Comment by dalyons
6 hours ago
No, it doesn’t.
Every kWh hour of solar entering the grid is a kWh of fossil generation that is no longer produced. Batteries just move existing power around. This is not very complicated, I’m not sure why the semantic crusade?
The article is about recorded actual supply contributions over a year, actual kWh, regardless of instantaneous capacity at various times.
Every kWh of produced and accepted(not curtailed) solar power is directly responsible for reducing our emissions
This has nothing to do with semantics. I'm arguing ideas. If you'd prefer different words to express those ideas, I'm happy to use them. Let me know what you'd like me to change.
Power is instantaneous. A solar panel doesn't get the same credit for generating electricity when there's already a surplus as it does when that electricity is needed. I don't just mean credit in principle, I mean literal credit. In a functioning market, the marginal value of surplus electricity tends sharply towards zero, potentially becoming negative. Solar generators have almost no marginal cost of production, so there's little reason to expect producers to withhold generation simply because the market price is approaching zero.
Batteries don't just "move existing power around". They can absorb worthless renewable generation that would otherwise have been curtailed, then supply it when the grid would otherwise fall back to coal or gas.
It should also be noted that the remaining solar production doesn't exclusively represent the curtailment of emissions-producing generation. It can also represent the curtailment of other zero emissions sources like wind. Probably not to a significant degree, but I'm sure it's not zero.
A kWh is a kWh in terms of energy. It isn't necessarily a kWh of equivalent economic value, emissions reduction or contribution to grid reliability.