California Sets New Solar Records

Feb 13 - Forexpros

The amount of power flowing into Californias grid from large solar plants set two records this week, according to the agency that runs that grid.

On Tuesday, according to the California Independent System Operator (CaISO), the states utility-scale solar power plants set a new record of 4,933 megawatts of power flowing into the states power grid. Thats more than twice the amount of power generated by the now-shuttered San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station at its peak.

But that record didnt last long. At 10:20 a.m. on Thursday , the states big solar plants pumped 5,117 megawatts of power into the states grid, bumping Californias grid past the five-gigawatt solar power mark for the first time in history.

Heres the official word from CaISO, in the form of a tweet -- since solar production records come so fast these days that its hardly worth putting out a press release:

Of course, as weve pointed out before in discussion CaISOs solar records, the figures released by the grid operator include only those utility-scale solar plants the agency can track directly. That mean that solar plants outside its service area dont get added to the total. Neither do most rooftop or other small-scale solar arrays: they tend to be on the wrong side of Californias electric meters for CaISO to be able to track their output.

The solar advocacy group Vote Solar was quick to point out that deficiency in the official numbers in a reply to CaISOs tweet:

Using Vote Solars estimate of an additional 2.5 GW, or gigawatts,a.k.a. 2,500 megawatts, that would put the state well above 7,500 megawatts of solar power production for the day on Thursday, February 12 .

Not bad, considering the suns still pretty low in the sky, and summers stronger sunlight should break those records even if more solar power plants arent built in the meantime.

Of course, we cant help but kill the buzz a little bit: in December, Germany -- a country with an economy roughly the size of Californias -- had 38,236 megawatts of solar power generating capacity installed. If, under Germanys gloomy winter skies on Thursday, those German solar panels put out just a quarter of the juice theyre technically capable of producing, that would mean 9,500 megawatts and change flowing into Germanys grid -- still well ahead of Californias record this week.

Its always good to have a bar to aim for. Thanks, Germany .

http://www.energycentral.com/functional/news/news_detail.cfm?did=35199548