California's Grid Is Facing an Existential Crisis

Energy Gang

Wood Mackenzie

Tech News, Environment, Sustainability, Innovation, Renewable Energy, Technology, Alternative Energy, Energy, News, Cleantech, Wind Energy, Business, Climate Change, Solar Energy

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 25 May 2017

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

California released a white paper last week documenting the stunning decline of the customer base for investor-owned utilities in the state. Meanwhile, the state is facing more and more curtailments, negative electricity pricing, and, on top of it all, a looming solar eclipse. What can we learn about market design from the nation’s solar leader? Then, getting to terawatt-scale PV. Researchers and policymakers are getting serious about thousands and thousands of gigawatts of solar in the coming decades. And they’re asking some hard questions about market design. What does the world look like under that scenario? Finally, we'll end with a fast cycle through some of the top news stories. How worried should you be? This week's podcast was recorded live at GTM's Solar Summit. For access to videos of all our sessions -- featuring First Solar, Sunpower, Sunshot, Google, SEIA, Sunrun and more -- sign up for GTM Squared. This podcast is sponsored by KACO New Energy, a leading solar inverter company with superior engineering and unmatched customer service. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	The Energy Gang is brought to you by Kako New Energy, the fastest growing solar inverter company in the Americas.
0:07.0	Kako has been in business for more than 100 years and has been making superior German quality PV inverters since the 1990s.
0:14.6	It's been making many of them right in San Antonio, Texas since 2013.
0:18.9	With a wide range of residential, commercial, and utility scale inverters, Kaco works with developers and
0:24.5	installers in every corner of the solar market, making it the preferred brand across the
0:28.9	U.S. and throughout the Americas.
0:31.5	Learn more about Kaco's superior quality and service
0:34.5	at Kaco-New Energy.com, that's Kaco-
0:38.7	dash new energy.
0:40.2	dot com.
0:41.4	And now on to our show, a live version of the podcast recorded in front of a audience at
0:46.6	GTM's Solar Summit in Scottsdale, Arizona. Enjoy the show. We had a lot of fun at this one.
0:52.4	This is the show. We had a lot of fun at this one.
0:53.0	This is the Energy Gang, a weekly digest on energy, clean tech and the environment.
0:59.0	I'm Stephen Lacy, and this week we are live at Green Tech Media Solar Summit in Scottsdale, Arizona.
1:10.5	This week is California, the new Germany. We are in Arizona right now of course, but California is making news as state regulators take another serious look at retail choice
1:20.5	The CPUC released a white paper this week documenting the stunning decline of the customer base for investor-owned utilities in the state.
1:28.0	Meanwhile, California is facing more and more curtailments, negative electricity pricing,
1:33.5	and on top of it all, a solar eclipse coming up in August.
1:37.4	So what can we learn about market design
1:39.7	from the nation's solar leader?
1:42.0	Then getting to TerraWatt scale PV,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Wood Mackenzie, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Wood Mackenzie and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.