Grid Operation Has Become A Fraud, Wrapped in A Con, and Inside A Corrupt Scheme to Solely Benefit Grifters

Yesterday’s Energy information Adminstration (EIA) post at Today In Energy demonstrates what a total fraud green energy is upon the public. It is much akin to what Winston Churchill said in 1939 about the Russians.

"I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest."

The same thing can be said about today’s electric grids, as they have been twisted and turned to accommodate solar and wind projects in the name of a needless energy transition. And, the key to understanding the whole thing, if that’s possible, is to ask a simple question. Who benefits? There is but one answer: the green energy grifters.

The grifters have successfully perpetrated a fraud based this series of lies:

• The planet is in a climate crisis.

• CO2 is the cause of this crisis and a pollutant.

• CO2 must be lowered by forcing it out of energy production.

• Solar and wind energy production generate no CO2.

• We must force solar and wind energy onto the grid by regulation and subsidy.

• We must force our utilities to not only accept, but also adopt, energy transition.”

• We must pretend solar and wind are economical and no threat to energy security.

Every single one of these lies is being continually recycled as evidence mounts that it’s all one big fraud on the consumer. The EIA post is simply titled “Solar and Wind Power Curtailments Are Increasing in California" and it includes this remarkable chart:

A curtailment is grid-speak for forcing energy off the system. It's not letting energy being produced to go into the system because it’s not needed and/or would destroy grid stability by being allowed in. The article explains further (emphasis added):

The California Independent System Operator (CAISO), the grid operator for most of the state, is increasingly curtailing solar- and wind-powered electricity generation as it balances supply and demand amidst rapid renewables capacity growth.

Grid operators must balance supply and demand to maintain a stable electric system. The output of wind and solar generators is reduced either through price signals or, rarely, through an order to reduce output during periods of:

• Congestion, when power lines don’t have enough capacity to deliver available energy

• Oversupply, when generation exceeds customer electricity demand…

In 2024, CAISO curtailed 3.4 million megawatthours (MWh) of utility-scale wind and solar output, a 29% increase from the amount of electricity curtailed in 2023.

Solar accounted for 93% of all the energy curtailed in CAISO in 2024. CAISO curtailed the most solar in the spring, when solar output was relatively high and electricity demand was relatively low, because moderate spring temperatures meant less demand for space heating or air conditioning. In 2014, a combined 9.7 gigawatts (GW) of wind and solar photovoltaic capacity had been built in California. By the end of 2024, that number had grown to 28.2 GW.

CAISO also curtails solar generation to leave room for natural gas generation. A certain amount of natural gas generation must stay online throughout the day to comply with North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) reliability standards and to have generation online in time to ramp up in the evening hours.

Solar energy supplies almost half of CAISO’s electricity demand between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m., but demand increases in the later evening hours when people come home from work and turn up air conditioners or electric heaters and turn on lights, ovens, computers, and televisions. This need is especially apparent on hot summer evenings after the sun has set and no longer produces solar power overnight.

CAISO is trying to reduce curtailments in several ways:

• Trading with neighboring balancing authorities to try to sell excess solar and wind power

• Incorporating battery storage into ancillary services, energy, and capacity markets

• Including curtailment reduction in transmission planning

To further reduce renewable curtailments and increase the stability of the grid, CAISO is promoting the addition of flexible resources that can quickly respond to sudden increases and decreases in demand. Battery storage, recently the key flexible resource to come online, allows some renewable energy to be stored and used 4-8 hours later in the day. Batteries can charge using excess solar power at midday and then discharge that energy when the sun is going down, providing electricity during hours when it is most needed. Battery capacity in CAISO increased by 45% in 2024, from 8.0 GW in 2023 to 11.6 GW in 2024 according to our survey of recent and planned capacity changes.

However, in the spring, more solar energy than can be used within a day is often produced. Without more transmission capacity or a long-term storage solution, high curtailments during this time of year can still occur.

Anyone can see what a mess this is. Governments have subsidized solar to the point there is more than can be used, and disposing of it has become a real problem. It hugely threatens the stability of the grid by making coal, nuclear and natural gas plants, which are essential to ensuring dispatchable power, far less efficient, thereby raising costs to consumers. That's a cost on top of the tax credits employed to build the solar facilities and one no one wants to talk about. It’s the reason green energy is raising electricity around the globe, of course.

The solar grifters, though, continue to benefit if they can force some of the excess onto the grid by paying utilities to take their unneeded electricity (negative pricing). How? Well, read Meredith Angin’s wonderful “Shorting the Grid” book, and you’ll find the answer. It’s because governments are forcing utilities to use certain amounts of renewable energy, which they can do indirectly by buying Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) showing renewable power was used somewhere. A California solar energy producer can pay the grid to take its excess power, but still sell RECs for that power at a high enough price to generate a profit off the spread.

It's hard to believe, but that’s how ridiculously Rube-Golberg-like our grids have become, and the only beneficiary is the green energy grifter. And, it keeps getting worse and worse as the politicians, grid operators, utilities, and grifters keep mouthing the words “energy transition” as if it were a necessity and a real thing. It won’t get better without outside pressure from consumers and outside-the-system leaders who are willing to call out the fraud, begin to step up, and say “enough already.” We demand you stop lying and admit the whole corrupt system is but a fraud, wrapped in a con, and inside a corrupt scheme to serve the special interests of grifters

#Grid #EnergySecurity #Solar #Wind #Curtailments #Coal #NaturalGas #Nuclear #Curtailments #RECs