Opinion: California’s energy glut, part I

Is it possible for a state to produce too much energy? The knee-jerk answer is “No.” But, in reality, California produces far more energy from a renewable source than we can use. The production of electric energy in California is our Gordian Knot, a seemingly unsolvable problem. And the heart of the problem is that electricity from a renewable source, specifically the Sun, unlike energy from petroleum, like gasoline, cannot be stored for any appreciable length of time.

Shannon Eddy, executive director of the Large-Scale Solar Association, says that most industrial-sized batteries can store solar energy for only about four hours. But, when the batteries are full, solar energy continues to arrive off the grid. So, existing energy has to be dumped somewhere. Of course, that “dumped” energy has already been paid for, and that cost is passed on to the ratepayers, like you and me.

Higher electricity rates

You’d think that having more electricity than we need would lower the cost to consumers. But the old rules of supply and demand no longer apply. When Adam Smith published “The Wealth of Nations” in 1776, the book that defined the roots of free-market capitalism, he wrote by candlelight. I doubt that even the most gifted prophet of the times could have imagined harnessing the power of the Sun.