The amount of clean energy feeding California homes is incredible now, and it’s growing rapidly each year. California’s hydroelectric power has been around for a long time, but increasingly electricity from Wind and Solar are making a huge dent in the need for fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are rapidly becoming the auxiliary fuel to power the State’s economy.
California developed some of the Nation’s first Wind Farms, and the technology has come a long way since then. More than 4,000 MW of California’s electric power is generated during windy periods. In a much shorter period of time, California has installed more than 15,000 MW of Solar across the State, and plans to install much more over the next 5 years. With today’s peak electric-power demand of 31,000 MW, it’s easy to see that there will be times when the clean energy supply will exceed California’s demand for electricity.
California has a diverse mix of other electric power resources, but the electric power supply is generally balanced with demand by natural gas power plants that generate more pollution and greenhouse gases. They’re expensive to operate, because they only run for a few hours per day. Now that renewables are more cost-competitive than ever, the emerging problem is decreasing the run time of these natural gas plants.
Running your appliances on Mother Nature’s schedule saves money on your electric bill, and it’s been that way for years. Most people are wasting hundreds of dollars each year and don’t know it. Using a rate program that varies over the hours of the day has been optional; However, that’s going to change in a couple of years. California is switching to mandatory time of use pricing in 2019.
There are a number of ways to use cleaner energy today with the technologies already in your home. Even better, more and more new technologies are being offered to consumers to reduce global warming. Using power at the hours of the day when clean energy is abundant reduces the need for fossil fuel power plants. Just check our website to monitor clean energy production, download our mobile App, or subscribe to our newsletter to start saving money today. Clean Energy Costs Less!