California is making so much solar energy that large commercial operators are increasingly forced to stop production, raising questions about the state’s costly plan to shift entirely to carbon-free sources of electricity.
In the last 12 months, California’s solar farms have curtailed production of more than 3 million megawatt hours of solar energy, either on the orders of the state’s grid operator or because prices had plummeted because of the glut, according to an analysis of data by The Times.
That’s enough to power 518,000 California homes for a year, based on average electricity usage…
…Some experts are skeptical that battery storage capacity can be expanded quickly enough to eliminate the glut.
Most industrial-sized batteries can store power for just four hours, not long enough to last through the night. And when batteries are added to solar facilities, the cost is twice as expensive as solar alone, said Andrew Chien, a computer science professor at the University of Chicago.
“They tried all these things, there are all these programs in place, yet curtailment continues to increase,” said Chien, who has led studies of the curtailments, including one published in January…