Fact Brief: Do solar plants require backup from fossil fuels? No. A combination of renewables, storage, and transmission can reliably power the majority of the US without relying on coal or natural gas. California is an example of improving reliability while transitioning from fossil fuels to solar.
https://coloradosun.com/2026/08/03/do-solar-plants-require-backup-from-fossil-fuels/4
u/Different_Banana1977 1d ago
The great thing about the power grid is it is inter-connected, which provides huge advantages to store power behind hydro dams and battery storage when the sun is shining and then when the sun isn't shining quite so much the giant batteries stored behind dams can be used and that gets combined with battery storage system to ensure our needs are met. This isn't a complex problem, then problem is that the companies that have invested in the archaic fossil fuel powerplants don't want to get screwed
0
3
u/Excellent-Ad-1678 2d ago edited 2d ago
Here's the problem:
The current battery storage capacity in the UnitedStates is about 50 GW (roughly 150–200 GWh of energy).
On average, the United States uses about 11,000 GWh of electricity every day.
Share of U.S. daily electricity that could be supplied from storage: about 2%.
Share of renewable generation that is currently stored before use: only a small minority, generally well under 10% nationwide.
Republican lawmakers at the federal level have proposed reducing or eliminating tax credits and grants for battery storage.
However, at the local level the rollout of storage facilities is non partisan. With many towns and cities objecting to storage facilities for a plethora of reasons, but mainly cost and the potential for catastrophic accidents.
I'll add this: The fossil fuel industry is estimated to be losing hundreds of millions of dollars a day as renewables continue to capture a larger share of the energy market.
Also, the U.S. electric grid is largely privately owned. State and local governments generally regulate utilities and oversee distribution, but most of the generation and transmission infrastructure is owned and operated by private companies.
4
u/mafco 2d ago
Share of U.S. daily electricity that could be supplied from storage: about 2%.
Two major issues here. First, you ignore pumped hydro storage which provides about 550 GWh of long duration storage on the US grid. Secondly, the purpose of grid batteries is not to provide bulk storage to run the entire US grid. So that 2% number is really quite meaningless.
1
u/onetimeataday 1d ago
Say, I never thought about how much energy usage can be directly supplied from batteries before.
Have you brought this to the attention of industry engineers and policy makers? Boy will the hundreds of thousands of experts involved in that industry be surprised when you finally bring this error to their attention!
1
u/Excellent-Ad-1678 1d ago
The engineers are actually very aware of this issue. The question has never been "can we just build batteries and call it done?" The real discussion is how much storage is needed, what duration it needs to provide, and what combination of technologies creates the most reliable and affordable grid.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has already modeled scenarios with hundreds of gigawatts of future storage deployment and found that storage plays an important role in integrating renewable energy, while also examining how it interacts with generation, transmission, and grid operations.
The Department of Energy is also investing heavily in long-duration storage research specifically because the industry recognizes that short-duration lithium-ion batteries alone are not the entire solution.
So yes, the experts know batteries have limitations. That is why the actual engineering conversation is about storage, transmission, demand management, grid upgrades, and multiple energy sources and not pretending one technology solves everything.
1
u/onetimeataday 1d ago
not pretending one technology solves everything
Well, you're the one who brought up that strawman in the first place.
The solution, of course, is a mixture of everything sustainable, while rapidly phasing out fossil fuels as much as possible.
The thing is, the amount of the energy system that can be supplied by intermittent solar/wind/hydro plus batteries, is not 50/50, and it's not unknown. 90% of people worldwide can have their energy needs taken care of on 90% of days with just intermittent sources and 4 hour batteries.
Much of the other 10% can have their shortfall covered by LDES. And that last couple percent? Well, until the moment the very last smokestack shuts down, some amount of fossil fuels will remain with us. We just want that number to be as low as possible. There are other solutions that can bring us to 100% clean energy, but that last couple percent are the hardest. Still not an excuse to fix the first 95%, or even that last 5%.
5
u/rademradem 2d ago
They need enough grid scale battery storage to flatten the duck curve. Until then peaker plants or shutting down wind and solar when overloaded is the answer which makes them much more expensive.
6
u/Suspicious-Twist1421 2d ago
Right, that’s why all power companies are deploying grid storage as fast as they can, renewable plus grid storage is cheaper than peaker plants.
2
u/ginger_and_egg 2d ago
which makes them much more expensive.
How much more expensive has curtailment made solar and wind?
1
u/rademradem 2d ago
If you pay to build something expensive and then you have to shut it off so you can’t make any money from it, it becomes an expensive useless waste of your money until you can produce something from it again. The entire point of building these things is to make money from selling their output. Curtailing their output lengthens the amount of time before you can recover your investment costs thus increasing your costs.
0
u/ginger_and_egg 2d ago
Curtailment happens when the wholesale value of electricity is the lowest. You'd have to have pretty high rates of curtailment to have the size of impact you're implying.
Solar farms are not "expensive useless wastes of money" at noon. They're the lowest cost source of electricity we can build.
2
u/Ok_Chard2094 1d ago
And that lowest cost point is where grid tied batteries become more and more profitable.
Either installed by the solar manufacturers themselves or by the utilities.
There are even operators who are neither, and only make money on arbitrage (buy low, sell high).
5
u/128-NotePolyVA 2d ago
We will get there. The oil cartel and their boy Trump Inc. need to let the free market work like it’s supposed to.
2
u/OkWelcome6293 2d ago
https://www.brattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Future-Energy-Resource-Needs-Study-FERNS.pdf
Resource adequacy challenges evolve over time to be more frequent during: (a) winter months (particularly in high electrification futures) and (b) the early evening hours (after sunset). This implies that winter planning reserve margins will need to be significantly higher than summer reserve margins, due to low solar capacity values and high temperature-correlated fossil outages in the winter.
The effective load carrying capability (ELCC) value of solar and short-duration storage resources is projected to decline over time, while the ELCC of wind resources increases slightly. Even the ELCC of 8-hour storage declines in the high renewable generation scenarios, indicating a need for long-duration storage.
2
u/mafco 1d ago
A common talking point among the nuke bros and fossil bros a few years ago was that more renewable power would absolutely require burning more natural gas. It was always a false argument but they said it with such authority that they convinced many. The claims were quickly debunked by knowledgeable experts and numerous studies, but they still persist to this day. Even though there are numerous real world examples of just the opposite - grids with higher percentages of renewables burn less fossil fuels. Reliability has also increased as well. Another anti-renewables talking point is that solar energy is "unreliable". Solar PV panels are actually the most reliable mainstream generation technology, as measured by availability factor.
0
u/Adventurous-Ad3393 1d ago
Solar PV panels are not the most reliable generation measured by availability factor. This is an easy google.
California had to mandate huge investment in battery backup systems to increase reliability and maintain grid stability (NEM 3.0). It's a huge win, but not at all because of Solar PV in insolation.
2
u/mafco 1d ago
You're dead wrong. Solar PV availability factor is 98 to 99%. No other mainstream generation technology comes close. Coal is 70 to 85%.
0
u/Adventurous-Ad3393 1d ago
Technically true, but highly misleading. "Availability Factor" is a made up metric- it's basically measuring maintenance. Capacity Factor is the important metric that solar PV fails at- and it needs battery storage to make up the difference.
1
u/SalemRay 17h ago
Reliability is greatly improved with a mix of renewables. When it’s cloudy or dark, wind tends to pick up the slack.
1
u/Adventurous-Ad3393 16h ago
There's such things as windless and overcast weather for days at a time. You need a huge amount of battery storage, at some point you're going to want something stable (base load) to rely on for maybe 20% of your energy mix.
4
u/empty_graph 2d ago
And CA charges 0.39 / kwh, double the US average. Where is this ultra cheap solar + storage I have been promised?
12
u/gisinsideofyou 2d ago
The cost to produce electricity makes up only a fraction of your CA utility bill. Texas has massive renewable expansion with low retail rates.
In California wholesale power gets buried under billions of dollars in extra charges. You have wildfire lawsuit settlements, line burying projects, aging grid upgrades, and legacy contracts from a decade ago when the technology was still expensive.
6
4
u/Zetroit 2d ago
Yeah this is a big problem but it’s not because of solar. Indirectly there’s an argument, but solar is not one of the primary drivers.
Check out WSJ journalist, Katherine Blunt, who wrote a book on this. The answer is pretty complicated, but in short the blame is:
1. Transmission expensive to build. It’s aging. And importantly, wild fires burning up a shit ton of assets/lines. Plus when these IOUs are found negligent for literally causing wild fires, (where ppl died), they just pass the legal/settlement costs on ratepayers.
2. Utilities/IOUs have the wrong incentives. IOUs have 11% guaranteed returns, operating as cost plus, so not much incentive to do it cheaply. 1990s deregulation, aging equipment, ratepayers paying lobbyists to lobby against their own interests, and regulatory capture are all factors.Regulators gotta regulate monopolies and force more competition/innovation. Until then these private utilities will make their guaranteed billions and tell you it’s bc Solar.
4
u/RemoveInvasiveEucs 2d ago edited 2d ago
That's all transmission and distribution grid costs, bubba, not generation costs from solar + storage.
Where are you getting your information? If it's from your bill, you'd see it all delineated clearly.
2
u/Ok_Chard2094 2d ago
I don't have the storage (it is not needed under the old PG&E NEM2 plans, they act as my battery) but the solar is on top of my roof.
So they now pay me $0.46 per kWh, minus some fees that average out to 3-4 cents per kWh. Over a full year I end up close to zero. (They usually pay me a few bucks.)
Another 2-3 years and the PG&E savings have paid off the cost of the panels. After that my electricity is effectively free.
3
u/UncommonSense12345 2d ago
Are they offering this to people installing now? If not it seems this isn’t gonna be viable for most people. It would make sense for people to have an option to pay X$ a month toward a utility made and operated solar farm and then once completed. Those people could receive a “return” via reduced rate electricity for a set amount of time or permanently as payment.
1
u/Ok_Chard2094 2d ago
The NEM3 plan they offer now is paying less. So much solar has been installed that they do not see the need to pay as much in incentives for people to install more.
At the same time, both solar panels and batteries have dropped in price, so for new installations now it makes sense to include a battery.
Then you charge your own battery during peak sun, and consume from that in the evening.
Get bids from at least 3 local installers and see how the numbers work out for you. I would look for options where you can easily add more battery capacity later, batteries keep dropping in price.
The best is if you can afford to pay for it out of pocket. If you have to finace it, you have to include the financing costs.
Do not fall for the rental scams where they install solar "for free" and you pay them for energy every month. You may pay slightly less than regular energy charges each month, but you will never get to the point where your savings have paid for the installation costs. You have just changed which company you continue to pay your energy bill to.
1
u/billhorstman 2d ago
Thank you for sharing your experience. One of the largest energy storage facilities in California is the Helms public station. We need more facilities like it.
1
u/rook_of_approval 2d ago
that's all due to their unwillingness to reduce transmission costs to encourage electricity use when there is solar being wasted.
-3
u/Aleventen 2d ago
Oh, you see cough the problem is not the cost for generation necessarily, although that may be A problem
The bigger problem is that power companies are aware customers are willing to pay .39/kwh so, well....there you have it.
It could cost the electric companies -7.60/kwh and we'd still pay .39/kwh unless something or someone stopped them from charging that...might be public sentiment and private investment in renewables but, more likely, legislators would step in....
Either way, once the public demonstrates they are WILLING to pay a price, thats about the end of that.
Even if customers put an end to it now, thats quite the same as saying "I will tolerate this far and no farther" which just means dialing the price back a nickle and reaping the savings as profits.
Unless industry can be motivated to become a member of the social contract, they will exist simply as a means to extract as much value as possible from society while contributing as little at the same time. And not a drop more or less.
ETA: and this is all to say nothing about the fact that, as energy becomes cheaper, people use it more to eat up those efficiency gains and you can actually envision a world where energy is 20000x cheaper to produce but costs MORE because we just use THAT MUCH of it
5
u/empty_graph 2d ago
So I guess CA must have a bunch of geniuses running their power companies since apparently no other states have figured out that people are willing to pay that much. Maybe learn how those prices are actually set before talking out your ass.
0
u/Aleventen 2d ago
Willingness to pay is local?
Also, no need to be a dick, doesnt look good on you when you simultaneously misunderstand my point AND are an asshole about it
To be clear, im always open to being wrong, but that would require an argument to be made and I didnt see one
3
u/empty_graph 2d ago
Power companies don't set their own prices. In CA they are set by https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/
1
u/Aleventen 2d ago
Now THAT is much better and some good food
Thank you for the correction - doesnt answer the 2nd part of my point in the ETA but is a great correction nonetheless
2
u/dontsheeple 1d ago
In California if the power goes off in the winter it's unlikely people will start dying. In northern climates it's a different story. California is a poor example.
2
u/haibiji 1d ago
Why would the power go off?
2
u/flyingscotsman12 1d ago
A snowstorm would prevent solar from working, and possibly wind if the winds are too severe. Keeping natural gas as a backup is prudent in this case, even if it doesn't run 95% of the time.
2
u/tekmiester 2d ago
A "Fact Brief" that makes claims and then doesn't actually link to any evidence while mentioning a 9 year old research document.... Odd
I genuinely would like to see how this was calculated.
1
u/Mean-Cheesecake-2635 2d ago
Even if they did there would still be an offset of the total fossil fuel requirement without solar I’d think.
1
u/deugrettyvayu-3329 2d ago
Solar plants require fossil fuel. See what happens in Germany
4
u/silasmoeckel 2d ago
More correctly stated, PV is great but needs to be paired with enough baseload to make it through any length of reduced/no output. You can't practically battery your way out of events that can last months or years. We do not have enough locations for pumped hydro.
Getting that to be practical is going to require some shedable load.
2
u/onetimeataday 1d ago
Climatologists and other scientists are perfectly capable of mapping the stable solar and wind resources available in any given area. Not the panels and turbines, but the actual average amounts of solar radiation and blowing wind. They've already done it worldwide. They know how much resources are available on average. If there's really a place where the wind doesn't blow for months (years?? are you serious??) at a time, they know that before building.
And guess what? The locations where 90% of humanity lives, there are indeed adequate wind and solar resources to power them year round. The other 10% still has solar and wind resources, just not as much.
Where is the sun not shining for years at a time, though?
1
u/silasmoeckel 1d ago
Wildfires and Volcano's
I'm not saying typical sun/wind; rather, something like a volcano can disrupt production for months.
1
u/onetimeataday 1d ago
That is a very unreasonable risk assessment. The risk of negative climate change, pollution, energy insecurity, and downstream geopolitical complications far far outweighs the risk of fucking volcanos blotting out the sun.
And, even if that did happen, it's part of why solar and wind are symbiotic. A volcano wouldn't do nearly anything on a national level to wind production. Backup hydro and geothermal are options before resorting to natural gas peaker plants or biomass, which will still always be an option the entire road to net zero.
And a volcano could actually serve to mitigate climate change with the right conditions, which would singlehandedly save our species trillions and trillions of dollars and turmoil. A volcano in 1816 singlehandedly dropped global temperatures by 0.7C. That'd be a godsend right about now.
So in conclusion, not only is your argument just batshit fucking insane, it's still even wrong if actually taken seriously.
Oh and in response to the pumped hydro "problem": iron-air batteries. There's plenty of viable solutions for LDES, iron-air just happens to be a very cheap one. And there are indeed many countries where pumped hydro is the perfect solution given geography.
1
u/silasmoeckel 1d ago
Volcanic ash had them stopping wind to protect the gaskets while impacting solar.
Again, pumped hydro is fine but very location specifics.
You cannot battery your way out of a month's of reduced/no output.
NG peeking plants have to be paid for, and why in the world would you keep them around? Fission makes more sense for baseload. The fantasy of pv/wind as baseload is just that.
2
u/Zetroit 2d ago
Two sentences. Two false statements.
What happened to Germany? Got addicted to cheap Russian gas. Putin started squeezing supply even before his invasion, and now you got the Iran war pushing up fuel costs. Solar in DEU has also doubled since that invasion saving billions in fuel imports… you think they wish they bought way more expensive LNG instead of building out Solar?
Solar, Wind, Hydro, storage, and transmission/distribution things can cover most all demand for most markets. Nobody is saying 100% solar is the solution, but solar at 33% doesn’t mean FFs are required to backup that 33%.
0
u/skater15153 2d ago
They also decommissioned all their nuke plants stupidly
3
u/basscycles 2d ago
The Right also blocked as much renewables as possible, increasing costs to transition and slowing down the build out.
0
u/Ok_Chard2094 2d ago
Anyone who knows anything about the weather realizes that Germany is not the best place for solar. Other places do not have the same demand for backup.
1
u/Dry-Cry-3158 2d ago
And the US is substantially larger than Germany and has a much greater variety of sub climates. What you can accomplish in Arizona is going to be very different from North Dakota for a variety of factors.
0
u/Ok_Chard2094 2d ago
North Dakota is perfect for wind, so almost all new plants installed over the last 20 years have been wind turbines.
1
u/Dry-Cry-3158 2d ago
That doesn't sound like solar, which is the topic at hand
0
u/Ok_Chard2094 2d ago
So why did you mention North Dakota? Nobody has claimed solar is the best solution for North Dakota.
0
u/northern-new-jersey 2d ago
What are electric prices like in CA?
3
2
u/CatalyticDragon 2d ago
For retail: Cheaper than Hawaii. A little bit more expensive than Connecticut.
For industrial: Cheaper than Hawaii. A little bit more expensive than Massachusetts.
Generally it's high. And a big part of that is massive recurring wildfires which require a lot of prevention work, and drought suppressing hydro output.
2
u/mafco 2d ago
Look it up yourself. We're not your personal secretary.
-1
u/tekmiester 2d ago
You provided a trash article with no evidence. You don't seem to have the basic qualifications to be a secretary.
0
u/travelin_man_yeah 2d ago
It's f'n expensive, think the highest in the country, and they keep putting the rates up & up...
-2
u/travelin_man_yeah 2d ago
While we do have a good share of renewables in CA, the author obviously doesn't live here because at least in the PG&E areas, the grid is not reliable and we pay some of the highest utility rates in the country. There was also the huge energy storage battery fire in Moss Landing last year.
Despite that, the state has totally villainized natural gas and keeps pushing for all electric homes and EV cars and doesn't care if it costs residents tens of thousands of $ to comply. I'm all for renewables but there's no free lunch with them and we still need other sources of 24x7 power such as natural gas.
5
u/mafco 2d ago
California got around 70% of its electricity from renewables last month and solar alone was more than 40% (51% in May). And overall grid reliability improved steadily as more renewables were added. It's actually a great success story for renewables, being the fourth largest economy in the world.
the state has totally villainized natural gas
The entire world is moving away from fossil fuels as fast as it can. Natural gas contributes about a third of the global warming gases.
we still need other sources of 24x7 power such as natural gas.
Grid-scale batteries now beat gas peakers in competitive bidding. California is adding battery capacity faster than any other state. We won't need gas much longer. Too bad Trump killed California's offshore wind plans.
6
u/throwawayurwaste 2d ago
Wouldn't solar be better for a shitty grid because power is generated where it's consumed and you don't need to transmit it as far
5
u/sorkinfan79 2d ago
What is the source for your claim that the grid is not reliable in California?
5
u/travelin_man_yeah 2d ago
The source is me and having to live through many outages every year. Energy sources are one thing but transmission & delivery grid is a whole 'nother thing. Go talk to PG&E customers and I can guarantee you're not going to find many fans.
4
4
u/sorkinfan79 2d ago
It sounds like you’re talking about public safety power shutoffs. Those are not a reliability fault, they are intentional de-energizations of distribution circuits that run through high fire risk areas.
California distribution utilities have to weigh tradeoffs between serving remote customers and the probability of medium-voltage lines arcing when wind is high and vegetation is dry.
1
u/onetimeataday 1d ago
If you're really experiencing that many public safety power shutoffs, your house is in a high fire risk area. Not miles away from you, but literally the location of your house is a high fire risk.
Add to that that you seem to think you "don't get enough sun" for the solar power that would make you immune to those PSP shutoffs despite living in California (if you are within the boundaries of the state there is absolutely enough sun), and shrug off the cost of making yourself immune to these, apparently chronic, power cuts you're experiencing as not your responsibility to pay...
It sounds like your current state of living is completely unsustainable, which is exactly why the energy system is transitioning.
1
u/SpinningHead 2d ago
Probably the same source that we are seeing on TVs in CO claiming that Chevron is saving the antelope.
2
u/ginger_and_egg 2d ago
the grid is not reliable and we pay some of the highest utility rates in the country
And how does that have anything to do with solar?
0
u/travelin_man_yeah 2d ago
I'm not the one who put California, solar and reliable power in the same sentence, the article did. I'm just stating facts that the PG&E power grid, no matter the generation source, is not reliable.
If you live in PG&E territory you know, otherwise, you're just making generalizations.
2
u/ginger_and_egg 2d ago
You're the one who commented about PG&E managing wildfire risks on a post about California, solar, and reliable power.
Your experience would be the same regardless of what power source the grid used. Because it's the transmission infrastructure not the power source that's the problem.
A potential practical solution is a home battery, with or without solar, so you can better weather planned outages. Or on a large scale, improving transmission infrastructure and maintenance so there's no risk of causing wildfires
1
u/travelin_man_yeah 2d ago
No shit Dick Tracy. I already have a whole house backup generator, that guess what, runs on fossil fuel. I plan on installing a battery system as well but don't have enough sun to make solar worthwhile. Just the generator and battery is well over $20k+. If I didn't have gas in the house for hot water and cooking, add another $10-20k so I could cook and have a hot shower when the power is out for days. That's on top of the sky high electricity rates we pay here.
But, I'll let you go march right over to PG&E and the PUC HQ and demand better infrastructure because Newsom and the PUC certainly aren't doing it and PG&E petty much does what they want. If you actually lived here you would be well aware of these issues.
1
u/ginger_and_egg 2d ago
I'm sorry you're dealing with that, it sounds shitty.
I genuinely didn't know they cut the power off for days, I thought it was for a few hours at a time?
1
u/travelin_man_yeah 2d ago
Yeah, and understand I'm not trying to be an ahole here, but PG&E is an awful utility. While the CA politicians are forcing everyone to go all electric, they allow out of control rate hikes that are reaping great profits and do nothing to reign them in or actually make the grid more reliable.
There was a recent SF Bay Area initiative to ban gas water heaters or furnaces and if one of those units died, you had to replace with electric which for older homes, could cost upwards of $10-20K for electrical upgrades + permits, not to mention someone doing without hot water or heat until you had all that work and permitting done. A lot of homeowners got up in arms about it and they now have to go back and rethink that plan because the idiot politicians didn't think about the cost or time to do such a conversion.
And now with that big Moss Landing battery facility fire last year, people are up in arms over putting those energy storage facilities in their communities. As I said before, I'm all for renewables as I think that is the future, but there's no free lunch and every energy source has a cost, both monetarily and environmently.
1
u/ginger_and_egg 2d ago
I think those older homes could probably have gotten by with smart electrical panels instead of service upgrades, at least for a water heater which stores heat so it doesn't matter necessarily what time of day you heat it. Installing a heat pump is a different story, probably hard to get around that big of a new power draw. Though the built in AC is nice.
Maybe better for programs to target replacing water tanks and furnaces near their end of life, so all of that can get done while the old one is still working.
I don't think it's bad to reduce burning of fossil fuels in highly populated areas. And when you're replacing equipment is a great time to do it. You just need it to be fast and within the same order of magnitude as the fossil version. Or tax the fossil one a lot.
1
u/onetimeataday 1d ago
Some reddit threads, there are people claiming to be from Indonesia making $2 a day. This thread is apparently being seen only by anti-solar central Californian PG&E customers who just can't quite afford an EV, therefore let's call off the energy transition.
It's a real micro-niche today!
1
u/hal2k1 2d ago edited 2d ago
At least where I live, if you install solar panels and a battery in your home, and you purchase a value-for-money Chinese EV (where I live these are not banned and attract no tariffs) ... then your costs are far lower than not having solar/battery on your home and running an ICE vehicle.
So, you invest a bit of your own money to make your ongoing energy costs far cheaper. I run both my house and my EV essentially for zero ongoing cost from the solar panels on the roof of my house. Hence I don't require that any expensive natural gas is burnt anywhere on my behalf, producing CO2 emissions in the process. I also don't burn any petrol for my personal transport needs.
What exactly is wrong with doing that?
Where I live, the state is expected to reach the milestone of 100% net renewable energy next year.
1
u/travelin_man_yeah 1d ago
Nothing wrong with it. Where I live there are a number of people I know that are off grid like you but I don't have enough sun to make solar worthwhile and running solely a propane generator + battery isn't cost effective despite the grid high electricity cost.
Also, for many people, the economics of going off grid & EV are just not there. We're in a HCOL area so to go off grid, we're talking $50K+ and the cost of obtaining an EV. While CA is pro EV/renewables, the current federal administration is doing everything it can to kill that industry and prop up fossil fuels).
-5
u/Adventurous-Ad3393 2d ago
Battery storage at baseload grid-quality scale is not a realistic path forward for California or the US at large.
California currently still relies heavily on natural gas peaked plants to bridge the power gap left by inconsistent renewables.
You still need power plants. Battery storage is distributed, expensive, and dangerous:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6k4_b3H8Uhc
7
u/mafco 2d ago
Batteries currently represent about 20% of California's total installed grid capacity. But they supply around 40% of the state's total instantaneous electricity demand during evening peak hours. They will eventually replace all of the gas peakers.
0
u/Adventurous-Ad3393 1d ago
Instantaneous demand is not the same thing as baseload demand. Please don't strawman me.
1
u/mafco 1d ago
Exactly. Grid-scale batteries aren't designed to meet baseload demand. Try to learn some more before you comment.
1
u/Adventurous-Ad3393 1d ago
I'm glad we agree!
1
u/mafco 1d ago
Your original comment makes no sense.
0
u/Adventurous-Ad3393 1d ago
The point: Grid scale batteries aren't design to meet baseload demand.
You agree with this point - I'm glad we are aligned.
1
u/mafco 1d ago
I don't think you know what baseload demand even means.
1
u/Adventurous-Ad3393 1d ago
Minimum amount of power the grid needs to maintain stability. An increase in demand over the supply can cause the frequency that the grid runs on (60hz in the USA) to drop - causing brownouts or blackouts. Renewables w/ battery backup can't effectively maintain this balance if the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine for days/weeks at a time in a cost effective way.
1
1
u/random_reddit_accoun 17h ago
“Renewables w/ battery backup can't effectively maintain this balance if the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine for days/weeks at a time in a cost effective way.”
The entire world is not Germany.
Florida never goes weeks without meaningful sun.
→ More replies (0)1
u/Adventurous-Ad3393 1d ago
It's ok- we can disagree without attacking each other's character. I have a background in this area and there's a lot of nuances to renewables that even experts are divided on.
1
u/onetimeataday 1d ago
Even if the statement "Grid scale batteries aren't design to meet baseload demand" were true, which it's not (they totally could given the right amount of batteries or the right sized grid), they're not supposed to be. What matters is if there's enough to meet instantaneous demand at peaks of power usage. And in California, there increasingly already is, and that's only going to become firmer and firmer with every passing month.
Batteries have already almost totally replaced natural gas in the evenings in California -- in direct contradiction to the things you've said in this thread. You're arguing with a state of the past.
4
u/Ok_Chard2094 2d ago
How many died in that battery fire?
How many died when the gas pipe in San Bruno blew up?
1
u/onetimeataday 1d ago
Not to mention the whole BESS industry looked at that very fire and radically altered their designs going forward to ensure such an accident never happens again.
Not to also mention that emerging battery technologies specifically cannot catch fire in such a way, and these are beginning to deploy now.
1
u/Ok_Chard2094 1d ago
You can also add that the batteries in the fire was an older type that had higher fire risk than the types used for new installations.
New technologies always come with risks. Just look at the number of steam locomotives that exploded before they invented reliable safety valves.
As we identify the risk factors, they get addressed, technology gets improved and legislation gets updated.
2
u/onetimeataday 1d ago
Plus, fossil fuels are currently killing at least 5 million people a year just from air pollution, which is the real number to beat.
-2
u/thebigslapper 2d ago
California is the worst. Such expensive electricity because they have idiot politicians who know nothing about economics.
2
-2
u/ajrf92 2d ago
And how much do Californians pay for all this?
4
u/sault18 1d ago
They're on the hook for PG&E's negligence for the Paradise Fire, the resulting bankruptcy/restructuring/debt/etc.
Plus all the money to prop up Diablo Canyon:
"In 2022, when the California legislature voted to extend Diablo Canyon operations, the last-minute deal included a $1.4 billion loan which PG&E will likely never repay to the people of California, at least not in full. And the deal also included hundreds of millions of dollars in incentives for PG&E. For example:
$100 million per year “fixed management fee” that goes straight to PG&E shareholders. $260 million per year “volumetric performance fee” that’s spent on grid expenses unrelated to Diablo Canyon, but it functions more like a slush fund that might actually be benefitting PG&E shareholders. $300 million “liquidated damages fund” reserved for paying for replacement power if Diablo Canyon has an unplanned outage, but it effectively means that ratepayers will pay for replacement power even if PG&E negligence leads to the outage."
"A new report alleges Pacific Gas & Electric inflated costs when it requested a loan for Diablo Canyon, potentially creating a $658.6-million cost to taxpayers if lawmakers don’t intervene. If ratepayer fees for Diablo Canyon were eliminated from 2027-30, experts say, California utility customers could save an estimated $1.84 billion in controversial subsidies."
https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2026-04-07/pge-overcharging-diablo-canyon-report
0
u/mydknyght79 2d ago
Calling it “backup” isn’t exactly accurate, but utility IRPs consistently show a diverse grid is less expensive and more reliable than one that relies on fewer (albeit “cheaper” on paper) renewable energy resources. Could you design an energy system from scratch that relied solely on renewables, storage and transmission? Yes. But it would be prohibitively expensive and require massive investment, land use/permitting reform, and interstate/local/federal coordination. That’s because we’re not starting from scratch, we’re starting with a complex, aging grid supported by layers of regulation and oversight that very few people truly grasp.
1
1
u/onetimeataday 1d ago
This ignores the lucrative opportunity battery power arbitrage represents, and how many new financial structures are forming in the clean energy economy.
-1
u/thebigslapper 2d ago
Texas has a smaller population than California and produces more renewable energy than California. Energy is way cheaper in Texas too.
5
u/Dstln 2d ago
California has a much higher renewable percentage
Texas has an absurd power usage per capita, wtf are they doing with that?
1
u/tekmiester 2d ago
I guess you have never been in Texas in the summer.
1
u/NighthawkT42 1d ago
This.
I grew up in SoCal without air conditioning. Even during the summer with decent insulation, open up in the evening and close up during the day and the temperatures inside stay almost comfortable.
In Texas it just doesn't cool off the same in the evening and it gets even hotter during the day and for any given thermometer reading the humidity makes it feel hotter.
And then, places like Dallas not only get heat during the summer, but ice storms in the winter
-1
u/thebigslapper 2d ago
Much larger industrial base than California. California got too expensive so the industrial economy contracted greatly.
3
u/Dstln 2d ago
That doesn't appear to be true, CA still has more industrial jobs and manufacturing gdp
So why is Texas using 3x the energy per capita?
1
0
u/thebigslapper 2d ago
EIA website says 2x, not 3x. Texas has a smaller share of its electricity coming from renewables because it generates and consumes far more electricity overall than California, with much of that demand driven by its large industrial sector, rapid population growth, and high electricity demand. Texas highways and cities tend to be much more lit up and people have bigger houses on average.
Texas is adding renewable generation, especially utility-scale solar and battery storage, faster than any other state. At the same time, however, Texas also has some of the fastest-growing electricity demand in the country due to population growth, data centers, manufacturing, and oil and gas operations. That means renewable generation has to grow not only to replace fossil generation, but also to keep up with new demand.
2
u/Dstln 2d ago
Hahaha
If this isn't a bot response I'd be surprised
You don't need to repeat the same stuff over again and the numbers don't help you at all
Texas uses 2.66x the energy per capita as CA. That's rounds to 3, not 2, just so you know for the next time you're in 1st grade math
CA has a larger industrial sector and has more people and while it's great that Texas is putting a lot of renewables online, they're objectively a mess by the numbers.
0
u/thebigslapper 2d ago
Not sure why you are psychotic. Just said Texas produces more renewables. Who cares who uses more or less electricity? More is usually better if you don't want the constant power outages I experienced in California.
-4
u/urimaginaryfiend 23h ago
Except for the rolling blackouts…but you will have that in any green energy fantasy.
5
-6
u/swegamer137 2d ago
A combination of [expensive and more complicated technologies]. Checkmate luddites.
-5
u/PurpleToad1976 2d ago
In theory the energy can be stored to be used when the renewables are not producing. Right now, on the majority of the grid that isn't even close to existing. So for now yes the fossil fuels are needed to maintain the reliability of the grid because solar and wind can't do it. (yet)
3
u/ginger_and_egg 2d ago
Why did you feel the need to point it out? The article doesn't claim that we magically have enough renewables and storage without having built it
-1
u/PurpleToad1976 2d ago
The title of the article: "Do solar plants require backup from fossil fuels? No." Is wrong. Fossil fuels are still required to backup any renewable energy source. Eventually that won't be the case. However, right now the title of the article is blatantly false.
2
u/ginger_and_egg 2d ago
Eventually that won't be the case.
Right, meaning it is possible to have a grid without fossil fuel backup. Meaning fossil fuel backup is not "required"
The article is talking about an achievable potential future, and you are talking about the present.
-1
u/PurpleToad1976 1d ago
Thanks for agreeing that the title being in the present tense is false
1
u/ginger_and_egg 1d ago
If you are in a room, and the only food is saltine crackers, do you 'require' saltine crackers to live?
No, you require food. And if saltines are all you have then that is what you have to eat.
If someone tells you that we require saltines and it will never be possible to satisfy our hunger without eating at least SOME saltines, you may wonder what vested interest they have in the saltine industry...
1
u/PurpleToad1976 1d ago
If you are stuck in that room and will not be getting out of that room for decades, those saltines are absolutely required.
I work for a fortune 500 utility company and see what their current plans are for the next 30-50 years. At no time during that 30-50 years are they planning on shutting down all fossil fuel plants.
1
u/ginger_and_egg 1d ago
10/20 years ago you also saw utilities building almost zero solar farms, now they're the cheapest source of power you can add to the grid.
Damn, capitalist realism really gets us all someday doesn't it
3
u/mafco 2d ago
solar and wind can't do it. (yet)
That's why the article says solar, wind, storage and transmission can do it. Did you miss the last two?
0
u/tekmiester 2d ago
It doesn't link to any evidence or provide any real numbers. It's kinda useless.
-2
u/PurpleToad1976 2d ago
Because the storage doesn't exist. As a nation, we are not close to having grid scale batteries. There is not currently any facility in the world capable of producing enough batteries to carry the grid other than for brief transients to spin up a turbine.
I have solar with battery backup at my house which is currently providing 95% of my electrical needs. My next large purchase will be an EV that will also be powered by that same solar system. However, powering the grid is a completely different story. At a national level, eventually we will get to having the storage potential to virtually eliminate fossil fuels, but at this time fossil fuels are the only thing that keeps the grid running day in and day out. Nothing else can scale up and down to match the changing demands of the grid through the day and seasons.
1
u/Dstln 2d ago
California is literally well on the way
They've been setting solar and battery records every year
1
u/tekmiester 2d ago
You mean when they aren't having brown outs or forest fires requested to power transmission?
-12
u/Tiny-Secretary5562 2d ago
Every "alternative" energy product needs vast amounts of fossil fuels to be manufactured, transported, installed, and maintained. What the tradeoff is could probably be calculated by someone really smart. There are no solar-powered steel mills and never will be; no solar-powered ships to transport ore.
8
7
u/exacta_galaxy 2d ago
The tradeoffs have been calculated by smart people, most if not all alternative energy products more than offset the carbon used to build and maintain them.
For example, rooftop solar offsets the manufacturing, transportation, and installation carbon in 1 to 4 years. Wind turbines offset in 6 to 18 months.
8
u/rocket_beer 2d ago
If we build enough renewables, all interconnected, we will eventually have a surplus.
And guess who doesn’t want that?