For many years, there’s been a certain conventional wisdom attached to solar power: It’s great when the sun shines, but it’s not reliable enough for utility-scale projects. After all, what happens when the sun goes down and there’s no more electricity being generated? Or what happens when the sun is blaring and there’s more power being brought to the grid than anticipated? Is this a recipe for disaster?
The numbers from the grid give us a clear answer: not in the slightest.
Solar power has been expanding more rapidly than any other renewable energy source — and the grid hasn’t experienced any decline in reliability. According to data from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the majority of new utility-scale power generation in the first half of 2023 came from wind and solar. (Solar increased by 5.8 megawatts, more than double the 2.7 megawatts increase in wind power.)
Utility-scale solar power currently makes up seven percent of the renewable-energy generation capacity of the entire United States, second to wind at 11 percent. In the next three years, though, FERC estimates that with the increased pace of solar projects, solar will become the single largest renewable source of utility-scale energy.
Why Solar Works for the Grid
Why are grid-scale solar projects so popular? To answer that question, we can look to the case of California, where solar is a key component of the power mix.
According to a report in PV Magazine, solar power recently set a record in California for its share of maximum demand served. In other words, during an afternoon in April 2024, solar power contributed 97.5 percent of the grid’s total energy demand at that moment — an incredible feat.
But solar isn’t just valuable to the California grid during the daytime. Utility-scale battery capacity in California recently passed 8 gigawatts, which means that solar is not only generating power for the grid in the moment, but also using any excess supply to charge batteries that can be used later in the evening, when the sun has set and the grid is operating at peak demand. This helps solve one of the central so-called problems with grid-scale solar: the misalignment between peak solar supply and peak energy demand.
This rise of battery capacity has helped provide a convincing counterargument to that old piece of conventional wisdom. Yes, solar works best when the sun shines brightest. But because that power can be used to charge batteries, solar has become a reliable part of the grid throughout all hours of the day. Indeed, solar power makes up more than 60 percent of the renewable energy in California’s grid, and the grid there has seen no drop in reliability, even as solar increases its share of power generation.
To learn more about the latest trends in solar power, and to hear about how solar can help your business, get in touch with one of our experts at BAI today for a free consultation.