| Actually, solar is a reason for both of these: 1. California wholesale prices are the lowest in the country 2. California consumer prices are the highest in the country That's no coincidence. Solar credits in 1 and debits in 2, so to speak. One reason wholesale electricity prices are so low is because there is an excess in solar. Rates go negative midday when demand is lower. That really brings down the average. But why are they negative? Oversupply. CAISO curtailed 3.4 million MWh in 2024 alone, up 29% from 2023, 93% of it solar. [0] And how can CAISO deal with this? Spend more money on the grid. Batteries and transmission infrastructure. The high transmission and delivery costs, which you identified as the reason for the disconnect, is partially the function of so much solar generation. You can't just separate the two. Also, that Clean Technica source is shit. It's a solar advocacy group. They have completely withheld important context. And a simple average of prices is dumb. Its not even clear if the price is from traded volume or listed price. Mark Jacobson (underlying BlueSky post) states its from the EIA but the EIA has both - trade price and list price by hour. Is it a simple average that includes a negative price that may not actually be traded? This would artificially lower the wholesale price. A better metric would be load weighted price. What did energy cost when people consumed it? [0] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=65364 |
> The high transmission and delivery costs, which you identified as the reason for the disconnect, is partially the function of so much solar generation
That correlation is very low. All new supply requires new grid connections, but that's the same whether it is natgas or solar. And generation interconnect is a fraction of grid costs -- last mile is the bulk.
P.S. your graph is also highly misleading since it doesn't include 2025. Battery supply increased substantially in 2025, and curtailment dropped in 2025.