Bill Hocker | Dec 4, 2019

At the Planning Commission meeting on Dec 4th to discuss a proposed Renewable Energy Ordinance for the county, one of the commenters mentioned that currently California must pay other states to take our excess solar power. That's interesting. I Googled it:

LA Times 6/22/17: California invested heavily in solar power. Now there's so much that other states are sometimes paid to take it

The article is two and a half years old. A lot of solar installations have been built in the state, including the one in American Canyon, in the meantime. A more recent, and dire, article is here with graphs: California's Mid-Day Solar Power Glut Has Become Obvious

This apparent glut is a fact that needs to be included in the discussion. Renewable energy is the necessary future of our energy needs. But the glut indicates that the creation of renewable energy is far ahead of the ability to store and distribute it. The sense of righteous urgency over the approval of projects at this point would seem premature. It makes little sense to build projects that may actually not be reducing the amount of fossil fuel energy production and will in fact require some citizens of the Sate of California (perhaps Napans) to continue to subsidize the use of solar power in adjacent states.

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