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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.
...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
Not cost effective on a large scale. Needs way too much storage capacity. Worse, the state often has droughts so fresh water is EXPENSIVE, while salt water has huge corrosion problems when making hydrogen...
Build some desalinizing plants and run them when there is too much available power. Getting some fresh water is better than giving away power, and they WILL need the desalinizing plants in the future in any case.
As to making hydrogen, that would be more viable with a supply of distilled water, but still not a great plan unless you can use it without storing it... maybe make hybrid natural gas for consumer use, offset buying some of the natural gas now used.
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
Water, unlike electricity, can be stored. Quite easily. You just need a big hole.
It's not that bad an idea. The plants are not labor-intensive, they are just capital-intensive - once the pumps and membranes are in they only need monitoring and occasional replacement, it's almost entirely automated. There's also a convenient correlation: The need for fresh water is greatest in summer when days are long, and especially when cloud cover is low. Exactly the conditions in which solar is most capable. It's also very easy to run the plant at reduced capacity - they are essentially just a simple low-capacity desalinator repeated thousands of times, and each one can be turned off individually on a time scale of seconds.
Don't think of it as a plant running a tiny percentage of the time. Think of it as a plant running at 100% capacity in summer, 80% in spring and autumn and 60% in winter. With exceptions when the sun is good for a few hours to add more water to the tanks (which need not be valley-flooding reservoirs), so it can then be scaled back down again when the clouds return.
Assuming there is an excess energy issue, desalinate (and maybe clean) the sea water first. That kills a second bird with the same stone. You still get to re-use some of that power later, and you get more clean drinking water in a drought ridden area. win/win?
Look for anything that costs too much due to energy use to be feasible, and do it. Ex. Open a steel mill and only run it when power is dirt cheap or free.
This is really a very very temporary problem. Giving away power for free will quickly find uses for it. Charge up cars during the day; put batteries or flywheels in each building to offset nightly usage; run CO2 sequestration services (CCS); turn waste into oil; run recycling plants; power a railgun to put stuff into orbit; etc.
Going directly back to the water pumping example, it's used because it's easy and well understood, but you could lift anything up and let it fall back down. Ship rocks up the side of a mountain on a conveyor belt or mining carts or whatever, and let them generate power on their way back down at night.
I suspect that the real truth is that it's not really excessive. There's a temporary imbalance, and they've found a sort of pressure relief. Later, they'll put that to use more effectively. Hopefully, no one builds a long term business around the prospect of this monetarily free energy.
Actually, I think one of the issues with melting polar ice is a decrease in salinity that slows the circulation of the oceans. It used to be that cold salty water dropped to the ocean floor at the poles and drove an underwater river that circled the globe, http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/conveyor.html. That is now slowing, too much warmer fresh water from ice melting (no matter why). Less winter sea ice forming means less salt adding to the process.
Also, people are actively harvesting sea salt today in California... not sure why... lot of algae from the looks of it.
San Francisco Bay @ Coyote Creek... I don't think I want that on my salad...
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
Other than nuclear there are really no consistent sources of energy. We make them consistent due to engineering in of storage, feed surge and levelling, and careful planning ahead.
Removing the engineered storage component of only solar is dishonest. Remind me again what the USA stores in fossil fuels to ensure stable supply in the market? 700million barrels of oil or something like that, not to mention the amount laying in tankfarms around the country. I know the local coal power plant has a quite small footprint compared to the mountain of coal reserves they have laying beside it to sure if there's a supply issue it won't affect operation. This is quite the opposite for solar where the battery storage system fits in a shipping container for a solar grid covering an entire football field.