Renewable Energy Powers Entire State of California—for a Few Minutes

For a few minutes on the afternoon of April 3, California met almost 100 percent of its electricity needs using renewable energy. As Janet Wilson reports, much of the renewable power came from solar installations in the Mojave desert, with a quarter coming from wind farms. “[Advocacy organization] Environment California pushed for 1 million solar rooftops statewide, which has been achieved, adding what some say is a more environmentally friendly form of solar power than the solar farms, which eat up large swaths of the Mojave desert and fragile landscapes.”

Hurdles remain, some at the federal level. According to Environment California executive director Laura Deehan, “Despite incredible progress illustrated by the milestone this weekend, a baffling regulatory misstep by the Biden administration has advocates concerned about backsliding on California’s clean energy targets.” For example, “a Department of Commerce inquiry into tariffs on imported solar panels is delaying thousands of megawatts of solar-storage projects in California.”

According to a separate article by Audrey Carleton, “while this particular landmark moment in renewable power was fleeting, renewable supply eclipsed the supply of natural gas by a large margin for twelve hours of the day on April 30, between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.”