from Hacker News

California went a record 98 days with 10 hours of electricity from renewables

by vegetablepotpie on 1/26/25, 2:14 PM with 31 comments

• by k310 on 1/26/25, 3:39 PM

  My electric rates more than doubled. No doubt for different reasons, including previously shelved infrastructure improvements such as underground lines.

  For whatever reason, it hurts like hell.

• by ZeroGravitas on 1/26/25, 7:26 PM

  The article kind of jumbles the paper it's reporting on, the paper's headline might be better (or linking the paper directly):

  "No blackouts or cost increases due to 100 % clean, renewable electricity powering California for parts of 98 days"

  > This paper uses data from the world's 5th-largest economy to show no blackouts occurred when wind-water-solar electricity supply exceeded 100 % of demand on California's main grid for a record 98 of 116 days from late winter to early summer, 2024, for an average of 4.84 (and maximum 10.1) hours/day

• by phillipseamore on 1/26/25, 3:10 PM

  "As a result of the increase in WWS supply and decrease in demand from 2019 to 2024, the daily-average gap between WWS supply and demand decreased gradually during that period. This culminated March 7 to June 30, 2024, when the 24-h average WWS supply reached 61.3 % of demand, versus 56.1 % of demand during the same period in 2023."

  Also "peaked at 83.2 % of daily demand on May 25."

  Note that demand in 2023 was 533.6 Gwh/day and went down to 529.1.

  "between June 2023 and June 2024, nameplate capacities of utility solar, wind, and batteries increased by ∼18%, ∼4%, and 73.3%, respectively"

  Cost and details of those capacity increases isn't mentioned but it seems that the average 31.7% increase in capacity only yielded a 5.2pp increase (mostly from the batteries which appear to handle 4 hours of load).

  The study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096014812...

• by mistrial9 on 1/26/25, 4:42 PM

  electric bills for average residential customers in this PG&E area have increased five times in one year. The average residential bill has increased 56% in three years. This is after a state-backed replacement of senior management after the court losses.

  source: local news reporter Kevin Truong

• by bell-cot on 1/26/25, 2:39 PM

  > The state went a record 98 of 116 days providing up to 10 hours of electricity with renewables alone

  Nice...but "up to 10" < 24, and 98 < 116, and "how easy was the first 1/4?" is generally a crap indicator of how easily a job can be finished.

• by cma on 1/26/25, 4:10 PM

  Real subheadline says:

  > The state went a record 98 of 116 days providing up to 10 hours

  Does the study clarify? "Up to” could mean almost anything, and could be rewritten ”no more than"

• by throwaway5292 on 1/26/25, 2:26 PM

  That sounds incredibly efficient.