It's the lack of energy that can be extracted from sun rays even across a field: If the sun was powerful enough to power entire homes from rays reaching the ground, this planet would literally be Venus and everything on it burnt to a crisp.
@@freespeech9059 Um...No. Storing hugh amounts of electricity from environmental energy is harder then a battery bank you charge your phone off. Nuclear is the best option to transition. As one rod equals 100years of clean energy for the average house. With most waste being repurposed or reused in more efficient reactors.
@@dawsonholdsworth5371 no creating battery storage is far easier, faster and cheaper to implement. To get that one nuclear rod of energy you will need 6 to 8 years to build a nuclear power plant. Australia China and Europe have made massive progress in just the last year in renewable power generation and storage.
Then you'd be surprised that California actually pays neighboring states to take solar electricity from California every day until 8 am when the California economy wakes up
@@ginsugray5469 it’s not difficult to understand the reporter’s statement. Energy is being produced and not used because of insufficient storage capability. Sorta defines poor planning, doncha think?
@@Ron-n4j1l - no I think the original poster is correct. To be clear, power generated by solar is being used by homes and businesses first so that power is not needed to generated and solar rays will be there used or not. The way the reporter makes it sound solar power has a consequence which isn't really true unless the goal optimal efficiency, therefore solar rays and energy created by them are lost. If the goal was a slow down on the use of natural gas to produce electricity then it isn't a problem but a solution.
@@peopleofearth6250 batteries don’t have the capacity right now to handle all the electricity needs, not to mention the environmental damage of mining lithium and other rare earth metals to make them. Smarter option would be to invest in nuclear, but that’s too manly of a technology for the low testosterone people of California
@@peopleofearth6250 but if you knew anything, you would know that Australia tried this very same strategy with solar and batteries, and it failed spectacularly because it’s too expensive and batteries cannot hold enough charge to make them a viable option en masse
right? i thought it was THE dumbest take on surplus renewable energy. whatever shall we do? go back to coal!??!?!! whoever wrote this segment should be fired.
100 percent. I get that there’s a problem, but she made it sound like surplus solar energy was clogging up the sewer systems or something. The only real obstruction is political - unless there’s something I missed. Poorly framed story either way.
Yeah. Sounded like a hit piece. We're wasting money by not using this energy and oh look, we're also losing jobs. Should be celebrating that you've installed that much solar, the government decided to stop wasting tax dollars, and encouraging home storage.
Yes. It's only up now showing because we've had excellent snow fall the past couple of years. So the reporter is reporting that some of the solar panel power sources aren't being utilized. The hydro-power generators have been good the last couple of years. Go back a few years during the drought we were always having threats of brown outs happening. Even right now with the high temperatures we've been having there hasn't been much talk of brown outs because everything is clicking. Look at Texas they're having problems right now with the high temperatures.
@frootlooper 😂😂😂.. bud you know how frustrating it was during the ice storm of 2010/11(memories fuzzy on year) To not have power for 8 weeks,and look across the street at the brand new subdivision with all their lights on?? Yeahh. Seee your experience may vary.😮😮😮😮😮
Fun fact, the electricity companies are actually losing money so they're going to start charging a flat fee whether you use electricity or not or whether you save electricity or not.😊
The price you pay is a monthly average of the instantaneous price. So it includes the times when prices are negative, but also the times when prices spike (right after sunset every day).
@@rebeltheharem7028 That's like saying driving 2 hours to work is better than not working. There has be a valuable enough return to make it worth the investment. It's like 1:4 ratio of energy stored and energy released. I do agree with the idea of at least moving forward.
The sunlight will never be wasted. It will be used to warm the planet, give energy to plants that turn carbon dioxide into oxygen, and turn water into clouds that return water as rain to water the plants.
You miss an important point. Probably because the video doesn't explicitly state it. It is not the sunlight that is wasted - it is the capital investement in the panels that is going to waste. Failing to use, or sell at a good price, any of the power that the panels capture makes ALL the power they produce more expensive. The cost to buy, install and maintain the solar farm, plus financing costs, is divided over the lifetime production of the site. Every missed chance to use the output makes the cost of every used bit of energy higher.
Try pushing 10,000 gallons of water through a garden hose in a minute and see what happens to the hose. Same thing with electricity and the wires used to distribute that power. If solar provides too much power to the grid, wires will melt.
@@ace25805 That's not really the problem. Voltage is the pressure, and there must be a certain voltage maintained. Too much voltage would damage devices across the grid. It could also affect the frequency, thereby causing damage or other unforeseen issues.
@@Simon-dm8zv Generation technologies that meet this definition are referred to as clean firm technologies. In general, they include: geothermal, renewable fuels such as hydrogen and biomethane, natural gas with carbon capture and storage, biomass-electricity, hydropower and nuclear energy.
Because the state determined they were too big to fail, and instead of paying for the destruction of Paradise themselves, they get to pass the costs on to us through rate hikes.
People in America don’t like fusion or fusion energy producers. Another name is atomic or nuclear. But we have to go that route one day. It is cheap to produce and it is clean energy.
Paid for by the home owner. While still paying grid connection fees that are doubling next year and will increase more. Unless your off grid. And the making and then disposing of batteries is not green. So which is it. Is California green or brown like sheit...
@@ridemfast7625 - No, many solar and wind facilities have large, industrial-sized battery storage. Batteries are lasting longer than expected, and are recyclable.
@@ridemfast7625 - Next to the military, the biggest use of cobalt and rare earth metals is for catalysts in the oil-refining process, and has been for decades; the mines didn't start for batteries.
Balancing the grid is a non trivial problem made more difficult when solar is used. It’s not a new problem and the only way around it is massive electricity storage, which isn’t a trivial problem either.
@@PCRyder Just because you perceive a particular issue as less important than any other does not make it a "good problem" In fact no problems are considered to be good. Nice try but you would be better off simply deleting your ignorant comment than making pathetic excuses that don't make sense.
Unexpected? I thought it was obvious. When I installed my solar, I told them to put half of the panels facing east and half of them facing west, because I knew one or the other could become more valuable once more people had solar. PG&E was paying more for afternoon Solar, but there was no guarantee that that would always be true. Someday the governor will get on the radio and tell everyone to turn on the air conditioner. Instead of brown outs we’ll have excess. Having panels on my roof also shade the roof and reduces heat inside. I don’t actually have air-conditioning. I don’t think the popular kids are really capable of doing science or managing money or engineering a better world.
All these articles about how AI uses so much energy... And this is a problem. Well, extra energy can be used for that and the batteries will create a new game. Can't believe the negativity here
I felt it was too. We've had solar panel technology for at least 30 years. But we need the overcapacity today so we can decarbonize more things in the future, like TV watching when the sun goes down in December or daily commuting.
Actually South provides the most production. PGE gives credits on production and those credits are applied at anytime day or night. It does not matter what the rates are because the credits apply them same and are not rate based.
@@HHSGDFootballJPD The excess solar energy can be used to capture and sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This video is misleading. It’s actually a good thing, it shows the success of solar farms.
One of the biggest issues with solar and wind is that they are intermittent, while demand is continual. That means that backup generation (typically fossil) needs to be kept on inefficient standby. This results in overall increased costs. Batteries are too expensive to solve the cost problem. Poor people suffer as a result. “. . . a naïve observer might conclude that the rising share of new renewables (solar and wind) will usher in an era of falling electricity prices. But in reality, the opposite has been true.” Vaclav Smil, Numbers Don’t Lie, p.172
You are wrong, regulated, investor-owned utility companies generally, only make their profits by investing in new or replacement plant assets. In theory, the actual cost to produce and deliver electricity (operation & maintenance expense) is a pass through at cost. A component of the rate structure billed to customers for use, in addition to operation & maintenance expense, is the Return-on-Investment component which gives the utility the opportunity to earn a regulatory-set % return on the amounts invested (by shareholders) in utility plant. Non-regulated, like government owned, is a different story. They may not be as willing to invest in new or replacement infrastructure
Fun fact: hydro power is basically a giant battery, since they can release more or less water as power is needed. It's also clean solar energy and renewable.
@@romanboi3115 A new nuclear plant takes 10-15 years to build and nobody wants it near their home. A new solar installation can be built in a fraction of the time in almost any open space. Fossil fuels are causing damage here and NOW while tyrants hold the world hostage with their oil reserves. No solution is perfect, but new battery tech will eventually let batteries be made with better materials for less money. Something like sodium batteries may be a good match for large grid storage.
@@johnsutherland7561 Neither is "Green" Energy, its only built because the government offsets the cost with subsidies. Nuclear is better in every regard and dosent require millions of unrecyclable lithium batteries
The environmental damage from those massive solar farms and now battery farms is way under-reported. Not to mention eventual disposal of the batteries. Also warranting consideration is the destructive mining necessary to obtain the materials to produce all the "green' energy components and equipment. Shocker that installations decreased when the freebie incentives went away. Government inefficiency once again.
What is worse is that PG&E will take that free excess solar energy that came off someones roof and PAY Arizona to take it from California "to protect the grid". Not only are Calfornians paying outragous electric bills, they also subsidize powering other states. From LA Times "California invested heavily in solar power. Now there's so much that other states are sometimes paid to take it. On 14 days during March, Arizona utilities got a gift from California: free solar power. Well, actually better than free. California produced so much solar power on those days that it paid Arizona to take excess electricity its residents weren’t using to avoid overloading its own power lines."
@@petert3355 Because the coal and gas power stations have to sit at low load or with fires banked and boilers steaming waiting for a cloud to pass over, even during peak renewables production. So you have to pay for electricity twice, even when you don't need it due to curtailment contracts.
@gregorymalchuk272 and that people is exactly the right answer. Fuel costs for the solar backup are 24/7, but income from that fuel expended is not. Makes things expensive.
Solar energy is not the only source of "clean" energy. Nuclear energy does not produce hydrocarbons and provides a much better baseline power production. It's not as easily affected by sudden fluctuations in supply and demand. We need more nuclear power plants!
This is a stupid report. The problem is the electric companies have monopolies over their area. "Too much demand" is business lingo for "we refuse to supply to keep our prices high".
In Australia now. We were told to get solar, then we got paid for adding power to the grid . Now in Sydney , you’ll get fined for putting power into the grid in peak producing hours … You can’t win it …
@@MuzzaHukka The answer is to make it dispatchable. In other words allow the grid operator to control the amount produced. Utility scale solar systems are dispatchable. The problem in California is in the past the grid operators were forced to pay retail prices for power from home solar systems. This resulted in non-solar homeowners having to pay more for power to subsidize the solar customers.
I thought of this as well. Did some rough math and found that you could desalinate about 171.7 billion gallons of water with the "thrown away" electricity, assuming about 4,000 kWh per cubic meter of water. Looking at an LA times article from 2022, LA sold about 14 billion gallons of water in August that year. Multiply by 12, and you have about 169 billion gallons of water consumed by the city in a year. Assuming California will throw away a similar amount of electricity for the rest of the year, this power could eliminate the need for ground/river water of two major cities.
Running a brand new desalination plant only four or five hours per day is an absolute non starter. The investment, and the income possible from selling the clean water...no one would build it with those sort of restrictions. The real answer is affordable electricity storage.
@@docwatson1134 That's a good point, I was just curious on how the math worked out. The easiest solution would be some sort of energy storage, whether that be battery, synthetic natural gas, pumped hydro, or whatever other energy storage method of choice.
But it's not free.. someone must maintain the power lines. There are hundreds if not thousands of other jobs that must be performed to keep the power grid running.
It's only from problems that opportunities, like harvesting that free energy, arise. Pointing out those problems is not a bad thing, nor is it a flaw of capitalism.
@@agisler87 they already have the powerlines and infrastructure to maintain them. We the customers who installed solar provide them with energy energy, and they buy it from us for pennies on the dollar compared to what they sell it back to people who don’t have solar for. Yeah it wasn’t free. I put solar on my roof and PG&E screws me.
I think you mean physics. Energy storage of solar or wind reduces the produced amount by alot. Best way to get it to work is by water reservoirs that release and generate Hydro power on off producing hours. This isn't capitalism fault. It's A to D policy that forgets about transition first before going fully cold turkey.
There technically was, but it had a MAJOR gatchya to it. If you took their $1200~ cash rebate for installing a battery you were forced to be on a plan that pays you out really bad rates for having solar, and if you want to switch off that terrible plan within 5 years to actually get your investment back then you owed the CPUC their money rebate back.
Most people charge their EVs at night when rates are cheapest, so technically there still isn't enough solar power to charge EVs if every vehicle in California was electric due to lack of grid storage. The few grid storage batteries Calfornia has invested in have had some serious issues, so much so that cities are voting no on allowing new grid storage batteries in their city. We need better and safer batteries for grid storage before it will be widely accepted. Lithium is not the answer.
@@ace25805Are they cheapest at night? I don’t think so anymore, not in California. That was before solar. Now during the day most people are at work and a lot of solar power is going unused.
If you’re going to come to ca and visit the rich areas only … please do a complete story so far this year we had no rolling black outs , that was no where in the story . don’t spin the story in a fully negative way . Please report the truth . Thank you .
This has nothing to do with rolling black outs. The rolling black outs were caused by lack of power generation. At that time, power generation was entirely natural gas. When they brought more natural gas plants online, the problem was solved. Solar wasn't a thing until later, made possible through cheaper solar panels.
We haven't had any rolling black outs. Look at the recent high temperatures across the state. There's no talk about brown outs. There have been power shut downs for a few areas due to wild fire danger. Right now everything is clicking. It was during the drought years is when we had threats of brown outs since there wasn't enough water to run a few of the hydro powered generators.
Fortunately, the 30% federal tax credit has been extended to batteries, at least until 2030. NEM 3.0 certainly encourages it. I am under NEM 2.0 as my solar was installed several years ago and can use the grid as a battery. From 3 to 9 pm power costs more, so, since I don't yet have batteries, I lower the water heater temp 5 degrees during that time so it won't run. I'm watching battery tech development carefully to see when to add batteries. The difference between the two NEM types is that NEM 2.0 is averaged over the whole year and NEM 3.0 is averaged over six minute periods. In both types if you produce more (in that period) you earn wholesale rate. If you use more you pay retail. I earn a couple of hundred dollars per year for my excess of 2,000 kW-hr.
If batteries were economically viable- they'd be great for conventional power also. You could build a much smaller plant that didn't have to handle peak loads directly. Simply store power generated during low demand in a magic box and release it when needed. It doesn't work and it never will.
@@SteveLomas-k6k In the past, battery storage on a large scale would have been far too expensive to be practical, but that has changed. The cost and efficiency of battery storage on a large scale has dropped dramatically, and large-scale battery use is now being used around the world more and more every day. Take a look at Australia and their use of batteries. China is another great example, and yes, even here in the US it is becoming more common BECAUSE IT WORKS. Billions of dollars are being invested in batteries. I even have one in my home.
Seriously? In Germany I pay 0.36 USD/kWh (plus fixed 11USD/month) and some politicians claim, that we have the highest electricty rates in the world due to the energy transformation.
Due to Texas's weird but effective market based options for many users, I buy 100% renewable electricity for just under 15 cents kw/hr. The cost is almost exactly evenly split between the cost of the electricity itself and the other half for the grid operations. Why it would cost PB&E over three times that to deliver electricity is strange. It would be more accurate to compare costs of LA's DWP because it is non-profit. They have a history of doing what is right for the customer and not for share holders. Think Enron and PG&E several decades ago.
They left out the part that fossil fuel plants take up to 24 hours to spin up. So even when solar is accounting for 100% of energy generation they are still burning fossil fuels to keep the plants up for when solar goes away, like at night. So those plants are still having to run 24-7
It can exported to neighboring states You can use it to charge your EV HVAC systems don’t stop when you leave your home they need to install battery energy storage so it can be used at night Many solutions. Don’t like how the media portrays this as an issue
well its more of an infrastructure problem, not really a demand issue. Not enough capacity to move power to where its need and not enough capacity to store it. Ireland had a similar issue couple years back where overproduction was causing issues with the power grid itself, and they fixed it by limiting new solar installation while at the same time they upgraded sections of their power grid so that solar can be better utilized. So more wires, and substations along side expanding power storage should do the trick. Not to mention improve the state's ability to export that energy as well with upgrades to the power grid which is also likely being limited by the current state of the power grid.
Can Texas have some of this? We're always losing power. Good on you California for all the clean energy and showing the world how efficient it is. It's so good that you have too much.
Texas has an independent grid and it works great. With the exception of the 2021 snow-pocalypse, and the occasional severe thunderstorm, Texas has very reliable energy. And at half the cost per kwh as California, this seems like a grass is always greener situation. Texas produces nearly twice as much energy as it uses, and prices are kept low through deregulation on the independent grid system.
@@gregorymalchuk272 I just googled the California blackouts. Sorry this is something you’re all dealing with. I’m a fan of clean energy so I hope this all gets figured out soon.
@@gregorymalchuk272 We haven't had capacity induced blackouts for a few years. There are blackouts to prevent fires though. Those are being reduced as local emergency generators and underground power lines are extended by the power companies. When it gets real hot there are sometimes requests to reduce power use in the late afternoon and early evening. People are pretty good about that, especially as the rates are higher then.
Texas made a decision to disconnect from the 3 nationwide grids. So they cannot get power from elsewhere unlike the rest of the country. Speak to you legislator about that or vote them out.
So if they are over producing, there should be no issue to up fit our power grid… batteries are the way, I added one and it made a huge difference in my usage vs production.
Germany is facing this problem a) too much wind, solar energy at times. No demand for it b) no sun or wind at times? Buy costly power from Sweden etc c) we all know how dangerous and costly, Li battery back up is
To sum it up: they need to continue to deploy LFP battery banks, ASAP. These are cheap, very long lasting, don't need precious metals and very safe. The ones for EV's are rapidly evolving for energy density but regular old LFP can be a great cost effective storage solution. CA and TX have already alleviated the worst parts of their grid issues with them, funny how the news reports only the negative side for clicks!
This is not unexpected or new. Discussions of the "duck" curve have been had since Germany passed their feed in tariffs in the early 2000's, which paved the way for the drastic price declines in solar hardware. Back then, folks were skeptical that solar would reach enough penetration to be a problem. However, since about 2014, folks in the industry have been taking this issue very seriously. It is compounded by the fact that natural gas fired combined cycle plants (which were designed to run around the clock) have to stay hot and at minimum load during solar peak so that they can quickly ramp up to meet demand as the sun sets. Battery storage can't come quickly enough!
We pay 50 cent a KW in San Diego and there's a surplus of power? What happened to supply and demand? They never should have all but banned home install of solar as well, that hasn't helped either.
I have Over 20 years in California, I only remember 1 time without power that is worth mentioning, I don't remember exactly but I think it was for around 5 hours
Elon Musk is not one of the darlings of the left so they shut him out of installing more mega batteries. Newsom is waiting on his China buddies to come up with a viable alternative!
There technically isn't a reasonable way to do that without reasonable costs across the state e.g. taxes building infrastructure and time lapse , it shoulda been planned for years ago
I just watched some story about this exact thing happening in Australia, except they've started charging people that produce too much energy with their solar lol.
@@ninjanerdstudent6937 Because the size and cost to create and maintain would Ballon the price. And just make other forms of energy product more desirable
They do, but you need lots more batteries, or pumped hydro if you have two reservoirs near each other with a large elevation difference. California has both, but needs more.
Sounds like they need to invest in mechanical and chemical batteries plus new transmission lines. Home owners need to add batteries to their houses. Time to decentralize the power grid.
Interesting that they only mention batteries as an electricity storage solution. Do Californian homes have hot water tanks or are they a thing of the past? The excess solar can be used to heat the water and store it for when it’s needed. In the UK a lot of homes have transitioned away from hot water tanks but we will need then again.
Yes it can be switched off, in Australia new solar inverters can be switched off remotely by grid operators, now more people are setting up their batteries to charge during day as feed in terrif is reduced to 3 cents per Kwh, and they charge 42cents per kwh, total rip off
@@EhCloserLook You have to manage your energy throughout the day/night. Canada would be needing more heat than Texas or Florida. Some places are off grid. It is a learning experience, no one can tell you exactly. It's not a perfect science.
Yes, but contracturally they can't be turned off. Renewables companies demand curtailment contracts which guarantees payment for all electricity produced regardless of electricity demand. So you pay double for electricity during these periods.
The issue is when that energy is produced. Without some way to store it if it cannot be used at that second it is waste. That is why batteries or other storage solutions are critical.
There is energy loss in transmission lines. They aren’t made of superconductors, so you actually can’t just send electricity thousands of miles effectively.
At peak hours there is more power than can be used; but that wouldn't be a problem if California had batteries to store it - they don't. They don't because there isn't enough lithium refined to make even close to enough batteries to power LA if you devoted ever ounce produced for 200 years. This is the critical fail point of Solar and Wind; they are peaky; they do not work most of the time; and if you can't store excess energy; it is wasted: then you have to revert to other eneryg sources for most of the day. The lack of sufficient cheap safe storage of energy is the achillies heal of the Solar/Wind dream.
More like it worked, but now their is excess, so now they have to build more storage centers because they’re creating a lot of energy and for the time being, those ince tubes are reduced to reduce wasted energy 🤷🏽♂️ Next time include the context buddy, instead of being disingenuous 😉 @joenobody5631
More like it worked, but now they have to create more storage centers, in the meantime taking away those incentives 🤷🏽♂️ Next time add the context buddy, or else you look disingenuous 😉 @joenobody5631😊
I'm confused. Is there anything negative thats happens as a result of the power not being used? I watched the whole video and I still don't see a newsworthy problem.
It’s not too much solar. It’s the lack of sustainable storage at both the individual and market level.
Over using electric. Humans are so extremely.
It's the lack of energy that can be extracted from sun rays even across a field: If the sun was powerful enough to power entire homes from rays reaching the ground, this planet would literally be Venus and everything on it burnt to a crisp.
@@freespeech9059
Um...No.
Storing hugh amounts of electricity from environmental energy is harder then a battery bank you charge your phone off.
Nuclear is the best option to transition.
As one rod equals 100years of clean energy for the average house.
With most waste being repurposed or reused in more efficient reactors.
or the lack of willingness to bring back the industry that China or India run using coal
@@dawsonholdsworth5371 no creating battery storage is far easier, faster and cheaper to implement. To get that one nuclear rod of energy you will need 6 to 8 years to build a nuclear power plant. Australia China and Europe have made massive progress in just the last year in renewable power generation and storage.
Let's be clear... no one is throwing away solar rays. The reporter is oversimplifying this to the point that is makes no sense.
Then you'd be surprised that California actually pays neighboring states to take solar electricity from California every day until 8 am when the California economy wakes up
funny how the guy from ISO desperately avoids to let her have the term, but she doubles down. It's all about the vocabulary.
@@ginsugray5469 it’s not difficult to understand the reporter’s statement. Energy is being produced and not used because of insufficient storage capability. Sorta defines poor planning, doncha think?
@@Ron-n4j1l - no I think the original poster is correct. To be clear, power generated by solar is being used by homes and businesses first so that power is not needed to generated and solar rays will be there used or not. The way the reporter makes it sound solar power has a consequence which isn't really true unless the goal optimal efficiency, therefore solar rays and energy created by them are lost. If the goal was a slow down on the use of natural gas to produce electricity then it isn't a problem but a solution.
I thought I was the only one. lol I have second hand embarrassment for her.
Free energy is bad for greedy energy companies
It’s bad for everybody if it puts economic strain on other sources of energy production that are needed during times of no or little sunlight
@@AgtsmirnoffThat's what batteries are for. We should just subsidise batteries instead of fossil fuels. Problem solved.
@@peopleofearth6250 batteries don’t have the capacity right now to handle all the electricity needs, not to mention the environmental damage of mining lithium and other rare earth metals to make them. Smarter option would be to invest in nuclear, but that’s too manly of a technology for the low testosterone people of California
@@peopleofearth6250 but if you knew anything, you would know that Australia tried this very same strategy with solar and batteries, and it failed spectacularly because it’s too expensive and batteries cannot hold enough charge to make them a viable option en masse
The private equity solar companies make lots of money. It's electricity custoemrs that get charged enormous prices.
This video doesn't make ANY sense - isn't the point to have more energy than you need?
Exactly. It's raining and I am not thirsty. Water Is Being Wasted!!!
It's California. That's why you don't vote Democrat. Nema 2.0 made a lot of solar companies go under.
😂
Supply of and demand for electricity need to match to keep the grid stable.
The grid need money. solar house doesnt pay money. grid break. it isnt a hard concept to grasp.
You really could have taken a different angle on this story. Very disappointing.
right? i thought it was THE dumbest take on surplus renewable energy. whatever shall we do? go back to coal!??!?!! whoever wrote this segment should be fired.
100 percent. I get that there’s a problem, but she made it sound like surplus solar energy was clogging up the sewer systems or something. The only real obstruction is political - unless there’s something I missed. Poorly framed story either way.
Yeah. Sounded like a hit piece. We're wasting money by not using this energy and oh look, we're also losing jobs. Should be celebrating that you've installed that much solar, the government decided to stop wasting tax dollars, and encouraging home storage.
Lol, you got a quarrel with this? Then have you seen any "free world" headlines on China?
Facts!!
Then install battery storage. We’re heading into an era of renewable abundance
Yes. It's only up now showing because we've had excellent snow fall the past couple of years. So the reporter is reporting that some of the solar panel power sources aren't being utilized. The hydro-power generators have been good the last couple of years. Go back a few years during the drought we were always having threats of brown outs happening. Even right now with the high temperatures we've been having there hasn't been much talk of brown outs because everything is clicking. Look at Texas they're having problems right now with the high temperatures.
No we’re not
@@frootlooper yes we are
Sodium Ion batteries are going to revolutionise energy storage.
@frootlooper 😂😂😂.. bud you know how frustrating it was during the ice storm of 2010/11(memories fuzzy on year)
To not have power for 8 weeks,and look across the street at the brand new subdivision with all their lights on?? Yeahh. Seee your experience may vary.😮😮😮😮😮
if it's so abundant, why is the price of electicity not going down?
Fun fact, the electricity companies are actually losing money so they're going to start charging a flat fee whether you use electricity or not or whether you save electricity or not.😊
@@theforestisdark9676 at that point best to just disconnect if you have your own battery bank.
Capitalism
The price you pay is a monthly average of the instantaneous price. So it includes the times when prices are negative, but also the times when prices spike (right after sunset every day).
@@relentlessprofanityPG&E is basically a government run SOE ar this point. This isn't capitalism at all.
Too much energy should mean cheaper energy for California.
Exactly! The story should focus on why that isn't so!
But the electric companies aren’t making as much money as they can. Think of the power companies!!!!
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 it's California 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 Nothing is cheap.
Completely wrong. Not enough storage capacity.
Storing electricity is extremely inefficient
@@Anjays In what way?
@@Anjays I don't see how 0 energy storage is better than inefficient energy storage.
@@rebeltheharem7028
That's like saying driving 2 hours to work is better than not working.
There has be a valuable enough return to make it worth the investment.
It's like 1:4 ratio of energy stored and energy released.
I do agree with the idea of at least moving forward.
Not enough transmission line capacity. It easily could be used elsewhere.
That’s a good news. Without the panels, the sunlight will be put to waste anyway 😂
Lol exactly, makes no sense.
Exactly, this video is brain dead
The sunlight will never be wasted. It will be used to warm the planet, give energy to plants that turn carbon dioxide into oxygen, and turn water into clouds that return water as rain to water the plants.
You miss an important point. Probably because the video doesn't explicitly state it. It is not the sunlight that is wasted - it is the capital investement in the panels that is going to waste. Failing to use, or sell at a good price, any of the power that the panels capture makes ALL the power they produce more expensive. The cost to buy, install and maintain the solar farm, plus financing costs, is divided over the lifetime production of the site. Every missed chance to use the output makes the cost of every used bit of energy higher.
So its a storage problem. Solve that in parallel
The solar companies should have to install their own storage rather than drive up electricity prices.
Wait until the battery fires caused by "climate change"
The problem is already solved.
Just need a huge investment to implement it.
That's what non-woke people have been trying to say for years. The woke just won't have anything to do with facts.
Exactly
Added a bunch of panels at my house and added a battery backup. Its the only way to do it. Looking to get a power wall
I can help you with that I just installed a powerwall 3 recently
Might with you in the future. Thanks
@@winchestersons6258 sounds good. Btw nice 71 super on your page, did you get it restored? 73 beetle with a 1915 here🙌
I'm confused. They never mentioned what the actual problem was with having too much solar.
@@jackwindensky5606 same. The sun is giving us this energy regardless of the panels, right? lol
Because he would have said incorrect information on camera and he would have received emails and calls back on his data.
I imagine heat is the problem.
Try pushing 10,000 gallons of water through a garden hose in a minute and see what happens to the hose. Same thing with electricity and the wires used to distribute that power. If solar provides too much power to the grid, wires will melt.
@@ace25805 That's not really the problem. Voltage is the pressure, and there must be a certain voltage maintained. Too much voltage would damage devices across the grid. It could also affect the frequency, thereby causing damage or other unforeseen issues.
That is the big problem with solar and wind 😔. We need to find firm sources of clean energy.
Wind and solar ARE firm sources of clean energy.
@@Simon-dm8zv Generation technologies that meet this definition are referred to as clean firm technologies. In general, they include: geothermal, renewable fuels such as hydrogen and biomethane, natural gas with carbon capture and storage, biomass-electricity, hydropower and nuclear energy.
Why are our PG&E electrical bills so high?
Cause the CEO's pay went through the roof.
Because the state determined they were too big to fail, and instead of paying for the destruction of Paradise themselves, they get to pass the costs on to us through rate hikes.
@@heyaisdabomb Yup, an ungodly amount… what was it, 52 million? Or 31 million.
One thing about wind and solar is you pay most of the costs up front. Most of the cost of a fossil fuel plant is fuel that you pay for as you use it.
Ask Southern Califonia who uses Edison. Their bills are just as high so stop blaming PG&E.
People in America don’t like fusion or fusion energy producers. Another name is atomic or nuclear. But we have to go that route one day. It is cheap to produce and it is clean energy.
This is what battery back up is for.
Paid for by the home owner. While still paying grid connection fees that are doubling next year and will increase more. Unless your off grid. And the making and then disposing of batteries is not green. So which is it. Is California green or brown like sheit...
@@ridemfast7625 - No, many solar and wind facilities have large, industrial-sized battery storage. Batteries are lasting longer than expected, and are recyclable.
@@Davran2742 HAHAHA Sure... As if no theirs pollutants and mining involved and China has an EPA or other govt regulations...
@@ridemfast7625 - Next to the military, the biggest use of cobalt and rare earth metals is for catalysts in the oil-refining process, and has been for decades; the mines didn't start for batteries.
Balancing the grid is a non trivial problem made more difficult when solar is used. It’s not a new problem and the only way around it is massive electricity storage, which isn’t a trivial problem either.
For once. A good problem California has.
Not a good problem.
What? Not at all. This means millions, if not billions, in improper investment.
@@mtb416 Finding a use for excess clean energy is better than the plethera of other issues california suffers from. Where have you been?
If thats true then why are we still having so many blackouts?
@@PCRyder Just because you perceive a particular issue as less important than any other does not make it a "good problem" In fact no problems are considered to be good.
Nice try but you would be better off simply deleting your ignorant comment than making pathetic excuses that don't make sense.
Those giant batteries only last at maximum 15 years. Not something we should be shoving endless money into
These batteries will easily pay back for itself within that period.
Unexpected? I thought it was obvious. When I installed my solar, I told them to put half of the panels facing east and half of them facing west, because I knew one or the other could become more valuable once more people had solar. PG&E was paying more for afternoon Solar, but there was no guarantee that that would always be true. Someday the governor will get on the radio and tell everyone to turn on the air conditioner. Instead of brown outs we’ll have excess. Having panels on my roof also shade the roof and reduces heat inside. I don’t actually have air-conditioning. I don’t think the popular kids are really capable of doing science or managing money or engineering a better world.
All these articles about how AI uses so much energy... And this is a problem. Well, extra energy can be used for that and the batteries will create a new game. Can't believe the negativity here
Good tip, half facing west half east. Ty
I felt it was too.
We've had solar panel technology for at least 30 years. But we need the overcapacity today so we can decarbonize more things in the future, like TV watching when the sun goes down in December or daily commuting.
Actually South provides the most production. PGE gives credits on production and those credits are applied at anytime day or night. It does not matter what the rates are because the credits apply them same and are not rate based.
@@HHSGDFootballJPD
The excess solar energy can be used to capture and sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
This video is misleading. It’s actually a good thing, it shows the success of solar farms.
One of the biggest issues with solar and wind is that they are intermittent, while demand is continual. That means that backup generation (typically fossil) needs to be kept on inefficient standby. This results in overall increased costs. Batteries are too expensive to solve the cost problem. Poor people suffer as a result.
“. . . a naïve observer might conclude that the rising share of new renewables (solar and wind) will usher in an era of falling electricity prices. But in reality, the opposite has been true.” Vaclav Smil, Numbers Don’t Lie, p.172
Outdated infrastructure because energy companies are too cheap to update and innovate. Grid upkeep should be mandated and regulated.
I'll give you an opportunity to expound on that thought first.
You are wrong, regulated, investor-owned utility companies generally, only make their profits by investing in new or replacement plant assets. In theory, the actual cost to produce and deliver electricity (operation & maintenance expense) is a pass through at cost. A component of the rate structure billed to customers for use, in addition to operation & maintenance expense, is the Return-on-Investment component which gives the utility the opportunity to earn a regulatory-set % return on the amounts invested (by shareholders) in utility plant.
Non-regulated, like government owned, is a different story. They may not be as willing to invest in new or replacement infrastructure
Fun fact: hydro power is basically a giant battery, since they can release more or less water as power is needed. It's also clean solar energy and renewable.
Alert the media! /s
Transfer it to battery storage until it needs to be used during the hours that it is needed.
That's what they are doing. New batteries are being added like crazy.
That way all the small environmental gains can be nullified by batteries! Use nuclear power.
@@romanboi3115 A new nuclear plant takes 10-15 years to build and nobody wants it near their home. A new solar installation can be built in a fraction of the time in almost any open space. Fossil fuels are causing damage here and NOW while tyrants hold the world hostage with their oil reserves. No solution is perfect, but new battery tech will eventually let batteries be made with better materials for less money. Something like sodium batteries may be a good match for large grid storage.
@@romanboi3115 Nuclear not cost effective
@@johnsutherland7561 Neither is "Green" Energy, its only built because the government offsets the cost with subsidies. Nuclear is better in every regard and dosent require millions of unrecyclable lithium batteries
Soon, you will be charged for your solar production. It started in Australia already.
I rather have too much energy rather than not enough energy.
My guess is they should lower the price of energy so people would use more of it.
You pay for the energy you DON'T use when you have too much energy. You don't understand curtailment.
The environmental damage from those massive solar farms and now battery farms is way under-reported. Not to mention eventual disposal of the batteries. Also warranting consideration is the destructive mining necessary to obtain the materials to produce all the "green' energy components and equipment. Shocker that installations decreased when the freebie incentives went away. Government inefficiency once again.
Too much solar electricity generation and sky high electric bills. Frustrating.
What is worse is that PG&E will take that free excess solar energy that came off someones roof and PAY Arizona to take it from California "to protect the grid". Not only are Calfornians paying outragous electric bills, they also subsidize powering other states. From LA Times "California invested heavily in solar power. Now there's so much that other states are sometimes paid to take it. On 14 days during March, Arizona utilities got a gift from California: free solar power. Well, actually better than free. California produced so much solar power on those days that it paid Arizona to take excess electricity its residents weren’t using to avoid overloading its own power lines."
The former caused the latter.
I wonder if you can figure out why that is....
Hint, baseload generators like coal, take a week or so to fire up.
@@petert3355 Because the coal and gas power stations have to sit at low load or with fires banked and boilers steaming waiting for a cloud to pass over, even during peak renewables production. So you have to pay for electricity twice, even when you don't need it due to curtailment contracts.
@gregorymalchuk272 and that people is exactly the right answer.
Fuel costs for the solar backup are 24/7, but income from that fuel expended is not.
Makes things expensive.
Solar energy is not the only source of "clean" energy. Nuclear energy does not produce hydrocarbons and provides a much better baseline power production. It's not as easily affected by sudden fluctuations in supply and demand. We need more nuclear power plants!
The only problem is oil companies can’t profit from this excess energy.
But hydrogen producing companies could.
This is a stupid report. The problem is the electric companies have monopolies over their area. "Too much demand" is business lingo for "we refuse to supply to keep our prices high".
sell it to data centers...they are power hungry
So is AI and bitcoin
That is not how it works. Energyproduction has to meet demand every millisecond.
@@triage2962I call BS on that
@@m-m-9000 That is how it works you can inform yourself.
@crosstudio You can do that local but you cant do that Nation wide.
In Australia now.
We were told to get solar, then we got paid for adding power to the grid .
Now in Sydney , you’ll get fined for putting power into the grid in peak producing hours …
You can’t win it …
Can you automate the process of cutting off feed into the grid whenever it'd lead to you being penalised?
@@MuzzaHukka not sure , it’s a great idea .
@@MuzzaHukka The answer is to make it dispatchable. In other words allow the grid operator to control the amount produced. Utility scale solar systems are dispatchable. The problem in California is in the past the grid operators were forced to pay retail prices for power from home solar systems. This resulted in non-solar homeowners having to pay more for power to subsidize the solar customers.
Why not just throw the excess into desalination?
I thought of this as well. Did some rough math and found that you could desalinate about 171.7 billion gallons of water with the "thrown away" electricity, assuming about 4,000 kWh per cubic meter of water. Looking at an LA times article from 2022, LA sold about 14 billion gallons of water in August that year. Multiply by 12, and you have about 169 billion gallons of water consumed by the city in a year. Assuming California will throw away a similar amount of electricity for the rest of the year, this power could eliminate the need for ground/river water of two major cities.
Simply-- they don't have an extra desalination plant built yet to take the capacity.
Running a brand new desalination plant only four or five hours per day is an absolute non starter.
The investment, and the income possible from selling the clean water...no one would build it with those sort of restrictions. The real answer is affordable electricity storage.
@@docwatson1134 That's a good point, I was just curious on how the math worked out. The easiest solution would be some sort of energy storage, whether that be battery, synthetic natural gas, pumped hydro, or whatever other energy storage method of choice.
@@ronkorn8454: Desalination is a Garbage idea, existing water canals are cleaner and Much cheaper .
Why didn't you mention the NEW 3.0 ruling that caused the massive drop in solar adoption?
Only under Capitalism is free energy a problem.
But it's not free.. someone must maintain the power lines. There are hundreds if not thousands of other jobs that must be performed to keep the power grid running.
It's only from problems that opportunities, like harvesting that free energy, arise. Pointing out those problems is not a bad thing, nor is it a flaw of capitalism.
@@agisler87 they already have the powerlines and infrastructure to maintain them. We the customers who installed solar provide them with energy energy, and they buy it from us for pennies on the dollar compared to what they sell it back to people who don’t have solar for. Yeah it wasn’t free. I put solar on my roof and PG&E screws me.
NOT , nearly enough GRID battery storage.
problem FIXED .
I think you mean physics.
Energy storage of solar or wind reduces the produced amount by alot.
Best way to get it to work is by water reservoirs that release and generate Hydro power on off producing hours.
This isn't capitalism fault.
It's A to D policy that forgets about transition first before going fully cold turkey.
Why is the media so stupid?
There should’ve been incentives for battery packs in conjunction with solar panels
There are, just sometimes hard to get.
Make solar companies install the batteries.
There is a 30% federal tax credit for home batteries. And the solar companies are in the business of installing them. Just ask. Make them happy.
There technically was, but it had a MAJOR gatchya to it. If you took their $1200~ cash rebate for installing a battery you were forced to be on a plan that pays you out really bad rates for having solar, and if you want to switch off that terrible plan within 5 years to actually get your investment back then you owed the CPUC their money rebate back.
@@danielcarroll3358 The government shouldn't be subsidizing this energy-negative nightmare.
I wonder how much it cost to figure out people don't use electricity when not at home
So we have the power, but we need storage. They first complained there wasn't enough energy for EV's and now theyre saying this lol
Most people charge their EVs at night when rates are cheapest, so technically there still isn't enough solar power to charge EVs if every vehicle in California was electric due to lack of grid storage. The few grid storage batteries Calfornia has invested in have had some serious issues, so much so that cities are voting no on allowing new grid storage batteries in their city. We need better and safer batteries for grid storage before it will be widely accepted. Lithium is not the answer.
Who is they?
@@ace25805Are they cheapest at night? I don’t think so anymore, not in California. That was before solar. Now during the day most people are at work and a lot of solar power is going unused.
@@trentgay3437 the DOE
@ace25805 idk who told you this, but they lied to you. Energy demand is highest in the evening.
I really feel like this is a really SIMPLE fix 😂😂😂.... more energy storage facilities duh
If you’re going to come to ca and visit the rich areas only … please do a complete story so far this year we had no rolling black outs , that was no where in the story . don’t spin the story in a fully negative way . Please report the truth . Thank you .
This has nothing to do with rolling black outs. The rolling black outs were caused by lack of power generation. At that time, power generation was entirely natural gas. When they brought more natural gas plants online, the problem was solved. Solar wasn't a thing until later, made possible through cheaper solar panels.
The one rolling brown out they had last year in the Bay Area, they determined AFTER that it wasn't needed and done in error.
So a win to you is PGE with Democrat controlled California/Newscum and corrupt CPUC providing the service we pay for and not eF'in up... smh
We haven't had any rolling black outs. Look at the recent high temperatures across the state. There's no talk about brown outs. There have been power shut downs for a few areas due to wild fire danger. Right now everything is clicking. It was during the drought years is when we had threats of brown outs since there wasn't enough water to run a few of the hydro powered generators.
This is a good problem to have .
The problem isn't too much solar power. The problem is that there are not yet enough batteries to store that extra energy.
Then the solar companies should be forced to install the batteries.
Fortunately, the 30% federal tax credit has been extended to batteries, at least until 2030. NEM 3.0 certainly encourages it. I am under NEM 2.0 as my solar was installed several years ago and can use the grid as a battery. From 3 to 9 pm power costs more, so, since I don't yet have batteries, I lower the water heater temp 5 degrees during that time so it won't run. I'm watching battery tech development carefully to see when to add batteries.
The difference between the two NEM types is that NEM 2.0 is averaged over the whole year and NEM 3.0 is averaged over six minute periods. In both types if you produce more (in that period) you earn wholesale rate. If you use more you pay retail. I earn a couple of hundred dollars per year for my excess of 2,000 kW-hr.
Batteries are EXTREMELY expensive.
If batteries were economically viable- they'd be great for conventional power also. You could build a much smaller plant that didn't have to handle peak loads directly. Simply store power generated during low demand in a magic box and release it when needed. It doesn't work and it never will.
@@SteveLomas-k6k In the past, battery storage on a large scale would have been far too expensive to be practical, but that has changed. The cost and efficiency of battery storage on a large scale has dropped dramatically, and large-scale battery use is now being used around the world more and more every day. Take a look at Australia and their use of batteries. China is another great example, and yes, even here in the US it is becoming more common BECAUSE IT WORKS. Billions of dollars are being invested in batteries. I even have one in my home.
You know the bottom line is that we’d rather have houses using our power rather than the solar power.
And PG&E still charges 50c/kwh …. Greeds
its actually .50-.65 now
Seriously? In Germany I pay 0.36 USD/kWh (plus fixed 11USD/month) and some politicians claim, that we have the highest electricty rates in the world due to the energy transformation.
I have seen some edison rates get up go .72 cents
Due to Texas's weird but effective market based options for many users, I buy 100% renewable electricity for just under 15 cents kw/hr. The cost is almost exactly evenly split between the cost of the electricity itself and the other half for the grid operations. Why it would cost PB&E over three times that to deliver electricity is strange.
It would be more accurate to compare costs of LA's DWP because it is non-profit. They have a history of doing what is right for the customer and not for share holders. Think Enron and PG&E several decades ago.
Solar and batteries meant our bill went from $400/mo. to $10/mo. Essentially, we pay only the grid connection fee.
They left out the part that fossil fuel plants take up to 24 hours to spin up. So even when solar is accounting for 100% of energy generation they are still burning fossil fuels to keep the plants up for when solar goes away, like at night. So those plants are still having to run 24-7
It can exported to neighboring states
You can use it to charge your EV
HVAC systems don’t stop when you leave your home
they need to install battery energy storage so it can be used at night
Many solutions. Don’t like how the media portrays this as an issue
well its more of an infrastructure problem, not really a demand issue. Not enough capacity to move power to where its need and not enough capacity to store it. Ireland had a similar issue couple years back where overproduction was causing issues with the power grid itself, and they fixed it by limiting new solar installation while at the same time they upgraded sections of their power grid so that solar can be better utilized. So more wires, and substations along side expanding power storage should do the trick. Not to mention improve the state's ability to export that energy as well with upgrades to the power grid which is also likely being limited by the current state of the power grid.
Just charge EVs douring days when everybody at work dont tell my there is too much energy
Can Texas have some of this? We're always losing power. Good on you California for all the clean energy and showing the world how efficient it is. It's so good that you have too much.
Texas has an independent grid and it works great. With the exception of the 2021 snow-pocalypse, and the occasional severe thunderstorm, Texas has very reliable energy.
And at half the cost per kwh as California, this seems like a grass is always greener situation.
Texas produces nearly twice as much energy as it uses, and prices are kept low through deregulation on the independent grid system.
California has had summer capacity induced blackouts for several years now.
@@gregorymalchuk272 I just googled the California blackouts. Sorry this is something you’re all dealing with. I’m a fan of clean energy so I hope this all gets figured out soon.
@@gregorymalchuk272 We haven't had capacity induced blackouts for a few years. There are blackouts to prevent fires though. Those are being reduced as local emergency generators and underground power lines are extended by the power companies. When it gets real hot there are sometimes requests to reduce power use in the late afternoon and early evening. People are pretty good about that, especially as the rates are higher then.
Texas made a decision to disconnect from the 3 nationwide grids. So they cannot get power from elsewhere unlike the rest of the country. Speak to you legislator about that or vote them out.
Too much electricity then lower the price and customer will use up the excess
So if they are over producing, there should be no issue to up fit our power grid… batteries are the way, I added one and it made a huge difference in my usage vs production.
Germany is facing this problem
a) too much wind, solar energy at times. No demand for it
b) no sun or wind at times? Buy costly power from Sweden etc
c) we all know how dangerous and costly, Li battery back up is
Solar power generation should always come with battery storage…. I’m surprised solar companies only sell 1/2 a product…
First there wasn't enough now there's too much. Wanted everyone to get solar but now don't want people to get solar.
To sum it up: they need to continue to deploy LFP battery banks, ASAP. These are cheap, very long lasting, don't need precious metals and very safe. The ones for EV's are rapidly evolving for energy density but regular old LFP can be a great cost effective storage solution. CA and TX have already alleviated the worst parts of their grid issues with them, funny how the news reports only the negative side for clicks!
Too much solar for Power companies cause they're not making money 😂😂
Luckily I have a power storage solution at home and run off the batteries when they’re charged by the solar panels.
This is not unexpected or new. Discussions of the "duck" curve have been had since Germany passed their feed in tariffs in the early 2000's, which paved the way for the drastic price declines in solar hardware. Back then, folks were skeptical that solar would reach enough penetration to be a problem. However, since about 2014, folks in the industry have been taking this issue very seriously.
It is compounded by the fact that natural gas fired combined cycle plants (which were designed to run around the clock) have to stay hot and at minimum load during solar peak so that they can quickly ramp up to meet demand as the sun sets.
Battery storage can't come quickly enough!
We pay 50 cent a KW in San Diego and there's a surplus of power? What happened to supply and demand? They never should have all but banned home install of solar as well, that hasn't helped either.
Yah you guys are totally getting ripped off. It's disgusting. Electric companies make hundreds of Millions to Billions of profit each year.
You know what can solve this problem? Encourage work from home. Give companies tax breaks to hire for and give employees work from jobs.
It’s not too much solar it’s not enough batteries
Isn’t this the state with frequent rolling blackouts?
I have Over 20 years in California, I only remember 1 time without power that is worth mentioning, I don't remember exactly but I think it was for around 5 hours
If only there were a company creating an enormous amount of energy storage that you could invest in.
Exactly Tesla
I got mine, TSLA all the way baby.
Elon Musk is not one of the darlings of the left so they shut him out of installing more mega batteries. Newsom is waiting on his China buddies to come up with a viable alternative!
Why not force solar companies to DO that rather than dumping the cost of firming onto the grid as a negative externality.
TSLA. Megapack 🔋🔋🔋🔋🔋🔋🔋😉
So basically you will have to charge your EV in the day time
And this is a problem how? Non story. This is a good thing in my mind.
“We’re not making enough profits!- ban solar” - that guy
But PG&E is still raising rates
Solar is not the answer!! Nuclear is an obvious choice considering the advances in nuclear technology and 3rd and 4th gen reactors
Complete BS
What a horrible take on a good problem, it's like having too much money and complaining you have nothing to spend it on
Having too much clean energy is a good problem to have.
Also, shouldn't this result in lower energy costs/prices? :)
Dumbing down of News. We have a storage problem.
And a transmission problem
Build more storage centers
There technically isn't a reasonable way to do that without reasonable costs across the state e.g. taxes building infrastructure and time lapse , it shoulda been planned for years ago
Good luck
I just watched some story about this exact thing happening in Australia, except they've started charging people that produce too much energy with their solar lol.
What storage centers? We're talking about homes, those aren't flashlights you can power off batteries... what the heck is wrong with today's world 😂
Why don't you build the storage centers? Instead of trying to boss other people.
Amazing how there's too much energy to go around but the price keeps going up.
Remember to defraud your local power company folks.
Why don't they store the reserve power in batteries?
Batteries not included.
Solar private equity should pay for it.
@@ninjanerdstudent6937
Because the size and cost to create and maintain would Ballon the price. And just make other forms of energy product more desirable
They do, but you need lots more batteries, or pumped hydro if you have two reservoirs near each other with a large elevation difference. California has both, but needs more.
Nope, not too much solar, not enough EVs on the road, and not enough battery storage. That's need to be fixed ASAP!!
Good. Now find storage!
Normal people: "you mean, throwing it away..."
Businessmen/bureaucrats: "we say sending dispatch instructions"
😂😂😂
Store Solar Power in Electric Cars. Cheap Electric Cars made in China solve the problem.
To much , not enough? Make up your mind.
since when did anybody go "ohhh nooo we have TOO much free energy!!"... oh wait, the oil industry
Solar private equity is profiting handsomely.
Sounds like they need to invest in mechanical and chemical batteries plus new transmission lines. Home owners need to add batteries to their houses. Time to decentralize the power grid.
Can’t California use the energy to mine Bitcoin and make some money $$$$. ?
I have solar and batteries, plus an electric car, I have places to dump my extra solar energy. Its a Win Win
Why don't you give it to Oregon, Nevada and other neighboring states? Start bringing it east...work forward
Not possible because it is overproduction so nobody needs it.
Transmission lines
@@kennethnelson4109 I kinda understand but I work for Georgia power and we also serve Alabama
Interesting that they only mention batteries as an electricity storage solution. Do Californian homes have hot water tanks or are they a thing of the past? The excess solar can be used to heat the water and store it for when it’s needed. In the UK a lot of homes have transitioned away from hot water tanks but we will need then again.
Can solar panels not be turned off for a brief period of time during the middle of the day???
Yes it can be switched off, in Australia new solar inverters can be switched off remotely by grid operators, now more people are setting up their batteries to charge during day as feed in terrif is reduced to 3 cents per Kwh, and they charge 42cents per kwh, total rip off
I don't think so, but then again you could just cover them so the sun won't touch em.
thats a pretty DUMB thing to do .
BEST solution is GRID battery Storage .
@@EhCloserLook You have to manage your energy throughout the day/night. Canada would be needing more heat than Texas or Florida. Some places are off grid. It is a learning experience, no one can tell you exactly. It's not a perfect science.
Yes, but contracturally they can't be turned off. Renewables companies demand curtailment contracts which guarantees payment for all electricity produced regardless of electricity demand. So you pay double for electricity during these periods.
There's enough extra energy in CA that we can power San Francisco for a year but everyone is still paying crazy rates for electricity? 🤔
SCAM
The issue is when that energy is produced. Without some way to store it if it cannot be used at that second it is waste. That is why batteries or other storage solutions are critical.
it can exported to others states or even country like canada.
We have enough, send it to other states lol
Canada? More likely Mexico, as that's much closer.
There is energy loss in transmission lines. They aren’t made of superconductors, so you actually can’t just send electricity thousands of miles effectively.
This segment feels like it was written by the oil, gas and coal industries lol
At peak hours there is more power than can be used; but that wouldn't be a problem if California had batteries to store it - they don't. They don't because there isn't enough lithium refined to make even close to enough batteries to power LA if you devoted ever ounce produced for 200 years. This is the critical fail point of Solar and Wind; they are peaky; they do not work most of the time; and if you can't store excess energy; it is wasted: then you have to revert to other eneryg sources for most of the day. The lack of sufficient cheap safe storage of energy is the achillies heal of the Solar/Wind dream.
Clean energy such a joke.
The program worked, so naturally they take it away. That's government for ya.
Yes, artificially lowering the price of anything will increase the demand. This often hurts the poor and only makes wealthier people richer.
More like it worked, but now their is excess, so now they have to build more storage centers because they’re creating a lot of energy and for the time being, those ince tubes are reduced to reduce wasted energy 🤷🏽♂️
Next time include the context buddy, instead of being disingenuous 😉 @joenobody5631
More like it worked, but now they have to create more storage centers, in the meantime taking away those incentives 🤷🏽♂️
Next time add the context buddy, or else you look disingenuous 😉 @joenobody5631😊
I'm confused. Is there anything negative thats happens as a result of the power not being used? I watched the whole video and I still don't see a newsworthy problem.
Leave it to California to snatch defeat out of the hands of victory.
How are they “defeated” here exactly? 🤔
California should build a bunch of water desalination plants and power them during those times
This is what happens when interns with no actual understanding of the situation write the news
They should capture co2 from atmosphere and make synthetic jet fuel using that energy.