California just debunked a big myth about renewable energy

One of the biggest myths about renewable energy is that Unable to. Certainly, the sun sets every night and winds, and puts solar panels and turbines for sleep. But when these renewable sources are buzzing, they provide the network with electricity and shipping banks from batteries, which provide energy at night.

new Ticket In the magazine, the renewable energy that looked at the deployment of energy in California for renewable energy highlighted the reliability of the future of energy. It found that last year, from late winter to early summer, renewable energy sources achieved 100 percent of the demand for electricity in the state for up to 10 hours in 98 of 116 days, a record number in California. There was no power outage only during that time, in part due to the reserve battery power, but at its peak, renewable energy sources provided up to 162 percent of the network’s needs – in addition to additional electricity, California can be exported to the neighboring states Or use to fill the batteries.

Mark Z said. Jacobson, a civil and environmental engineer at Stanford University and the author of the new newspaper: “This study really finds that we can keep the network stable with more and more renewable energy sources.” “All that is renewed by all renewable winds – the thermal energy, wind, solar energy in particular, and even external winds – less than the cost of fossil fuel” on average, at the global level.

However, California residents pay the second highest electricity rates in the country. This is not because of renewable energy sources, but partly because the facilities electrical equipment has launched forest fires – such as the camp fire It was started by the Pacific and Electricity Gas Electrical lines, which are He destroyed the town of Paradise and killed 85 people – And now they pass the costs that come from lawsuits Transport lines buried For her customers. While the investigators do not know how certainty of what sparked all the forest fires that destroyed Los Angeles this month, they will Check the electrical equipment In the area. Energy generation lines are especially vulnerable to failure in strong winds, such as the 100 mph storms. These are the fires of southern California into monsters.

Even with the continuous challenge of forest fires, California aid tools quickly turn into clean energy, with about half of the state’s energy resulting from renewable energy sources such as hydroelectric energy, wind and solar energy. The study compared 116 days in 2024 to the same period in 2023 and discovered that California production of solar energy was 31 percent higher and wind 8 percent. After the increase More than 30 times Between 2020 and 2023, the capacity of the state battery has multiplied between 2023 and 2024, and it is now a reward for the juice it produces More than four nuclear power plants. According to the study, all of this new clean technology helped California power plants to burn fossil fuel by 40 percent less for Electricty last year.

These batteries help the network operators more flexible in meeting the demand for electricity, which tend to peak when people return to the home early in the evening and run the devices such as air conditioners – only when the network loses solar energy. “Now we see that the batteries are shipped in the middle of the day, then we meet with a part of the demand in the evening, especially during the hot summer days,” said Mark Rolider, Executive Director of Operations in the independent California system. The operator, non -profit organizations that run the state network.

Another legend spread around renewable energy sources is that it will not be able to support more electric cars and identification stoves, and Heat pumps Network connection. But here, too, California explains the legend: between 2023 and 2024, the demand for the state network decreased by about 1 percent.

Why? Partially because some customers installed their solar panels, using free solar energy instead of drawing energy from the network. In 2016, almost none of these customers had batteries to store this solar energy for use at night. However, the battery adoption rose every year of the following years, reaching 13 percent of the buildings that install solar energy in 2023, then rise to 38 percent last year. (That is, of 1,222 megawatts of solar -added capacity last year, including 464 megawatts of batteries.) This reduces the demand for the network because these customers can now use solar energy at night.

The batteries also help the facilities to obtain better returns for their investments in the solar panels. The solar energy farm makes all its money sell electricity during the day. But if it contains batteries connected to the farm, it can also save energy in the evening, when the electricity prices rise due to the increased demand. “In that evening, the battery contribution in that evening is essential to the economy that works well,” said Jean -Clays, director of the University of California Energy Research Center, San Diego, who has not participated in the new paper.

Therefore, facilities are stimulated to invest in batteries, which also provide reliable backup force to avoid power outages. But like any technique, the batteries can fail. Last week, a battery storage factory The fire caught On the central coast in California, the largest of its kind in the world, but it only came out 2 percent From the power storage capacity in the state. The network, which fully works on renewable energy sources, will contain a lot of integrated repetition, outside the multiple battery factories: electrical school buses and other EVS, began to send them Return to the network When you need its utility – a wide network of backup energy.

But here where the economy becomes unconventional. The more renewable energy sources on the network, the lower the prices of electricity to customers, according to the new study. From October 1, 2023 to September 30, 2024, South Dakota, Montana, Iowa, 110 percent, 87 percent and 79 percent, respectively, from requesting electricity with renewable energy sources, especially winds and hydroelectric energy. Accordingly, the three have some of the lowest electricity prices in the country.

California, on the other hand, obtained 47 percent of its power from renewable energy sources during the same period, but forest fires and other factors have been translated into high electricity prices. California Public Utilities Committee, for example, He authorized the largest three facilities To collect $ 27 billion of the costs of prevention and insurance from the wildfire from the price perpetrators between 2019 and 2023.

Climate change makes California more vulnerable to burning – an increasing challenge to facilities. However, the state slogan for solar batteries and batteries mocked many holes in the idea that renewable energy sources are not reliable.