California State Power Operator adds Wind-Power to daily reports

BB.
BB. Super Moderators, Administrators Posts: 33,654 admin
in Wind Power Generation #1
For anyone that is interested--Cal ISO (Independent System Operator) which brokers the majority of electrical power inside California between generators and utilities (which are now, more or less, power distribution companies) has added Current Wind Production to their real-time graphs (and details on renewable energy as a whole too).

www.caiso.com/outlook/SystemStatus.html

-Bill
Near San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset
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  • AntronX
    AntronX Solar Expert Posts: 462 ✭✭
    #2
    Re: California State Power Operator adds Wind-Power to daily reports

    This is great! I like this stuff. Does Texas have something similar?
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  • drees
    drees Solar Expert Posts: 482 ✭✭✭
    #3
    Re: California State Power Operator adds Wind-Power to daily reports

    Cool!

    They also have a PDF with renewable data from the previous day including solar, but there's no way the solar data includes any significant number of PV installs (and certainly no residential installs), otherwise the shape would be much more parabolic.
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  • AntronX
    AntronX Solar Expert Posts: 462 ✭✭
    #4
    Re: California State Power Operator adds Wind-Power to daily reports
    drees wrote: »
    ...but there's no way the solar data includes any significant number of PV installs (and certainly no residential installs), otherwise the shape would be much more parabolic.

    Yea, I wondered why solar curve looks so flat. Probably because the source is concentrated solar thermal power. The reduced demand effect from distributed PV installs should leave it's mark on system-wide power demand graph. Maybe when smart meters that can send data to utility in real-time are rolled out, we will see distributed PV contribution included.

    Does anyone notice that there is about 250 MW of wind power just suddenly drops offline at 5am? That does not look normal.

    I like how nicely solar complements wind power - wind dies down around noon when sun is strongest.
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  • drees
    drees Solar Expert Posts: 482 ✭✭✭
    #5
    Re: California State Power Operator adds Wind-Power to daily reports
    AntronX wrote: »
    Yea, I wondered why solar curve looks so flat. Probably because the source is concentrated solar thermal power. The reduced demand effect from distributed PV installs should leave it's mark on system-wide power demand graph.
    Good point - should be possible to visualize by looking at historical data...
    AntronX wrote: »
    Maybe when smart meters that can send data to utility in real-time are rolled out, we will see distributed PV contribution included.
    Would need 2 smart meters - one to read load from the house, one to read PV generation.
    AntronX wrote: »
    Does anyone notice that there is about 250 MW of wind power just suddenly drops offline at 5am? That does not look normal.
    They probably took some wind offline for maintenance. 45min later it jumped back up.
    AntronX wrote: »
    I like how nicely solar complements wind power - wind dies down around noon when sun is strongest.
    Peak loads seem to be late afternoon early evening (4-5pm). Unfortunately, PV output is usually down 30-40% off peak output by that time of day. Would have to start aiming panels west if the goal was to reduce peak loads.
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  • AntronX
    AntronX Solar Expert Posts: 462 ✭✭
    #6
    Re: California State Power Operator adds Wind-Power to daily reports

    What's that second small peak on the Load Graph at around 8pm? I am guessing water heaters as people take showers. On other thought, could be water pumps.
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  • drees
    drees Solar Expert Posts: 482 ✭✭✭
    #7
    Re: California State Power Operator adds Wind-Power to daily reports
    AntronX wrote: »
    What's that second small peak on the Load Graph at around 8pm? I am guessing water heaters as people take showers. On other thought, could be water pumps.
    I believe it's from people turning on their computers and getting on the internet...
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  • drees
    drees Solar Expert Posts: 482 ✭✭✭
    #8
    Re: California State Power Operator adds Wind-Power to daily reports

    From what I can tell there is about 1GW of solar power installed in California with about 1/3rd of it being concentrating solar - that definitely explains the Solar data we're seeing (and not seeing).

    There is about 300MW of PV that is currently in the process of being installed through the CSI rebate program: http://www.californiasolarstatistics.ca.gov/

    There were a lot of large commercial projects requested in the past couple months that make up the vast majority of that 300MW that is pending - 40MW in March/May, 120MW in April.

    BTW - that 300MW is in CEC-AC, not STC watts so it should be reflective of actual peak power output.

    The goal is to get 1.75 GW of PV installed by 2016 and 3GW of PV installed total.

    Wow, that CSI rebate site I listed above has a search utility that lets you search by manufacturer and/or specific model including inverters and panels.
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