) are private, and were built to generate profits for the owner based on the premium price utilities - by law - are required to pay for every KWh they feed into the grid.
Every KWh that CA utility paid someone to take was paid for at a premium. California utilities had to pay a premium for electricity it couldn't use, then had to pay someone to take that excess to save their power grid from damaging overload.
Ken
Surely it is trivial to have some solar farms able to angle the panels to get less sun during these sorts of periods or shade some panels rather than have power surges?
Why are the reporters always writing such a nonsense?
You feed power into the grid: it needs to be consumed. Or you can not feed it in.
And: I guess the solar power was teleported to Arizona, to prevent "overloading a wire"?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Disclaimer: I am not an environmental scientist; I am just another random commentor on a pseudo-anonymous Internet news-aggregator site, like you are; not warranties implied or otherwise on anything I'm about to say.
That being out of the way.. RE: 'Hydroelectric storage of excess energy production': The only possible problem I see with using this technique to store excess produced energy, is environmental; we'd most likely be creating pairs of man-made lakes to make this work, and building new hydroelectric dams and pumping facilities. While those are mature technologies, and relatively benign, our energy needs never seem to decrease, they only ever seem to increase, so over time we'd be building more and more of the same to keep up. At that point we're changing the ecology of large tracts of land in an increasing number of locations, and I'd be a little concered we'd be throwing the ecology of those areas out of balance. Aside from that, I'd also be a little concerned about destroying the natural beauty of what would likely be some of the most spectacular places in California, too. While I think it's a viable technology, I think we need think carefully about what we're doing and what the alternatives are (of which there are several).
Hi there newfriend, this is 'slashdot'; you seem to be lost! Here, let me help you find where you thought you should be going: http://www.4chan.org/b/ :-)
Have a nice day!
Is your trolling game so weak that you feel you have to post the same thing over and over again, or are you literally autistic and can't help yourself?
Please fuck off back to 4chan, or reddit, or 9gag, or whatever shithole you came from, faggot, you're not fooling anyone.
The more solar power you install, the more fast-reaction generating capacity you need.
That is nonsense.
You need the same amount you already have.
Power plant operators know when which plant is producing what amount of energy (clouds, no clouds, sunrise, wind etc.) and use ordinary load following plants to follow that curve. The remaining peaks are more or less the same like ordinary grids with no solar power.
From a grid operators point of view, there is no difference if a cooling house is "suddenly" starting its cooling and draws "suddenly" 5MW, or if a solar plant is "suddenly" covered by clouds and drops by 5MW production. The only difference is: the solar plant is not "suddenly" covered by clouds, operators have prognosis's for that, and: actually the cooling house usually is announcing its power up times to the grid operator, too.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
"Why are the reporters always writing such a nonsense?"
If anyone here is an expert in writing "a nonsense", it's you, you fucking mouth-breathing retard.
You don't feed "power" into the grid you mongoloid. The load consumes power. If you can't supply it, it doesn't disappear.
Just one example of the latter: "free" is not "paying other states to take it". Which is it? I'm not going to bother to look, but what crappy writing and editing.
"You can have all the junk in my yard for free, I'll give you twenty bucks to clear it for me." Me think you no understand English good.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
In my opinion the article is actually pretty good.
Because you don't grasp that the following is wrong.
CAISO needs to quickly sell the excess to avoid overloading the electricity grid, which can cause blackouts.
The power is actually transported to Arizona via "the electric grid" ... and usually you simply disconnect the power plant if you can not get rid of the power ... no thread of overloading or black out (facepalm).
Oversupply causes prices to fall, even below zero.
And this is absolute nonsense.
The price goes below zero because the power company has only 3 choices:
a) disconnect a part of the solar power (probably with contracts forcing to pay for the not used power anyway), which might make it complicated to reconnect it (getting it in phase etc. or having "special protocols")
b) powering down a fossile plant, with the problem that they already know that they have to power it back up close to nightfall, which might cause costs (more costs than "selling" the excess power for a negative price)
c) giving the power away, for a negative price, which is bottom line a lower loss than the costs in a) or b)
There is no "market force" that drives power prices into the negative, that idea is absurd.
So: the article is complete bullshit, but you find it informative.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
There is a difference. Because solar is synchronised with the solar day.
At certain times of the year, the solar output decline in the evening corresponds with the evening demand peak. This has been a issue which has been observed for a number of years in California, but has historically been manageable within the grid operational margins.
However, solar has continued to be installed at very high rates with no method for central curtailment or remote control. The result is that the rate of change of output for dispatchable generation now exceeds the capability of the installed plant portfolio. To some extent this can be solved by adding additional dispatchable generation, but not all types of generation have capability of rapid start and high dynamic performance from cold, or there are operational costs related to high rate output changes, which may mean sale of electricity at "negative" costs may be preferable.
That is your storage. The gas you didn't burn. Why are they running the gas plants when they're having to give away energy, and even pay people to take it? If you're overproducing that much, turn off the fucking other plants, morons.
Something is fishy.
Why don't they just use the excess power to pump water up a mountain? California has mountains... Then, at night or whenever, when they need power, bring the water back down through a turbine... Folks in Europe have been doing just this for years...
Seriously, we pay something like 15 c/kwh How is that 'half other states'
https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_5_6_a
They should use that electricity to desalinate some sea water!!!
Having more people (200000 more every day) isn't environmentally friendly.
Of all states, California can't afford to be doing this.
-Captain Obvious
If they're paying people to take energy, as long as it is a net positive energy production, it will work.
Or they could shut off the other plants and save using the fuel and not have to pay people to take the excess. Something is fucking fishy here.
Like The Starlost episode Mr. Smith of Manchester ...
https://youtu.be/JP18WQfEtyM?t...
'70s cheese
Mostly random stuff.
Electricity is stored in wires. If the wires get full, the solar panels no longer work correctly. The excess energy has to be drained so feedback from the solar panels doesn't damage the sun.
If you went to journalism school, you would know these things.
Sorry, I need a car analogy.
If power costs could actually go negative, someone would be building the world's largest heating element as a way to get rid of it.
Possible to south America via the Mexico grif
But it's not as environmentally friendly as one would think. Take Arizona, for example. The state opts to put a pin in its own solar energy sources instead of fossil fuel power, which means greenhouse gas emissions aren't getting any better due to California's overproduction.
Just because someone left the fossil fuel generators running does not mean that solar generated greenhouse gasses. Perhaps the fossil fuel generators are old and are hard to restart. Perhaps the Arizona operators reduced their output, thus reducing emissions. We don't know because neither linked article that made this claim followed up with specifics.
That is an asinine conclusion on par with Study Claims Discarded Solar Panels Create More Toxic Waste Than Nuclear Plants. These conclusions, both aimed at solar energy, make me wonder who is paying you.
I am wondering why they have to ship the power to a neighboring state instead of letting me run my AC and pool for free until the crisis is over. My utility bill routinely breaks over $600/month (both gas and electric) from PG&E in the summer.
Oh, wait. I'm in Northern California. That means they can use my water all they want but something like sharing their excess energy must be illegal. Rather than do that they would prefer to break California in two so they don't have to pay taxes to redwood trees or something. What was I thinking.
Yeah, the real creimer is bad enough!
Correct, the non market force is externallized subsidies from government imposed Renewable Portfolio Standards.
For example, I run a wind farm and I produce renewable energy. I sell my production credits to a Utility that nets my "green" electrons with their fossil electrons, which raises the percent to meet the standard. The utility avoids a fine, which creates extra value for my green energy. The market rate is $40 to $60/MW for green energy credits. My incremental production cost is zero since my fuel (wind) is free, but if my unit is offline, I lose the opportunity to make another $60. A fossil unit would go offline at wholesale price of zero, but I am making money from externalized credits. Therefore my marginal total cost is really -$60/MW, that's the point where I should shut down.
Now in an oversupply situation like Spring and Fall when heating and cooling demand is low and production is high, if the total supply still exceeds demand, and all the supply has negative market costs, the negative offer becomes the marginal price for the whole market. A normal generator is paying the grid to take its energy instead of shutting off, but the renewable is still making money.
That's why you see that Illinois nuclear units are shutting down. We built a ton of wind next to them getting lots of renewable credits. In oversupply situations, the wholesale price goes to zero or negative, and the nuke can't shut down (it takes a week to cycle), so they take it in the shorts.
What this reporter is saying is correct. If you send too much power being sent through a set of powerlines they will overload.
The way electricy networks work is that the generator will always see a 'load'. Its a switching network you can make the 'load' come from anywhere on the network.
It is wether the generator and the wires can supply that 'load' ?
My guess is by switching the power through to Arizona they use a different set of wires and these wires have the excess capacity to take the power.
It's harder than you think, any sort of 'storage' will be either potentially highly toxic (as in batteries), require lots of investment (like hydro) and take up lots and lots of space
"Toxic"? As opposed to fossil fuels or uranium which are just so amazingly safe? Most batteries are recyclable (including lithium batteries) - the only issue is whether it is economical to recycle them. We're looking for the least worst option and everything indicates batteries + solar/wind are likely a major part of the least worst options. Any toxicity from batteries is easily justified in the face of the alternatives.
Hydro simply isn't an option in most locations. It's fine where it's available but the capacity for it is limited and regional.
Because sensationalist headlines get more reads, and because journalists are usually under tight time constraints that do not allow them to do in-depth study.
J school grads don't drive, but here goes:
I think it's like a parking lot. If you keep driving cars in after the lot is full, you have to double and triple park them. Eventually they get so heavy that the ground collapses and causes an earthquake. Just like too much electricity causes a blackout.
Now do you understand?
Why do some people believe that all the crap out there is put out from Russia? There are enough skeptics out there in all countries.
So why not take that excess electricity and make hydrogen out of it?
And do what with the hydrogen? There isn't enough demand or storage capacity and certainly no relationship between the production of the excess energy and need for hydrogen.
What about a baseball metaphor?
Basically, if the sun is the pitcher, the ball is electricity and the batter is the solar panel... if you're on your third strike then it's imperative to loosen your grip on the bat and relax your shoulders. Sure you could aim for a bunt but if you walk it then how's that gonna help Alabama?
If you went to engineering school, you would know these things
FTFY
Ken
...then how's that gonna help Alabama?
Subsidies. That's what we learned in J-school. The only hope for places like Alabama is subsidies. And education so Alabama's children can learn enough to move to a place with running water. Not Manhattan though. Maybe Queens.
You can't engineer a new sun. We need to raise awareness so we don't destroy the one we have.
The solar industry is propped up by regulations that deny utility companies the ability to refuse electricity they don't need from either distributed or utility-scale sources. The guarantee that every KWh generated by a solar source will be bought - at a premium - is what convinces investors to back them, but that same regulation increases consumer costs since at times of over-production the utility is running non-solar power plants that can't be spun down as needed, and simultaneously buying unneeded solar power at a premium.
The moment power companies can refuse to buy unneeded solar power is the moment the solar industry stops growing, and electricity prices will start coming down.
Factor in subsidies for manufacturing plants, subsidies for construction/installation of panels, etc. and solar energy in America lives in a special, politically-built protected market.
Before anyone goes off on 'oil industry subsidies' - I've never heard of the gov't cutting a check to cover half the cost of an oil refinery or offering loan guarantees on oil rigs, and the gov't certainly doesn't guarantee oil companies that every gallon of fuel they bring to market will find a buyer at a guaranteed price.
Ken
^^^ this. Creimer === the new APK
California is making so much solar energy they don;t know what to do with it. That sounds good.
But with all that cheap energy Californian's are still paying 50% more than the rest of the country for electricity, That sounds bad.
California has to occasionally dump the excess to Arizona because they control the solar generation and it costs money to turn off their gas plants. But "On days that Arizona is paid to take California’s excess solar power, Arizona Public Service says it has cut its own solar generation rather than fossil fuel power."
This.
I was getting angry just reading the brain dead summary.
Why the fuck would transporting it to arizona load the grid less than dumping it into a heating element like we do in hydroplants.
Power in Calif costs 50% more than other states because, obviously, the price of solar has come down so much.
The simple solution is to build a few large bore (2m diameter), high pressure pipes up into lakes in the rocky mountains. Drop them down to pumping stations with holding ponds. During the day when you have excessive solar, you pump water from your holding pond up into the lake at something like 3000 feet differential elevation. At night, when you need power, you let the water discharge down into your holding pond. Designed right this system will recover about 85% of the energy stored. If you are worried about evaporation, you can cover your ponds with ping pong balls (reduces evaporation by 90% plus.)
If you pump that water at 1m/sec up for 6 peak sunny hours per day, from the Bernoulli equation we know that the stored energy would be Volume rate * density * acceleration due to gravity * height of lift * time or:
3.14 m^3/sec * 1000 kg/m^3 * 9.81 m/s^2 * 1000 m * 6h * 3600 sec/h = 665 GigaJoules of stored energy or (*.85 efficiency) ~157MWh of recoverable electricity per day. You would need around 68,000 cubic meters of water to work with (about 6.8 Hectares) in a lake (or you could build 5 holding ponds at elevation that were 20m deep x 30m wide.)
Most natural gas power plants in California generate around this number. The main reason that 10 of these hydro lift systems aren't built post haste is all the environmental nuts that would lose their shit over human beings building pipelines in California and/or using a lake for anything other than squatting next to while meditating...
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
Because you don't grasp that the following is wrong.
CAISO needs to quickly sell the excess to avoid overloading the electricity grid, which can cause blackouts.
The power is actually transported to Arizona via "the electric grid" ... and usually you simply disconnect the power plant if you can not get rid of the power ... no thread of overloading or black out (facepalm).
It's only wrong if you can either quickly and easily store the excess energy, or quickly and easily throttle output to avoid overloading. Obviously you don't grasp both options are currently not available...
Oversupply causes prices to fall, even below zero. And this is absolute nonsense.
The price goes below zero because the power company has only 3 choices: a) disconnect a part of the solar power (probably with contracts forcing to pay for the not used power anyway), which might make it complicated to reconnect it (getting it in phase etc. or having "special protocols") b) powering down a fossile plant, with the problem that they already know that they have to power it back up close to nightfall, which might cause costs (more costs than "selling" the excess power for a negative price) c) giving the power away, for a negative price, which is bottom line a lower loss than the costs in a) or b)
There is no "market force" that drives power prices into the negative, that idea is absurd.
The claim is that California has to pay to get Arizona to use up its surplus energy, and the claim is correct: this is exactly option c) which you describe. As even you describe, once you decide to go route c) you effectively have a negative price.
So: the article is complete bullshit, but you find it informative.
I'll stick to my opinion.
It's only wrong if you can either quickly and easily store the excess energy, or quickly and easily throttle output to avoid overloading. Obviously you don't grasp both options are currently not available...
Actually both options are available but considered more expensive than giving the energy away for free and paying on top of it.
And: the energy which obviously would overpower the grid, is nevertheless transported via that grid to Arizona.
I'll stick to my opinion.
Then you are probably not very smart.
The claim is that California has to pay to get Arizona to use up its surplus energy, and the claim is correct
No, the claim was: not doing so would overpower the grid, while in fact the energy is just transported away with exactly that grid.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Obviously the power costs where negative, so what is your point?
In Germany/Europe that happens every few days.
However negative prices are usually "one hand is washing the other" deals. If I sell you a few GWh for a negative price today, chances are you sell me some a few days later.
In Europe we have many interconnected grids, basically a super grid spanning from UK, parts of north Africa, over Siberia into Mongolia and north China.
The big power companies simply play amoung each other the game who is getting the short stick and has to overproduce and sell. The "loser" is switching every few days and bottom line no one is losing anything.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Well that thread was funny :D
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
They have too much power yet have planned rolling blackouts because off a lack of power? This is either fake news or an example of gross mismanagement of resources. Instinct has me leaning towards the latter but I'm not sure which is worse...
Charge controllers are supposed to adjust the output of the PV array to the load. In my home system, when the grid goes down the output of the arrays reduced from grid + house Load + battery charging to house load + battery.
"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!" -- Dr. Strangelove
Desalination would be an ideal 'peak absorber' use to shave off the high points in a fluctuating power supply in a state with a long-term shortage of water. But good luck getting California to issue permits for something this obvious before the end of this century.
If there was over construction of plants then prices would drop. But California is so heavily regulated on pricing
No, the Times is right and you just explained why they are right. The regulation got it wrong. After Enron they over-corrected and incentivized over-capacity to cover peak loads that, for all practical purposes, never happen.
BTW, if you had bothered to read the article instead of just instantiating your ignorance you could have added value to the discussion instead of wasting everyone's time and that poor schmuck's moderation point they wasted on your post.
It's only wrong if you can either quickly and easily store the excess energy, or quickly and easily throttle output to avoid overloading. Obviously you don't grasp both options are currently not available... Actually both options are available but considered more expensive than giving the energy away for free and paying on top of it.
I never claimed they are not available, I claimed they are not quickly and easily available, which you agree with since otherwise it would not be more expensive...
And: the energy which obviously would overpower the grid, is nevertheless transported via that grid to Arizona.
If you think the problem is the overall amount of energy entering the grid, you are completely missing the point. You can likely put even more energy into the grid as long as it gets consumed, What you cannot do is put into the grid more grid that gets consumed. If you remove the transport toward Arizona you get exactly that, and a grid with a big problem.
I'll stick to my opinion. Then you are probably not very smart.
Maybe, or maybe you are completely missing the point with your idea that "since the grid is able to transport it away, it should be able to hold it without overloading".
The claim is that California has to pay to get Arizona to use up its surplus energy, and the claim is correct No, the claim was: not doing so would overpower the grid, while in fact the energy is just transported away with exactly that grid.
Again, as long as the power is consumed, you have no problem. If more power enters the grid than it gets consumed, you have a problem. "Transported away" from the point of view of California's grid is just another form of consumption , which evidently is a cheaper solution than reducing input or increasing consumption in some other way.
First, as recently as a week ago, CALISO (the folks who run the grid in CA) was issuing a "Flex Alert" to urge people in SoCal to conserve electricity because there was not enough to go around. If, in response to a "Flex Alert" people do not conserve enough, our energy rationing masters begin switching off power to businesses who have traded lower rates for the inconvienence or remort control over their usage. If the managed rationing fails to save enough, rolling blackouts happen (as happened a few years back).
Second, California becomes huge sucking hole into which energy must be pulled when the sun goes down. Solar power is only a solution for total grid power like a unicorn is a transortation solution - no matter how much solar you generate, you must still have and maintain full coal/oil/nuke/natgas capacity and have it ready at a moment-by-moment basis to fill-in for the unreliable solar panels (and wind farms) whose genrating capacity is completely out of human control.
"Green" propagandists are continually playing on the ignorance of dim-witted college kids and distracted would-be do-gooders with these sorts of misleading and incomplete headlines and articles. Sadly for the greenines, there are still too many of us who know who things actually work in the REAL WORLD, and do not thinks everything can be fixed with fairy dust and positive mental energy.
When you say something stupid like "in fact the energy is just transported away with exactly that grid" you're not understanding that this is only possible because Arizona has decreased their own generation, giving that energy a place to go.
It's important that demand and generation be closely matched at all times. California produces a surplus of energy and needs to export it or their power grid (as a whole) will overload, but California cannot curtail their own generation enough to match their own demand.
This whole thing works because Arizona is decreasing their own power output, getting the total generation between the two states to match total demand between the two states. If they didn't cooperate, there would be no place to export the power to and the grid (as a whole) would overload.
=Smidge=
Of course, you have to get that water from somewhere, so what your really mean is steal it. Of course, you also missed by 2 orders of magnitude the excess capacity and the physical plant cost, ignored the inefficiency of pumping, but did correctly identify the stupidity of trying to get an EIS approved in California.
Why am I still paying 24+ cents per kilowatt hour in CA then?
You didn't explain about the blue smoke!
Sorry, I need a car analogy.
When you're full on the throttle, but don't want to accelerate, your breaks will wear out pretty quickly, or you need to steer uphill.
You feed power into the grid: it needs to be consumed. Or you can not feed it in.
And what part of that is inconsistent with what was written? You see the thing about a grid is, it's a grid. The transmission of electricity in certain directions puts strain on those transmission lines. So you could feed in solar power, or not feed it in. If you feed it in you could trip and cause a blackout. OR you could pay someone behind you in the other direction to consume more power instead so you still feed it in but it doesn't go over the same part of the grid.
Being specific will cause people to tune out. Writing stories is hard.
Fuel Cells are just not cost effective at this time. According to NREL, they will be, around 2025. Until then, they are a joke.
In regard to portable fuels cells, specifically cars, there is a problem that there are only 36 places in all of the continental US where you can tank up -
(https://www.afdc.energy.gov/fuels/hydrogen_locations.html)
Which makes it hard to sell a hydrogen car, because there is no demand and there is no demand because there are no stations, which both feed into slowing development of better cells, because there's no market.
One way to punch out of this mess is for California to start making hydrogen, and give small hydrogen fueling pumps to any gas station that will take one, and now it becomes possible to sell cars, leading to a possible way forwards.
I myself looked into buying the Honda Civic GX, a from-the-factory natural gas vehicle. The problem was that I could never go farther than half a tank from my house (where I would put in my own pump) because there was no place to reliably buy fuel.
I realize that the technology is still limited, but CA. is spending money to give away power, why not do something useful at home with it? According to the comments above, there would be some use for a few combined desalination/electrolysis plants which would be able to make Hydrogen, Oxygen, potable water, and delicious algae rich salt as needed.
an integrated control system to control the generation and distribution of electric power. If there is an excess of solar power then shutdown hydro and ramp down fossil power production. And do the opposite when there is a shortfall of solar.
Soon electricity will no longer be captailistically viable and will become a taken for granted commodity like air. There are many oil companies who would rather that not happen. They are licensed by the Ferengi Commerce Authority and they'd rather jump off the spire of the Tower of the Sacred Marketplace than allow this to happen.
With more solar and wind power, this problem will become worse, and I don't expect batteries to help that much.
One solution would be grid friendly appliances. There are plenty of things that don't need power at a precise moment. Water stays hot for a few hours in boilers, you don't necessarily need your laundry right now, and if you have an electric car and have 12h to charge it and it takes only 6, it can be any 6 hours. Appliances can be made so that they run perferably when supply is high and demand is low. This information can be sent via power line communication and trigger relays.
Of course, it should go with price incentives. Make the price vary for the consumer depending on the time.
Was holding the California state in ramson, shutting down their power grid to strong arm their governor into some bad deal. This action was helped by the activities of soon-to-be-governor Arnold Shwarzenegger in a well documented hotel meeting. Now California has too much solar power. Fuck you Texas!
I never claimed they are not available, I claimed they are not quickly and easily available, which you agree with since otherwise it would not be more expensive...
No, you claimed the article is "informative" when it is wrong.
But perhaps we are cross talking each other?
If you think the problem is the overall amount of energy entering the grid, you are completely missing the point. You can likely put even more energy into the grid as long as it gets consumed,
That is actually what I wrote in my first post in this article (not as an answer to you)
So? What does "overload" mean? It means wires are melting or other bad stuff is happening.
And? That is NEVER going to happen. Because you can offline the solar plants, shut down fossiles or what ever.
So: The article was wrong!!!
If more power enters the grid than it gets consumed, you have a problem.
In theory yes, in practice not, as that is in practice never happening because the safeguards automatically disconnect power plants then. Facepalm.
Transported away" from the point of view of California's grid is just another form of consumption , which evidently is a cheaper solution than reducing input or increasing consumption in some other way. /. ers here in this threat.
Exactly. And that is not written in the article but was written by me and other
And the main point, see "overload" above is: obviously the grid is not overloaded by the surplus energy. Obviously there is no black out.
So about what are you arguing? You think the article was well worded when it in fact is full of nonsense? Sorry, then you have a low standard on journalism.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
California is generating so much solar energy that it is resorting to paying other states to take the excess electricity in order to prevent overloading power lines. According to the Los Angeles Times, Arizona residents have already saved millions in 2017 thanks to California's contribution. The state, which produced little to no solar energy just 15 years ago, has made strides -- it single-handedly has nearly half of the country's solar electricity generating capacity...
> California Has So Much Solar Power That Other States Are Paid To Take It
This happens all the time with any power source. Here in Ontario the spot price for the nuclear plants goes negative through the spring and fall all the time and has for decades. This is a basic concept in grid management - it's a GOOD thing this happens, as it provides a financial incentive to equalize the grid.
> Take Arizona, for example.
Take Arizona, please.
> The state opts to put a pin in its own solar energy sources instead of fossil fuel power, which means greenhouse
> gas emissions aren't getting any better due to California's overproduction.
Uhhh... If they're buying solar from Cali, that means they are lowering their greenhouse gas emissions. Duh.
> The Los Angeles Times suggests over-construction of natural gas plants created part of the problem
Meh. NG is a super-good source when mixed with solar, because it's spin-up time is short enough to track clouds on a large basis. Only hydro is better.
From TFA: "Californians now pay roughly 50% more than the rest of the country for power."
And from the TFA: "California is generating so much solar energy that it is resorting to paying other states to take the excess electricity in order to prevent overloading power lines."
Are we too brain dead to put these two statements together and realize that this is not a technological problem, it is a political problem? Why are Californian's PAYING EXTRA for electricity that is not being delivered to them, but instead being sent to Arizona FOR FREE along with a check to add insult to injury?!?!
Lower the damn price being gouged out of local Californians on that electricity and let local people find good uses for it for goodness sake! The corruption and retardation of California just blows my mind... You people in California should be demanding someone be held criminally accountable. Instead, you're shrugging and saying someone needs to invent better storage technology. WTF?
No, you claimed the article is "informative" when it is wrong.
It's not wrong, you are clearly misunderstanding the problem.
But perhaps we are cross talking each other?
Likely....
That is actually what I wrote in my first post in this article (not as an answer to you) So? What does "overload" mean? It means wires are melting or other bad stuff is happening. And? That is NEVER going to happen. Because you can offline the solar plants, shut down fossiles or what ever. So: The article was wrong!!!
The article never says there are no other technical solutions, it actually mentions them. The issue is that they are less practicable than just paying other states to consume the excess output. From the article I guess you still didn't read:
Utility officials note that solar production is often cut back first because starting and stopping natural gas plants is costlier and more difficult than shutting down solar panels.
Complicating matters is that even when CAISO requires large-scale solar plants to shut off panels, it can’t control solar rooftop installations that are churning out electricity.
Again, the article was not wrong, it mentions the options you claim it didn't and explains why the other option was chosen instead.
In theory yes, in practice not, as that is in practice never happening because the safeguards automatically disconnect power plants then. Facepalm.
If you disconnect a power plant you have a pretty big drop in power. Unless that drop in power happens to closely match the oversupply (very unlikely), guess what you get? A power outage. These safeguard exists but cannot be used to regulate power, they exist as emergency.
Exactly. And that is not written in the article but was written by me and other /. ers here in this threat.
Again, you didn't read the article: it definitely explains all options and why they chose paying Arizona instead. I won't bother to quote it again, read it yourself.
And the main point, see "overload" above is: obviously the grid is not overloaded by the surplus energy. Obviously there is no black out.
So about what are you arguing? You think the article was well worded when it in fact is full of nonsense? Sorry, then you have a low standard on journalism.
If you did bother actually reading the article you would understand the problem and why that particular solution was chosen, which you do not. I don't understand your prejudice against it, maybe you don't like the chosen solution, the conclusion the article draws or the facts it exposes, but this doesn't make it "nonsense" or "bad journalism". Read it with an open mind and try to inform yourself before judging.
Time to build a major pumped hydro battery then.
I regularly monitor the California ISO website:
http://www.caiso.com/Pages/TodaysOutlook.aspx
We have a sinusoidal weekday demand curve that hits a 35-45 GW peak at 4-5pm, with the trough being around 20-25 GW at ~4am (summer; I haven't looked at winter much because we don't get "flex alert" emails and AC failures at work in winter). Right on that page, if you scroll down, they show the renewables output, mostly wind and solar, and the "net demand" curve which is total - renewables. Solar peaks at just under 10 GW, every day, wind at ~3 GW. I don't understand how total demand could be 28-35 GW at 11-4pm and Solar output max at 9.8 GW, and yet they're... giving away solar electricity to Arizona?!
I double-dereferenced TFA and read the source LA times article, it looks like this happened in January when demand is 50% lower, and they do these "curtailments" because they can't spin down some types of generators fast enough. Okay... well, welcome to the complicated world of random variable source energy production. Looks like the LA times has an ax to grind about too many generators, there's a series of articles attacking the energy industry and state regulators... whatever. I don't want to go back to blackouts, or replace them with planned micro-blackouts via "flex alerts", either.
If the grid coutl movr that much power to Virginia, Dominion would be happy to put it into the Bath Pumped Storage plant and then sell it back at a higher price later. Bath County Pumped Storage Station.
The biggest grid bottleneck preventing this transfer of power is that all of the power needs to pass through the asynchronous tie points between the eastern and western grids of which there are only a few ties, but more are being built.
The problem is that nat gas plants are guaranteed a certain payback based on the cost of the plant whether they produce power or not. Therefore there is far too much natural gas produced.
And here I am paying up to 45c per KWh for the same energy, thanks to the same power grid. It is more then triple the national average, and I could use some extra power for my A/C during the hot days (we had several scorching heat waves in the recent weeks).
California seems to have very bad incentives in terms of public utility development, and we seem to be paying (literally) for it.
They have such a surplus that they have to pay other States to take it, but somehow Californians pay 50% more than everyone else? How does that make sense? If supply is that much higher than demand, Californians should be paying next to nothing! How did they break a market so badly?
No, the claim was: not doing so would overpower the grid, while in fact the energy is just transported away with exactly that grid.
You seem to assume overpower means too much energy is currently transported when it actually means too much energy is present with nowhere to go.
so, if having to pay to be able to send solar generated electricity into the grid, then
we should all start a petition to tax the sun.
the up side is that whatever we tax the sun, it will probably default on the payments but still be around long
after we are gone.
there might also be a problem collecting the taxes, considering that the tax-men might get burned
to a crisp whilst traveling to the sun and ringing the suns doorbell?
My fault for bad writing, I meant headline, not article.
And my standpoint remains: eye catching danger implying phrase: overload, power outtage. Both is wrong.
There was never any danger and there never will be any.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Of course California could curtail their own production. Facepalm.
They did not want to, because despite the negative price, that was the cheapest option.
The term 'overload' is simply wrong, sorry. It is a fear monger term that does not apply to power grids.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Wow, OK captain pedantic. You agree that prices are negative. You agree that they are negative because the cost calculation for this situation said it was cheaper to incentivize the overage than to stop the plant (because guess what - some of that power is being consumed in CAISO's footprint and they don't feel like pissing it away just because you don't like the words in an article). You agree that if the plant runs without the overage being consumed, a line will burn. Refer to the previous sentence, where the plant is not being shut down because math. The prices are indeed negative to prevent the need to stop the plant or else have a line burn. You seem to completely agree with this 'bullshit' article. By the way, surplus production, operating costs and the cost of retaining a surplus are all 'market forces', so in general you don't seem to know what you are talking about and just wanted to run yourself in a circle over your own incorrect semantic interpretations. Overall a very successful /. post.
One of the great things about CALISO is that they show real-time graphs of projected energy demand, measured energy demand, energy available, etc for the intire day. If you look at the correct graph and you are able to comprehend a basic graph, then you can see just how sharply solar and wind rise and fall and see that these slopes are not mirrors of eachother and SOMETHING needs to deal with all the gaps and mismatches or the lights go out and the emergency generators kick-in at the hospitals.
Wind and solar are nice expensive boutique energy sources to easy the guilty consciences of big city liberals, and they are good alternatives to nothing for people where the grid does not reach, but they are no better than unicorn farts for the general public if they are not backed-up by a massive source of coal/natgas/nuke generating capacity that is fuelled, maintained, staffed, and ready to be switched-in and ramped-up on a moment's notice.
California has an electricity profit ? ...other States are paid to take it? ... ...before "paying others to take their surplus"...
So much so... in fact
Wow...
Just a small suggestion then...
perhaps California should pay off their outstanding Electricity Debt that they owe to Canada first
transported away with exactly that grid
That's hilarious. You're trying to pick this thing apart based on silly semantics, and you think this is how power systems work? So according to you I can put 100MW into a system with 100MW of load, then remove all the load but continue to generate 100MW, and everything will be fine, cuz its 'exactly that grid'. Yeah, that's totally how it works. Let's call up CAISO and tell them to tell Arizona to buzz off and see what happens to those lines.
I've yet to see Creimer shamelessly shill for hosts files.
The headline is still correct. If Arizona doesn't contribute their own load to absorb the surplus, lines will burn. Or, large scale solar plants will need to be shut down. But, because most of their generation was being used in the CAISO footprint there will be a blackout at worst or a pricing catastrophe at best as all the supplemental generation in the footprint is emergency ramped to make up for the shortfall. That's assuming they can even shed enough generation at all with all the rooftop panels which, again, is a blackout situation if Arizona doesn't help out. Slice it any way you want and the consequences of Arizona not lending their load to the system is dire.
You're just wrong and over your head in this one dude. Your whole argument seems predicated on your screwy notion that the amount of generation put into the grid is the only factor in line safety, which is just embarrassingly off base. Guess what happens if you put 500MW into a grid that can easily, as you say, 'transport' that amount, but only plug in 100MW of load? Hint: danger.
The term 'overload' is simply wrong, sorry. It is a fear monger term that does not apply to power grids.
That's funny, all the guys in every control room I've ever been in seem to think it is a matter of great concern. I'm sure they would welcome your input on how half their job is totally made up. While you are in there you can tell them about that dial on the big solar plant that lets them just easily turn it down by 50MW instead of switching it out and throwing the grid into utter physical and financial chaos. They must have missed that one in the instruction manual.
This is a lovely hole you are digging yourself.
However negative prices are usually "one hand is washing the other" deals.
What the holy hell are you talking about? Please break away from your ignorance for 5 minutes and read up on energy market pricing optimization models to see why what you just said is beyond ludicrous. Your image of electrons being traded between parties in bilaterally negotiated transactions is even more comically uninformed than your ideas about how energy is 'transported away'.
"One way to punch out of this mess is for California to start making hydrogen, and give small hydrogen fueling pumps to any gas station that will take one, and now it becomes possible to sell cars, leading to a possible way forwards."
Hydrogen is an absolute _bitch_ to store. It doesn't just permeate the pipework and escape, it embrittles that pipework (and the cylinders) on the way out - and that's without the added issue of stress cracking caused by constant pressure cycling of the tank and system.
The posters saying that the best thing to do with hydrogen is to use it as soon as it's made weren't doing so for spurious reasons. Even methane (CH4) is difficult to work with in pressurised systems.
Hydrogen cars aren't popular because they're halo projects. They're halo projects because carmakers and fuel vendors don't want the liabilities that come with exploding tanks and associated shrapnel shredding anything that happens to be nearby. They will never be a mass commercial option - if you have the energy to make hydrogen from water (it's usually made by reducing methane) then you have more than enough energy to tack on a few carbon atoms and make propane or octane, which are easier and safer to handle.
Of course California could curtail their own production. Facepalm.
They did not want to, because despite the negative price, that was the cheapest option.
Production is not controlled by the state. When we talk about "California" and "Arizona" we are not referring to these areas as governmental regions, but only as geographical ones.
Of course generation companies in California reduced their output if they were able to. They, too, get paid their negative electrical rates. The problem is all of the power sources throughout the California region could not be collectively reduced enough to prevent grid overloading, so they had to cooperate with a neighboring region to distribute the excess power.
Maybe you don't understand what "overloaded" means, or what happens if the power grid becomes overloaded?
If you put X megawatts into the grid, it will consume/dissipate X megawatts. It has to, because energy must be conserved. So what exactly happens to that energy when you put in more than is consumed?
Short answer is, voltage starts to increase, which in turn drives more current through whatever is completing the circuit. The tolerance is just a few percent and there's only a very slim safety margin on top of that (if any, as the age of the grid might mean more load has been connected to some parts than it was originally designed for).
So if you overload it badly enough - put in too much power - you start to trip breakers. That can be catastrophically bad, since a tripping breaker at a substation can suddenly detach tens or hundreds of megawatts of load from a grid system that is already producing too much power. The result is a cascade of failures right up the hierarchy that results in widespread blackouts.
Here's a real example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
=Smidge=
The problem is all of the power sources throughout the California region could not be collectively reduced enough to prevent grid overloading,
Of course they could!!
But they simply did not want to.
Because exporting it to Arizona with a negative price was cheaper!
The is no "grid overload", that is a stupid term of the article writer.
Your example wiki article has nothing to do with an "overload" that could not be handled, facepalm.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Of course they could!!
No, they couldn't. You can't just turn power plants off.
Because exporting it to Arizona with a negative price was cheaper!
The price is the same; that's how fungible markets work. Maybe you can take a few minutes to understand how and why electricity prices go negative before wasting any more of our time...
The is no "grid overload", that is a stupid term of the article writer.
No, it's a real thing. You just don't know what you're talking about.
Your example wiki article has nothing to do with an "overload" that could not be handled, facepalm.
It's a perfect example of a local overload causing a failure cascade resulting in widespread power loss. An excess of power input destabilizes the grid and the whole thing comes crashing down. The key is to keep the power input and power consumption balanced, which in that particular example didn't happen because of a software glitch.
=Smidge=
You don't need to switch the powe plant off.
You only need to disconnect he plant from the grid.
And if the plant is a fossile one, you disconnect the generators from the steam.
The rest of your post is as idiotic as the previous ones.
Hint: to sell energy for a negative price to a different region/country, you need to make a desicion, set up the deal on a kind of stock market, wait for a buyer, and switch the grid to transport it that way.
That takes (an) hour(s).
I suggest to read something about how power grids work, instead of spreading your bullshit here.
Hint: I worked nearly ten years for one of the mayour power companies here.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
You only need to disconnect he plant from the grid.
You don't think switching tens of megawatts of power on and of from the grid is going to cause problems?
Hint: to sell energy for a negative price to a different region/country, you need to make a desicion, set up the deal on a kind of stock market, wait for a buyer, and switch the grid to transport it that way.
https://www.cleanenergywire.or...
Hint: I worked nearly ten years for one of the mayour power companies here.
I'm not convinced you're even ten years old, let alone been involved in the industry that long.
=Smidge=
I'm not convinced you're even ten years old, let alone been involved in the industry that long.
That is your problem not mine.
Why don't you read the link you gave?
It clearly says exactly the same thing I did in my previous posts, facepalm.
But perhaps you find a link for California :D so I have something interesting to read, as I don't know how you trade power there.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
You can't engineer a new earth. We need to raise awareness so we don't destroy the one we have.
FTFY also...
Ken