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Rooftop solar panels are flooding California’s grid. That’s a problem. As electricity prices go negative, the Golden State is struggling to offload a glut of solar power (wapo.st)

submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I'll note that right now, this is a seasonal issue, associated with moderate springtime temperatures when there is a lot of sunshine available.

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 7 months ago (4 children)

Capitalism is the problem, here.

This should be a warning: the rich are going to fight the idea of post-scarcity tooth and nail, because not being able to coerce people woth the threat of homelessness or starvation will remove just about the only lever they have.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 7 months ago (2 children)

It's more that people are confused about what an cost-optimal system looks like — if you're building around renewables, it means there will inherently be periods of excess production, where we're forced to curtail production, and spill sunshine or wind, and the price drops to zero or below. In California, that means the springtime, when there's a lot of sunshine, combined with moderate temperatures. There will also be periods where energy is relatively scarce (nighttime winter heating, hot days with lots of AC running) and the price is high.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

props to you OP for understanding the article you posted. 👍

im as critical of capitalism as the next chronically online marxist loser, but even i recognize that this issue is a logistics issue which would present itself under any economic system given the immense rate of growth we are asking of the technology.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

We have systems like "gravity batteries." If there is an excess of power then there should be storage systems like running water up a hill/tower, that can be released at times of greater demand.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

Excess power on the grid is a very real problem though. It's easy enough to shut off photovoltaic solar when not needed (which is probably what should be happening here!), but industrial scale generators cannot all be turned on or off on a whim. Serious damage can result if power production does not match the load.

It's easy to dump a few kW (just boil some water or turn on a heater), but dumping many MW or even GW is not trivial.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

The capitalism that has encouraged people to install lots of rooftop solar capacity?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

How is capitalism the problem?

Capitalism is the solution, it's the cause of this huge deployment of solar.

Market forces have chosen the cheapest cost and that has been deployed. That itself through supply and demand and impacted the price of electricity. This has caused low and even negative prices in the day.

Denholm says that as solar continues to drop in price, installing solar that is curtailed regularly can still be cost-effective. “Throwing away some amount of renewable energy can absolutely make economic sense,” he said.

Those same market forces and causing the huge development of batteries as people can make money buying low selling high in the evening. The issue is that solar is causing excess costs to the grid, as such that cost needs to be recouped or the grid will fail and people won't have power at all.

This website is very capitalism is bad propaganda and gives no reasoning. I'm surprised you have so many upvotes without explaining your position. Why is capitalism the problem here?