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Comment by dividefuel | Hacker News Reader

If I'm interpreting this correctly, tomorrow's expected peak demand of 51,000 MW would set the new record for CA, passing the old record of 50,200 MW from July 2006.

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Genuinely shocked the previous record is that old.

Me too. I would have thought that Labor Day 2017 (106 F in San Francisco) would've been higher, but it was only a very close second.

https://news.yahoo.com/california-declares-grid-emergency-po...

Yahoo claims the last record was set in 2017.

Here's my source on the record being from 2006: https://www.caiso.com/Documents/CaliforniaISOPeakLoadHistory...

Mandatory efficiency programs work.

Also, grid demand doesn't include home solar, which shows up as a reduction in "demand" which cuts the peak and shifts it later in time.

That 2006 peak is hours earlier than the others too for the same reason.

How much generation capacity has been shutdown since then? With the seemingly endless installation of solar panels, I am surprised of the generation warnings.

It’s on the site but apparently the amount of capacity has been “about the same” since 2011 or earlier.

So all new solar etc coming on line is barely replacing capacity lost. And California has been growing.

California is also using less. LED lighting, more efficient HVAC systems, individual and corporate conservation, it's all helping to reduce the amount of power we need per person.

Note that California (and the rest of the world) is about to start using more electricity due to transition to electric cars and trucks.

Note that California leads the nation in EV adoption and still has an enviably low per-capita electric habit. And before you start jumping up and down that the map shows an increase in consumption from 2019 to 2020, keep in mind that the whole southwest is grey in large part because of the warmer summers.

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=49036

Yep. No disagreement here; I was just trying to say that when the per-capita electricity consumption in California will go up, it's not because policies don't work, but because of EVs. And we will see drastic reductions of CO2 emissions per capita in California as a result.

Per-capita will go up, but mostly in the overnight hours, where there is lots of extra capacity. EVs might actually help the grid by reducing the overnight drop, and allowing the state to run more cheap baseline load.

How much of that is offset by electric cars? California leads the country in those…

Did some further research, apparently a house uses about 10Mw/y, and an electric car is about 4Mw/y, so it's a pretty substantial increase, but it's not insane.

They didn't "lose" capacity, they intentionally shut down coal and some old inefficient gas plants because they were expensive and polluting.

That's a good thing. Cheaper energy, less death and disease.

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