What the National News Got Terribly Wrong About California’s Solar

NBC Nightly News got it wrong about California’s solar situation with their July 8 segment titled “California’s Unexpected Energy Challenge: Too Much Solar.” Correspondent Liz Kreutz used these provocative but completely inaccurate visuals and spoke of California “losing” or “wasting” energy.  How our national media could get this so wrong was shocking – so much so that I was motivated to write this piece.  Unexpected? No, the challenge of managing supply and demand of electricity with increasing renewables is a known issue called “The Duck Curve” that California has devoted extensive research to.  Too Much Solar?  No, we’re going to need more solar, more wind, and more batteries to store it as we move toward an emission free electric grid by 2045, as required by the SB-100 bill passed in 2018 by the California legislature and signed by the Governor.

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At one point, correspondent Liz Kreutz asks Eliot Mainzer, CEO of CAISO, California’s main grid operator, if curtailment means “throwing solar power away.” He disagrees, explaining that curtailment involves sending dispatch instructions to reduce generation. But Mr. Mainzer missed the chance to deliver a full-throated defense of clean energy.  Curtailment is not waste; it’s an inescapable truth of generating electricity from renewables.  There are times when we have more power than we need and times when we need to turn to other sources like battery storage and gas power plants. Saying that we are “throwing solar power away” is like saying buffet restaurants need to be banned because they sometimes make more food than customers want to eat.  The point that the national news missed is that, even factoring in the times when solar power plants make electricity we can’t use, solar power plants are less expensive ways of growing our electric grid than all other options.  Growing our grid is what we’re going to be doing for the next few decades to supply EV charging and all-electric buildings with cleaner and cleaner power.  When we pair solar generating facilities with battery storage, we have a more cost-effective source of new electricity than building new gas power plants, and solar plus battery is just as reliable!  

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Recent studies by U.C. Berkeley, Princeton, and the California Energy Commission show that our grid CAN provide reliable electricity using 90% or more clean emission-free generation sources like solar, wind, and batteries.  And we can do it without increasing utility costs while realizing significant public health benefits from reducing fossil fuel-related pollution.  While we are already at about 60% clean energy, we still have a lot of work left to do.

Adapted from the CalEPA California Climate Dashboard

 This is going to be the defining challenge of our generation – transitioning our buildings, vehicles, and electricity grid of fossil fuels to renewable and clean sources including nuclear and hydropower. It’s going to take all of us pulling together in the same direction to be successful on this huge challenge, so misinformation like this story is unhelpful; this is why I felt the need to correct it.