As days lengthen toward summer, solar output is rising and more projects are being commissioned in the leading state for solar power, California. At the moment, the year on year growth in solar output is compensating for the lost hydro due to the drought. It now seems likely that peak summer days will see output near 50 GWh when all plants are operational and cloudless skies prevail. The concentrating solar thermal project that has received so much media attention, Ivanpah, is not operating at full power consistently yet.
Total demand in the CAISO region in March has averaged about 570 GWh per day through the 21st, and solar output has averaged 28 GWh, almost exactly 2% of the total demand.
