Why haven't summer's extreme heat waves caused any blackouts? Renewable energy is helping.

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Why haven't summer's extreme heat waves caused any blackouts? Renewable energy is helping.
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Record heat has not (yet) triggered large blackouts or brownouts as some predicted. Here's why.

Last year, 14% of US electricity was generated by wind and solar. The US Energy Information Administration predicts that will reach 16% this year and 18% in 2024. When hydroelectric power is added in, renewables produce almost one-quarter of all US electric production.

"Texas has been reaching new records pretty much every day in terms of peak hourly electricity use," he said. Last year the state's peak electricity demand was over 80,000 megawatts."So far this year they've broken that level at least ten times.", its grid has held because the diversity of the state's power inputs has made it very flexible.

“No one's proposing that you would build a grid out of 100% wind and solar, no one serious anywhere,” he said. Instead, energy experts want to see a grid that’s based on wind, solar, nuclear, hydro, geothermal and batteries “and then you use natural gas for your critical times.” That meant more electricity from hydroelectric dams. On average, hydro provides 15% of California’s electricity generation, but it’s highly variable, from 7% in dry years to over 20% in wet years, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.

such as smelting or cement might agree to cut their power use during periods of high demand, in exchange for lower bills.

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