Julia DeWahl
@julia
My googling skills seem to be coming up short on the following topic - anyone know about this? Why does California pay other states to take our excess electricity when we generate too much (e.g. midday from solar)? Why can't we find some other way to use it / get rid of it?
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Katsuya
@kn
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-40434392
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Julia DeWahl
@julia
Thanks! I still don't see the answer to the question of why we don't do something else with the excess electricity, e.g. "burn it" in some way? is there no other end point besides sending it to other states?
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Katsuya
@kn
not expert but my understanding is: Electricity cannot simply disappear so if you "burn it", it turns into heat. Then you have heat problem. So grid need massive infra investment to deal with the heat or you can pay other people to just use it.
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Katsuya
@kn
In terms of "can you find other end point instead of burning it?", I think it's chicken and egg problem. Grid had to get rid of electricity because there is not enough demand in the first place so they had to artificially increase demand by even paying for it.
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Katsuya
@kn
I'm not dismissing that there are potentially smarter ways to get rid of excess but I think that's the current state.
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Julia DeWahl
@julia
Makes sense, thanks. It doesn't seem like there is much appetite for building an off-ramp for excess electricity. Paying others to take it is = easiest route.
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Katsuya
@kn
Yeah seems like there are potentially many solutions but paying to create artificial demand is currently concluded as most economical choice or other options are not worth the effort. Super interesting stuff - thanks for point this out! I had no idea.
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