{"id":54822,"date":"2020-08-25T15:35:51","date_gmt":"2020-08-25T20:35:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=54822"},"modified":"2020-08-25T15:35:51","modified_gmt":"2020-08-25T20:35:51","slug":"californias-renewable-energy-conundrum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=54822","title":{"rendered":"California\u2019s Renewable Energy Conundrum"},"content":{"rendered":"

California\u2019s Renewable Energy Conundrum<\/a><\/h3>\n
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Amid a heatwave in the West, the largest U.S. solar state, California, is grappling with power issues and with keeping its electricity grid stable as demand exceeds supply.\u00a0And in a looming renewable future, those power disruptions just might be a sign of things to come.<\/p>\n

California energy consumers were\u00a0warned of rolling outages<\/a>\u00a0as there is insufficient energy to meet the high demand during the heatwave, the California Independent System Operator (ISO) said over the weekend.<\/p>\n

The warning to Californians about the outages and strained grid should serve as a warning for policymakers and system operators across the United States and elsewhere: a rush to boost renewable energy power generation should be coupled with \u2013 and even preceded by \u2013 more careful planning on how to ensure the reliability and stability of the power grid.<\/p>\n

California\u2019s Struggles With Power Reliability<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In the case of California, where solar power supplies\u00a0more than 20 percent<\/a>\u00a0of electricity as per the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), the rolling outages this week were the worst such outages since the\u00a02000-2001 energy crisis<\/a>\u00a0in the state.<\/p>\n

Some blame the current power crisis on California\u2019s aggressive renewable energy rollout and retirement of natural gas-powered plants. Others say that there is a way for the state to reconcile renewables with reliability, although this would not come in the near term and certainly not soon enough to help with the current power supply issues.<\/p>\n

It would seem that California has put the renewable cart before the proverbial horse.<\/p>\n

The blame game and the debate about how exactly to cope with reliability in a heavily renewable power grid highlight the fact that meeting clean energy goals and reducing emissions should be made only after careful planning on how to ensure reliable power supply to customers and how to prepare the grid for an increased share of solar and wind power.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

California\u2019s Renewable Energy Conundrum Amid a heatwave in the West, the largest U.S. solar state, California, is grappling with power issues and with keeping its electricity grid stable as demand exceeds supply.\u00a0And in a looming renewable future, those power disruptions just might be a sign of things to come. California energy consumers were\u00a0warned of rolling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[101,5332,674,22855,14603],"class_list":["post-54822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","tag-california","tag-oilprice-com","tag-renewable-energy","tag-rolling-blackouts","tag-tsvetana-paraskova"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54822"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54823,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54822\/revisions\/54823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}