Solar variability: A tale of two days in B'game

I told you about my "going solar" a year ago here.  So far, the system has been trouble-free and good amounts of juice are flowing back to PG&E.  But here in B'game we are feeling the trailing effects of Tropical Storm Frank from down south and have had a few cloudy, muggy days this week.  That got me curious as to how my solar system was responding.  But first, let's look at Calmatters.org for the latest electricity news from Sacramento.  On June 27, Calmatters reported that

The expansive energy bill that so angered clean-energy advocates and local officials — for its capitulation to short-term reliance on fossil-fuel and its closed-door negotiations — won lukewarm passage in California’s Legislature late Wednesday and was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom today.

Republican members railed about being shut out of brokering the details of the plan that would manage California’s fragile electricity grid during summer power drains. Democrats saw the bill’s reliance on dirty energy sources to prop up power generation as a backward step.  During prolonged and pointed debate, the legislation was characterized as “lousy” and “crappy” — and those were the legislators who supported it.

“This was a crappy trailer bill that was dumped on us Sunday night,” complained Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, a Torrance Democrat. “This was a rushed, unvetted fossil-fuel heavy response.”  “It’s a lousy bill,” said Hayward Democratic Assemblymember Bill Quirk, “but it’s the best hope we have for keeping the lights on.”

You can click through to read the rest of the gnashing of teeth, but the bottom line for me was delivered by a Wall Street Journal piece titled "America's New Energy Crisis:  Fossil fuel plants are closing faster than green alternatives can replace them."  There is total (peak) capacity, baseload capacity, time of day needs, etc. but when push comes to shove, how do the rooftop panels right here in B'game behave?  The Enphase system app conveniently does a year-over-year comparison, so we now know that a monsoony, cloudy day will drop solar energy production by 44.7%.  Almost cut by half.  It's gonna be hard to "keep the lights on" with that kind of green variability.  Looks like Newsom did something right for a change. 

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Comments

[Joe]

I'm glad I put in solar when I did....from today's WSJ:

It was bound to happen. After skating through the summer without rolling blackouts, Californians on Wednesday were told to raise their thermostats to 78 degrees and avoid charging electric vehicles during peak hours as a heat wave grips the state. Good thing new gas-powered cars won’t be banned until 2035.

Heat waves aren’t unusual, and not long ago California and other states were able to manage through them without having to resort to emergency measures. No more. Californians last summer were repeatedly asked to conserve power to prevent blackouts. The state has also extended the life of several gas-fired power plants that were set to close, but this hasn’t been enough.

So the state has been procuring power at exorbitant prices to keep the lights on. California’s residential electricity prices surged by 25% in June over the prior year—about twice as much as they have increased nationwide. Many Californians have seen their electricity bills shoot up by hundreds of dollars a month.

[Paloma Ave]

Newsom finally decided to do something that makes sense.

Diablo Canyon will stay open at least five more years.

Just when I finally resigned myself to believing democrat politicians cannot do anything correctly...

[Peter Garrison]

And in the meantime build another one.