6d ago

Solar becomes top source of electricity in California

"In the 12 months ending April 2025, solar generated 83.1 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity, compared to 81.6 TWh from natural gas."

"Nationally, solar generation continues to climb. In April, solar supplied 10.64% of U.S. electricity for the month (marking the first time the country crossed the 10% mark) and contributed 7.35% of generation over the rolling 12 months. California, by comparison, produced 42% of its electricity from solar at its seasonal peak in April, with May expected to push that figure even higher."

Good 'ol CA, long-time nation-leader.

33 comments

This is SOCIALISM! TRUE Freedom means Relying on OIL BARONS for our Electricity and NOT the Freely Available Sun!
- I remember all the comrades who kept coming by my house offering to put up free solar panels to help the environment.
Proud of my state. Ashamed of my country.
- Y'all still working on withholding Federal funds?
  
  I don't know wtf is going on anymore. There's just so much.
  
  Actually. We're starting a new tax just for solar and wind installations while boosting funding for petroleum and coal... 😩 I'm so fucking tired.
- Well, weren't you guys part of Mexico until the US invaded in the 19th century and took it? I mean if any country did that today, we'd all collapse like Edvard Munch's The Scream and yell about democracy. But you can try to invade yourselves and annex yourselves?
And I helped! With my tiny 15MWh/yr
- 5.9 MWh so far this year, my first year. I posted about it here. https://lemmy.world/post/32326227
  
  Nice!
  We're just about to cross the 8MWh line for the year.
  We don't have battery backup set up, but we did just get a Ford Lightning with that in mind.
  I really need to setup home assistant.
It makes a lot of sense. More people should (have) gotten in while the getting was good.
If
your roof gets sun
you own your house
you're going to stay there ~10 years
you don't have to go into debt at a bad rate to do it
You should have really looked into it while the 30% fed discount existed. I think it dies at the end of this year. Payoff time with a battery is something like 9-14 years, but after that it's 10-25 years of profit. And you don't have to worry about power outages anymore.
- prices for solar are continuously falling. bleeding edge is expensive, as always. cheaper helps it grow. big oil wants to kill it. too late.
- You should have really looked into it while the 30% fed discount existed. I
  The real return on renewables is in the industrial facilities. Your house isn't going to have the location or the hardware to optimize sunlight collection like a multi million dollar facility.
  Economies of scale can get the price of generating solar down into the low single digits. And then there's industrial batteries/transmission.
  That's what is boosting utility. Not home units.
- So I've heard a typical set up is still dependent on grid power (typical set up => able to push power back to the grid), and so during a power outage, you still lose power at your home. Its my understanding one of the components required for the hook up to The Grid requires continuous power (in case you need to push/pull power from the grid) and since it can't guarantee power from your panels, it gets that power from the grid (thus grid goes down, your whole home's power goes down.
  Don't suppose you know more about this or can explain why this is/isn't the case? This setup seems unintuitive and undesirable to me, and so I'd love to have proof that's not the case, if it exists.
  
  True. They don't want you feeding power back into supposedly dead lines that they might be trying to work on.
  If you get a battery, you'll get a power shutoff installed with it. That power shutoff allows you to separate entirely from the grid instantly and keep your system running off grid. Imo it's half the reason to get a battery.
  You can get the shutoff without the battery, but it's not much cheaper.
  I did a full writeup here. https://lemmy.world/post/32326227
  
  The issue is putting power back onto the grid. If power is out otherwise, the guys who come out to fix it want to assume there's no power on it. If someone's solar panels are still putting power into the local connection, it can be dangerous for those workers.
  It is possible to have an automatic disconnection so that in a grid outage, your house will still be powered, but nothing is going out to the grid. They usually don't put those in unless you also have a battery backup. You may be able to ask your contractor to put one in, anyway.
  This goes for generators, too. You're supposed to use a power transfer switch with those.
- Eh, I think even if you missed out on subsidies, the prices just keep going down.
I'm so glad the people around me who live nowhere near a field voted to kill field-to-solar projects around here, the factories and warehouses that went up where there used to be lovely views of the hills are much better. All that extra pollution and noise really adds something special to the day.
- I am still baffled by big stores not being required to put solar on their vast rooftops and to cover parking lots with Solar, not in the US, but you'd think there was an EU legislation about it
  
  Well after making this comment i have actually looked into it, ofc Europe is leading on this thing
  from google AI overview
  Several European countries are implementing legislation to encourage or mandate the installation of solar panels on parking lots, especially larger ones. This is part of the EU’s push for renewable energy and energy efficiency, making use of parking areas as potential sites for solar generation.
  EU Level:
  The EU’s Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) aims to make zero-emission buildings the standard and requires new buildings to be “solar-ready.”
  The EPBD promotes solar energy use in buildings and encourages installing solar panels on certain existing non-residential buildings, including parking lots.
  The EU has set deployment targets for photovoltaics, recognizing parking lots as a key area for development.
  The EU is also working on a “Solar Standard” to further drive solar adoption in buildings and parking lots.
  National Legislation:
  France: Requires solar panels on existing and new car parks over 1,500 m², with deadlines for compliance.
  Slovenia: Introduced requirements for solar panel installation on new parking lots.
  Greece: Stipulates 60% coverage of large open car parks with solar panels.
  Germany: Many federal states have made solar panels on car parks a legal obligation.
  Netherlands: Has large-scale solar carport installations, including one of the world’s largest in Biddinghuizen.
  Austria: Introducing similar legislation to encourage solarization of parking lots.
  Spain: Legislation is also encouraging solar panel installations on parking lots.
PG&E being corrupt with the bribed government allowing the insane utility rate increases pushed us to go solar
- Same thing happened in Texas. ERCOT's sky high wholesale electricity rate cap was an enormous windfall for gas power, but also for Wind and Solar which just got to draft behind.
  And since there's not variable cost to Solar/Wind and you can just keep rolling your profits into new capital, we get more and more infrastructure rolled out year after year.
Nice.
This is for last 12 months. Not just April (typically largest share of solar energy with some hours at over 100%)
Isn't Cali's motto The sunny state it something? Living it up, nice!
- California is the Golden State. Florida's the Sunshine State.
  
  So it is, thank you. Well, good going for them anyway!
Keep up the good work but way more needs to be done.

33 comments

EU Level:

National Legislation: