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Solar becomes top source of electricity in California (pv-magazine-usa.com)

submitted 4 days ago by kalkulat@lemmy.world to c/science@lemmy.world

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"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.

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[–] Serinus@lemmy.world 16 points 4 days ago (9 children)

It makes a lot of sense. More people should (have) gotten in while the getting was good.

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.

[–] DahGangalang@infosec.pub 2 points 4 days ago (5 children)

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.

[–] frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

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.

[–] DahGangalang@infosec.pub 1 points 3 days ago

This is good info and makes sense. Thanks!

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