California, 15 years ago, had not developed solar energy, and now thanks to favorable weather conditions and considerable investments into technologies, the government and the energy companies should reconsider distribution and price policy of electricity.
On March 11th, the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) accounted for almost 40% of net grid power produced from the industrial solar farms, solar thermal power plants and panels installed on private houses. According to an assessment of independent agency Energy Information Administration (EIA) 4 million kWh of electricity have been developed in several hours.
Nonetheless, on 23rd of March, CAISO had reported a new dive of production of renewable energy: about 11 hours solar and wind energy provided 49,2% of the states electric power.
It puts three important questions before the government and the energy companies:
First of all, due to excess renewables, energy wholesale prices for electric power have reduced to zero or even negative in some hours during the spring season. Comparison to 2013-2015, the prices fluctuated from $14 to $45 for megawatt-hour. This has led the Energy companies to reconsider a control system and pricing policy for electricity.
Secondly, the existing power networks cannot sustain the increased electro-loading and thus perhaps, it is necessary to reduce artificial development rates of renewable energy in the state.
The last question which energy utilities faces is what to do with all this electric power. Now the accumulators capable of keeping such amount of energy aren't created yet. Some countries resolve this issue in very innovative way. So for example in Germany even small households in sunny days develop so much electric power that they sell it to neighbors and even provide electricity to the nearest cities.
Earlier on, the solar power high price was one of the main reasons for it's noncompetitiveness. However it is already expected that this year the price on tenders will fall lower than 2 cents for kilowatt an hour. It will hence make solar energy more attractive to invest in and pure power more available to use.
