Comment by idiotsecant
7 hours ago
That 'crazy' amount is not even scratching the surface of the surface of what we would need for a high-solar grid, let alone a majority solar grid. Not even within an order of magnitude. You don't have to take my word for it, the CAISO literally provides the data.
How much more do we need? 2x the capacity? 5x? 10x? The state has added a ridiculous amount of battery over the last couple years so it doesn't seem intractable
I remember looking at CAISO's graphs a few years ago and when the sun goes down we were basically completely dependent on imports and natty gas, especially for scaling up to demand around 6-7pm. Looking at today's graph, batteries were actually our top electricity source for a while around peak electricity time. Natty has been able to stay pretty flat, and even now its neck and neck with batteries