Are renewables reliable? A new study says California ran on renewables alone for a record number of days last year.

One of the biggest myths about renewable energy is that it isn’t reliable. Sure, the sun sets every night and winds calm down, putting solar panels and turbines to sleep. But when those renewables are humming, they’re providing the grid with electricity and charging banks of batteries, which then supply power at night.

A new study in the journal Renewable Energy that looked at California’s deployment of renewable power highlights just how reliable the future of energy might be. It found that last year, from late winter to early summer, renewables fulfilled 100 percent of the state’s electricity demand for up to 10 hours on 98 of 116 days, a record for California. Not only were there no blackouts during that time, thanks in part to backup battery power, but at their peak the renewables provided up to 162 percent of the grid’s needs — adding extra electricity California could export to neighboring states or use to fill batteries.

  • RubberElectrons@lemmy.world
    1·
    5 days ago

    Shouldn’t be a big change, the transmission system is the same no matter the prime mover.

    When fires melted power lines near where I used to live in soCal, SCE would have trucks roll in, dig in new power poles and run the cable. Power restored within about a week, so long as they had stock on transformers.

    The grid panels and wind farms are centralized so won’t affect reliability. The house mounted panels will (if your house didn’t catch fire) provide enough energy to run your fridge and house lights.

    • wewbull@feddit.ukEnglish
      1·
      4 days ago

      Right but, for example,

      • most solar Inverters require a power supply to operate and define the switching frequency.
      • Distributed storage and private generation may have enabled some areas to get by on reduced supply.
      • Turbines and solar farms may have been in locations threatened by the fires or been damaged by ash / other debris.
      • Repairing grid structure whilst the may be private batteries or generation online (damaged or not) might slow things down for safety reasons.

      Once the electrons are on the wires I agree with you, it’s all much the same. However there are other aspects and I expect we’re still learning the good and the bad.

      • RubberElectrons@lemmy.world
        1·
        4 days ago

        Sheesh I didn’t know the inverters may not run without a grid reference. Where have you seen that, what a terrible idea!

        LOL imagine they skimped on a 555 generating 60Hz when in local mode.

        As for the rest of your points, this is the kind of evolution we have all had to go through whenever changing something as core as energy distribution. We’ll get better at it.

        • wewbull@feddit.ukEnglish
          1·
          4 days ago

          Where have you seen that, what a terrible idea!

          In the user manuals for the inverters I’ve looked at installing. Same is true for many battery inverters.

          If they need to integrate with a grid supply at all, they must switch at precisely the right frequency. Mains frequency drifts and so that frequency must come from the grid.

          Now some will also have a grid isolated mode where they can generate their own frequency when there’s no other option, but that’s not on all models as it’s a feature they don’t need for 99.99% of their life, especially when grid operators generally don’t want people energising the grid from their batteries when the mains is down as it puts workmen at risk. Cables become live at unexpected times. So if you do have an inverter capable of running without mains you also have to have isolation switch so you only energised your own wiring.

          An alternative is a separate isolated output that only ever runs on the generated power and not the mains, but that’s a pain for all the rest of the time.

          • RubberElectrons@lemmy.world
            1·
            4 days ago

            The systems I’ve interacted with used what’s called an ats, automatic transfer switch, to be sure you’re not energizing the grid so one can self support in an emergency.

            I’ve never seen a system so far that wouldn’t run isolated, but maybe I’ve been lucky 🤷