California is Paying Other States to Take Its Solar Energy - Newsweek [View all]

Solar panels in the Mojave desert, near Lake Tamarisk. Photograph: Oliver Wainwright/The Guardian

California is Paying Other States to Take Its Solar Energy

Newsweek.com | Dec 04, 2024

California is producing so much clean energy using solar farms that it sometimes has to pay utilities in other states to take some of it away.

The news comes in a Los Angeles Times report which also says in the past 12 months California has forgone enough solar energy to power 518,000 homes for a year (three million megawatt-hours), due to supply exceeding demand and an inability to store the surplus.

California produces more solar power than any other state and has a law stating that by 2030, at least 60 percent of its electricity must come from renewable sources. The Golden State also has the second most expensive electricity in the Union, behind only Hawaii, at around double the national average.

When California's solar farms produce a surplus which battery storage cannot handle, to prevent grid overload, the state exports power. This is frequently sold at below the market rate, essentially subsidized by California energy consumers, and at times other states have to be paid to take surplus electricity if they have no demand for it...more
https://www.newsweek.com/california-producing-too-much-clean-energy-paying-other-states-take-it-1995346

Power to gas How to store renewable energy