California Energy Policies Cause Another Power Outage

A recent heat wave severely strained California’s electrical grid in the Los Angeles area, leading to 24-hour outages as the grid struggled to cope with the high temperatures due to insufficient reliable generating capacity. California has ambitious renewable energy targets: it aims to derive 60 percent of its electricity from renewables, primarily intermittent wind, and solar, by 2030, and achieve 100 percent by 2045. New legislation has set interim goals of 90 percent by 2035 and 95 percent by 2040. These goals are increasingly challenging as the state imposes additional mandates for electric vehicles and appliances, and even plans to replace diesel trains with battery-powered ones. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has warned that electrifying global car fleets would double electricity consumption.

Under state regulations, 35 percent of new cars sold in California in 2026 must be zero-emissions, rising to 100 percent by 2035. Meeting these targets and electrifying other sectors of the economy will require California to triple its power generation capacity and accelerate the deployment of solar and wind energy almost five times faster than in the past decade, despite the intermittent nature of these sources.

California faces significant hurdles in meeting its “green energy” goals while ensuring a reliable power grid. Natural gas remains the state’s largest source of electricity, with over half of the power generated in 2022 coming from “clean energy” sources—solar, wind, other renewables, and nuclear—while 36 percent came from natural gas.

In August 2020, as California approached its interim clean energy goals, it experienced its first non-wildfire blackouts in nearly 20 years. In late August and September 2022, a severe heatwave forced regulators to ask consumers to voluntarily reduce power consumption for ten days. Since then, nearly 11,600 megawatts of clean energy have been added to the state’s grid. California has also invested in over 10,000 megawatts of costly battery storage, making it the largest battery supply outside of China and driving up electricity prices. California’s residential electricity rates are the second highest in the nation, after Hawaii, more than twice the national average. Rates have increased by about 11.8 percent in the past year and approximately 130 percent over the last decade—over four times the national average. These high costs are reminiscent of energy price issues faced by many European nations that are de-industrializing due to expensive energy.

Batteries need excess power from wind and solar generators to charge them, putting that energy back onto the grid when the sun is no longer shining and the wind is not blowing. California relies heavily on four-hour duration lithium-ion batteries, which come in large, centralized facilities and hybrid facilities paired with solar energy projects. California homes are also installing batteries with their rooftop solar installations, required by the latest changes to its net metering policy, but they supply only a small amount of power.

California may need to more than double its energy generation capacity by 2045 to meet the 100 percent clean energy target while adding electric cars, appliances and other technologies demanding electricity. To do that, California aims to build about 6,000 to 8,000 megawatts of new energy resources each year. The state added more than 6,000 megawatts of politically correct renewable energy last year. But, those 6,000 megawatts probably produce only around 2,000 megawatts of power over twenty four hours as the amount of energy solar and wind obtains from a unit of capacity averages 23 percent and 33 percent, respectively.

Fearing emergency rolling blackouts like the one in 2020, Governor Newsom and his Legislature in 2022 allowed some natural gas plants that were supposed to go offline to keep operating. California also requested federal funds to keep the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant operating while Pacific Gas & Electric pursues federal regulatory permission to stay open past 2025. California also wants to produce 13 percent of its power by 2045 from giant floating ocean wind platforms that are extremely expensive, costing billions of dollars.

Power surges are causing disruptions at the Port of Los Angeles, which handles 16 percent of the nation’s international seaborne cargo. These surges result in momentary power losses, impacting port operations, delaying traffic, and even causing accidents. One such outage this summer led to a driverless cargo truck crashing into a container. Despite these challenges, the port plans to transition all equipment to “zero emissions” by 2030, in line with state mandates requiring ships to connect to the electrical grid. However, as more devices connect to the grid, local distribution systems are at risk of overload, similar to when too many appliances trip a home circuit.

California’s utilities are spending heavily to upgrade power systems to accommodate more electric vehicles and appliances and more intermittent solar and wind power. Unlike nuclear and fossil-fuel plants, solar and wind do not produce constant power at a steady frequency, making the grid less stable. Aging equipment, which some utilities have neglected as they are forced to make “green energy” a priority, compounds the problem, resulting in even more equipment failures. Pacific Gas & Electric is now burying power lines, which were found to have instigated some of the state’s wildfires in recent years. It and other utilities are also shutting off power when it is hot and windy to prevent equipment from sparking fires.

Politicians in California are blaming utilities for grid failures. However, over a decade ago, when renewable energy prices were high, utilities entered into long-term contracts with solar companies to meet the state’s renewable mandates. Even though solar prices have decreased, customers are still paying elevated rates due to these agreements. Large-scale batteries used to store solar power are ten times more expensive than natural gas and are prone to fires; a recent blaze at a battery storage facility in Escondido led to school closures and evacuations.

Utilities must also upgrade the grid to support more renewable energy to produce the power needed for electric vehicles and appliances. A Texas Public Policy Foundation report last year estimated this subsidy at $11,883 for each electric vehicle. Based on California’s electric-vehicle sales, that produces a $23.7 billion tax on all ratepayers, in part because of California’s arduous and expensive permitting process.

California’s “net metering” program also forces utility customers to subsidize homeowners who can afford solar panels. The California Public Utility Commission’s Public Advocates Office estimates this will cost customers without solar panels $8.5 billion this year, up from $3.4 billion in 2021. California also has “public benefit” programs, which subsidize lower rates and electric appliances and vehicles for lower-income households. As electricity rates increase, so do the subsidies.

The Los Angeles’s Office of Public Accountability recommended the city scale back its 100 percent renewable goal for 2035, warning that its public utility risked adopting costly battery technology that could become outdated. California politicians, however, have directed utilities to add more batteries and subsidize them for homeowners, which will also increase electricity prices for homeowners.  Since China controls the world battery market, this means more of California’s grid will be dependent upon it.

Conclusion

California’s “green energy” policies are causing electricity rates to escalate for its residents and for its grid to be outage-prone. Its policies from mandates on the type of cars that can be sold to the type of generators that can be added to the grid to its use of very expensive batteries to back up its politically correct technologies have caused residential electricity rates to be over twice the national average.