Across California, it's a common sight,
rows of suburban homes topped with solar panels.
But as the state works towards its ambitious clean energy
vision and almost counterintuitive problem has emerged,
California is at times generating too much solar,
meaning loads of good clean energy is going to waste.
Since solar power relies on the sun,
it's off in the middle of the day on days
when it's not too hot that you can run into
this issue of essentially having too much solar.
People aren't home, they're not running their ACS,
and the system can generate more than the state can
use.
This imbalance has been dubbed the duck curve,
its belly the time of day when solar production can
exceed demand.
So that's the deck curve.
That's the deck curve. Yeah,
there it is. Inside California's independent grid operator,
CEO Elliot Mainzer showed us how they manage the state's
electricity in real time.
There is solar energy right now that's essentially being thrown
away.
You know, the bottom line is that there are times
when we do not have the demand for electricity for
the full production of the solar fleet.
Sometimes we're able to export it and there are those
times under certain extreme conditions when we do have to
curtail it.
When you say curtail, you mean throwing it away?
We say sending dispatch instructions to those fleet to to
reduce their generation.
Yes, In recent years the amount of renewable energy curtailed
most of its solar has skyrocketed both from oversupply and
so-called congestion when there's more electricity than the transmission lines
in some areas can handle.
So far this year, the state has already lost out
on nearly
2.6 million MW hours of renewable electricity,
more than enough to power all the households in San
Francisco for a year.
To solve the problem, Governor Gavin Newsom's administration has been
pushing to add more batteries to store that excess energy.
And state regulators have taken a more controversial approach,
drastically cutting financial incentives for homeowners looking to install solar.
Before, we used to have people clamoring to put solar
on.
Ed Murray, who operates Aztec Solar outside Sacramento,
says the impact has been devastating for his business.
He's laid off 10 employees over the last year.
We were left figuring what do we do now?
Since the changes, there's been a
66% drop in residential solar installations and an estimated
17,000 green jobs lost statewide.
To make it cost effective,
homeowners now need to install batteries in addition to solar
panels,
but that can cost an additional 10 to
$20,000 or more. In a statement,
Governor Newsom defended the state's policies,
saying in part, no other state in America comes close
to
California's solar production. And now we're adding more batteries faster
than ever to help capture that energy to use at
night.
Do you think California will be able to meet its
2045 clean energy goal? Absolutely not.
No way we're going to get there without rooftop solar.
New challenges Casting a Shadow on the Path to a
Renewable Future.
Liz Kreutz, NBC News, Folsom,
CA.