Solar only increased a little bit, but imports went way up to push down natural gas.
California imported electricity is cleaner on average than internally generated electricity: lots of hydro and nuclear from neighbors, and the big one of the new SunZia massive wind farm. So directly displacing natural gas with imports is 100% win from a climate angle.
Does "imported" in this context include places like Linden Ranch, Washington, which is home to a wind farm fully operated by Los Angeles Department of Water and Power?
Reading off those hard to read graphs, it looks like both solar and imports are up about 3GW in 2025? Why do you say imports increased so much more than solar?
I could be misreading, but looking at the first graph, 2024-2025 had a fairly big jump in average GWh from solar. But 2025-2026 has a not very big jump? Very easy to misread, though.
Same with the very bottom set of three plots. Between 2025-2026, there's not much change in solar that I can see, but there's a huge change in night-time and morning imports, which depresses natural gas a ton.
Nighttime generation from SunZia would be a likely cause; at least in California night time wind is stronger than day time, usually, I wonder if New Mexico is the same.
The 2026 solar graph doesn't include summer. California produced solar power at about the same rate in January through May this year as it did January through December last year.
Yes. We simply took our foot of the accelerator pedal for a bit. Regrettable, but that is all. Hopefully a lesson has been learned, but perhaps not. Humans are tricky.
California imported electricity is cleaner on average than internally generated electricity: lots of hydro and nuclear from neighbors, and the big one of the new SunZia massive wind farm. So directly displacing natural gas with imports is 100% win from a climate angle.
CA only produces like 70% of the electricity it uses, they get power all the way from Canada not just WA
Same with the very bottom set of three plots. Between 2025-2026, there's not much change in solar that I can see, but there's a huge change in night-time and morning imports, which depresses natural gas a ton.
Nighttime generation from SunZia would be a likely cause; at least in California night time wind is stronger than day time, usually, I wonder if New Mexico is the same.
https://www.interconnection.fyi/?market=CAISO&status=Active&...
https://www.interconnection.fyi/?market=CAISO&status=Active&...
* https://apnews.com/article/trump-offshore-wind-energy-climat...
The insanity of it all. Do we survive this decade? Are you SURE?
> Do we survive this decade? Are you SURE?
Yes. We simply took our foot of the accelerator pedal for a bit. Regrettable, but that is all. Hopefully a lesson has been learned, but perhaps not. Humans are tricky.