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Monday, August 17, 2020

Solar Energy After The Sun Goes Down? Not So Much And Other Factoids -- California Governor Gavin Newsom -- August 17, 2020

From Breitbart, August 17, 2020 (https://www.breitbart.com/environment/2020/08/17/california-gov-gavin-newsom-time-to-sober-up-about-green-renewable-energy-flaws/):
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday, August 17, 2020,  that the state had to “sober up” about the fact that renewable energy sources had failed to provide enough power for the state at peak demand, and needed “backup” and “insurance” from other sources.

Newsom addressed journalists and the public in the midst of ongoing electricity blackouts that began on Friday, as hundreds of thousands of Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) customers in northern and central California lost power.

There is currently high demand for electricity across the state, as the entire West Coast has been hit by a heat wave and record-breaking temperatures.

One reason the state lacked power, officials admitted, was its over-reliance on “renewables” — i.e. wind and solar power.

There was not enough wind to keep turbines going, Newsom said, and cloud cover and nightfall restricted solar power. [Brilliant.]

“While we’ve had some peak gust winds,” he explained, “wind gust events across the state have been relatively mild.”

That was good for fighting fires, he said, but bad for the “renewable portfolio” in the state’s energy infrastructure. In addition, high demand for electricity in the evening hours, coupled with less input from solar plants, created strain. [Wildfires or electricity.]

On Friday, Newsom said, the state had fallen about 1,000 megawatts short; on Saturday, it fell 450 megawatts short. Sunday saw only “modest or minor” interruptions. But on Monday, he said, the state would be 4,400 megawatts short of “where we believe we need to be.”

“This next few days, we are anticipating being challenged,” Newsom said, as the heat wave was predicted to last through Wednesday.

“We failed to predict and plan these shortages,” Newsom admitted boldly, “and that’s simply unacceptable.” He said he took responsibility for the crisis, and for addressing it immediately, so that “we never come back into this position again.”

Much more at the link.

ISO California. Tomorrow:


The graphic:
  • oval C: anticipated peak demand tomorrow -- 50,485 MW
  • oval B: historical peak -- 50,270 MW
  • oval A: available capacity today which is probably similar for tomorrow -- 50,393

See also this post from August 15, 2020.

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When It Rains, It Pours

More from Breitbart on Governor Newsom and the rolling blackouts (https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/08/17/nolte-blackouts-force-newsom-to-admit-green-energy-falls-short/).
Blackouts in the failing state of Democrat-run California have forced Governor Gavin Newsom to admit green every is falling short.

“Newsom says the transition away from fossil fuels has left California with a gap in the reliability of its energy system. He says the state must examine its reliance on solar power and how that fits into its broader energy portfolio,” reports the San Francisco Chronicle’s Alexei Koseff.

“Today we are anticipating substantially greater need for energy,” Newsom said at a Monday press conference. Per Koseff, he added that this greater need is “about 4,400 megawatts short of what the state needs. That’s a ten times greater shortfall than Saturday. ” “We failed to predict and plan these shortages and that’s simply unacceptable,” Newsom somehow said without bursting into flames.

Give me a break.

No one “failed to predict” anything.

California has had decades to prepare for this. No one failed to predict it. They only failed to prepare for it.

The writing has been on the wall since 2001 when the state was hit with a series of massive blackouts and soaring electricity prices. The result was the successful recall of then-Democrat Governor Gray Davis in late 2003. He was replaced by the equally incompetent Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Over the weekend, the former-Golden State was hit with its second day of rolling blackouts. As my colleague Joel Pollak reported at the time, “the state’s power grid struggled to deal with a heat wave that caused a surge in consumer demand.”

The blackout hit 220,000 homes in the North Bay area.

While there’s nothing funny about people losing power during a heat wave, it is still hard not to laugh at a state that is so scientifically backwards. The luddites were thwarted by a lack of wind and clouds.

Yes, wind and clouds.

Officials blamed the “unexpected loss of a 470-megawatt power plant Saturday evening, as well as the loss of nearly 1,000 megawatts of wind power,” the San Jose Mercury News reported. In addition, cloud cover over the desert meant solar energy was in short supply. What are we, savages?

What is this, the third world?

No one has to live like this in the 21st century.

All you need to do is build more power and nuclear plants and the problem is solved.

Yes, it really is that easy.
Much more at the link.

4 comments:

  1. Tesla has a dream of using the battery storage in their cars to flow power back into the grid. The owner of the car could pick the price and amount of stored power. The problem with electricity is difficult to store unlike a fuel tank. Now with a Tesla vehicle with 50+KWH storage, with thousands of them out there, a sizable amount of power available for peaking power ibn the grid

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    1. That's very possible. Unfortunately I won't be around to see it; I'll be long gone.

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  2. In late May, rumors of V2G hardware (Vehicle to Grid) exists in Tesla vehicles. Peaking power is the most expensive especially for a quick startup for power. That would be a gas turbine with only ~25-30% efficiently and capitol cost of the turbine generation system that would be running maybe 5-10% on an annual basis Old school power plants fired with coal or oil take hours to get full power. I think that we will see the V2G in years instead of decades

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    Replies
    1. Oh, I agree, we will see this in years, not decades, but whether it moves the needle in the overall scheme of things? I'm just following the percentage of distillate, natural gas, hydroelectricity contribution in ISO New England, ISO CA, ISO New York, and renewables barely move the needle in any of those areas, except perhaps when energy demand is lowest.

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