How much generation capacity has been shutdown since then? With the seemingly endless installation of solar panels, I am surprised of the generation warnings.
California is also using less. LED lighting, more efficient HVAC systems, individual and corporate conservation, it's all helping to reduce the amount of power we need per person.
Note that California leads the nation in EV adoption and still has an enviably low per-capita electric habit. And before you start jumping up and down that the map shows an increase in consumption from 2019 to 2020, keep in mind that the whole southwest is grey in large part because of the warmer summers.
Yep. No disagreement here; I was just trying to say that when the per-capita electricity consumption in California will go up, it's not because policies don't work, but because of EVs. And we will see drastic reductions of CO2 emissions per capita in California as a result.
Per-capita will go up, but mostly in the overnight hours, where there is lots of extra capacity. EVs might actually help the grid by reducing the overnight drop, and allowing the state to run more cheap baseline load.
Did some further research, apparently a house uses about 10Mw/y, and an electric car is about 4Mw/y, so it's a pretty substantial increase, but it's not insane.
So all new solar etc coming on line is barely replacing capacity lost. And California has been growing.