Wind & Solar Creating Grid Problems

California regulators have released a new report showing a grid reliability problem that states will face as they shut down coal and gas power plants.

The analysis shows policies demanding 100% wind and solar power by 2045. But that was pushed back after California began suffering blackout and brownouts in the summer of 2020.

The report claims that a 100% wind and solar target will require a sustained, “record-setting” increase in the number of solar and wind farms. The report claims that they best they can achieve by 2045 is 60% of their goal, maybe. They are not exactly sure.

“This report obviously does not answer all questions, but it gives us some really important information and guideposts that we can use,” Mary Nichols, chair of CARB, said during a workshop last week on the report. (E&E NEWS).

The report goes on to say that natural gas should be maintained at least in the short term. That is the claim but that was not the case in other parts of the world where this has been tried.

The problem then becomes the amount of land needed to, hopefully, make California's grid reliable. Also the amount of toxic rare earth minerals and the toxic waste left over by the batterie farms that store the energy. Wind and solar cannot be sent directly into the grid, since the wind never blows at a sustained rate and the Sun never shines that way either.

Then there will be the increase in cost. California's electricity costs are already much higher than the national average, because of wind and solar. 

European countries suffered these same problems when they tried to go 100%. That is why those countries are turning back to older, reliable, energy sources.