--- title: "California Now Has So Much Solar Power That Electricity Prices Are Going Negative During the Day" description: "Cloudy Future Solar energy supplies over a quarter of California electricity, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. That bright spot, though, comes with a strange but significant problem. On sunny days, there's so much solar energy being supplied that electricity prices can dip into the negative, The Washington Post reports — a preview of […]" date: "2024-04-23" modified: "2024-04-23" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/california-solar-electricity-prices-negative" categories: - "Energy" - "Renewable Energy" - "Science & Energy" - "Solar Power" tags: - "renewable energy" - "solar" - "solar power" - "the digest" --- # California Now Has So Much Solar Power That Electricity Prices Are Going Negative During the Day ![It's the "duck curve" problem. Solar power is providing huge amounts of energy during the day, creating a headache for grid operators.]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* ## Sun Police California, which gets over a [quarter of its electricity from solar](), is generating more power than it knows what to do with. On sunny days, there's now so much solar energy being supplied that electricity prices can dip into the negative, [*The Washington Post* reports]() — a preview of the economic and infrastructural problems that renewables will have to navigate. "These are not insurmountable challenges," Michelle Davis at consulting firm Wood Mackenzie Power and Renewables, told the *WaPo*. "But they are challenges that a lot of grid operators have never had to deal with." ## Ray Lotta Solar power, unlike energy from fossil fuels, isn't "dispatchable," meaning that electricity grid operators can't control — or even necessarily predict — how much energy it supplies. This comes into play in what's called "net load": the total demand for electricity minus the energy supplied by solar and other renewables. What's left over in that equation is the amount of power from conventional sources that CAISO, California's grid operator, will have to put into the electric system. In the morning when everyone's getting up, demand is high. But by midday, the sun's out and solar energy can provide almost all the power needed, causing prices to plummet. On a graph of daily net load, this pronounced pattern is called a "duck curve," for its resemblance to the bird. It's at its most dramatic in the spring, when the skies are sunny but temperatures are relatively mild, meaning that there's less demand for heating and cooling. "We drastically underestimated the speed at which residential solar was going to come in," Clyde Loutan, principal for renewable energy integration at CAISO, told the *WaPo*. ## Fine Shine In the grand scheme of things, it's a good problem to have. Solar energy is obviously no slouch. But it also means that a lot of that energy isn't being used. According to the *WaPo*, 95 percent of California's 2.4 million megawatt-hours of wasted electricity in 2022 was solar. The chief consequence of that waste, the *WaPo* argues, is economic. In the long run, it could cause electricity prices to go up. California has responded to this predicament in a way [that has angered proponents of renewables](). Last year, the state government started paying solar owners less money for the energy they put into the grid, a practice known as "net-metering." In effect, this makes solar less affordable, curtailing its adoption. Discouraging as that may be, there are other promising solutions to explore. Right now, according to the *WaPo*, CAISO is selling some of that extra power to nearby states. The real game changer would be if, in the future, the widespread use of batteries and other forms of storage could save any excess solar power generated during the day — meaning the power from sunny days will be able to last well into the nighttime, instead of forcing fossil fuel power plants to spin back up. **More on solar:** *[Researchers Say Solar Is Getting So Good That People Could Start Quitting the Electric Grid]()* ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()