this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2024
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Large hydropower is not counted as “Renewable” by California. We have renewable portfolio targets, and we import a lot of wind power from the north to meet the standards.
You can argue about how green it is, considering its impact on ecosystems, but how did they end at the conclusion that it's not renewable?
We already had so much of it, the renewable targets would have been too easy? Most dams use huge amounts of concrete or earth moving, and there’s no carbon-free way to do that work at this time? Policy makers didn’t want to incentivize any dam construction?
These are guesses. It’s probably in some kind of records. Sometimes laws even explain the rationale in the beginning with a bunch of “whereas” statements. But I’m too lazy to look it up right now.
California power is awesome. Until recently, it was almost all nuclear. Those reactors take 6 hours to spin up and wind down. As demand went up for the day, they'd supplement their systems by buying power from BC. As the demand went down at night faster than the nuclear could wind down, they would pay BC to take their excess. You need to use you excess load or you blow up your grid. So BC was making money providing AND taking power at different points throughout the day.
Now, thanks largely to solar, California is generating so much power they have to pay people to take the excess during peak hours. Such an incredibly fast transformation. They still buy a bit at night, but California is quickly freeing itself from dependence on other systems.
So while they still import a bit of Hydro power, they'll be fully autonomously renewable really soon.