California Hits 'Historical' Renewable Energy Milestone

Photovoltaic solar panels and wind turbines at San Gorgonio Pass Wind Farm in Palm Springs, California.

Renewable energy has supplied 100 percent of California’s energy demand for between 15 minutes and six hours in 30 of the last 38 days—a historic first for the Golden State.

Wind, solar, and hydro energy is now exceeding demand across the state, producing more energy than Californians require on an almost daily basis.

California has previously seen great success with its renewable energy supply, but this is the first time that wind, solar, and hydro energy have performed so consistently over a sustained period of several weeks.

“This is getting so easy, it’s almost boring,” said Stanford University Professor Mark Z. Jacobson, who posted the renewable energy usage data on X, announcing that supply has exceeded California’s demand for 30 of the past 38 days.

The energy expert said on X that this success “will only increase each year” as technology improves.

Data for Friday, April 12, for example, showed solar, wind, geothermal and hydro energy exceeded demand for six hours and averaged at two-thirds of total supply across the whole day. Over 80 percent of renewable energy was supplied from solar, according to Jacobson’s data from last week.

The professor also predicted that California would be solely reliant on wind, water, and solar energy by 2035 following the recent success. The state’s official goal is to run exclusively renewable a decade later, however, in 2045.

“It’s wild that this isn’t getting more news coverage,” Ian Magruder from electrification non-profit group Rewiring America wrote in response to Jacobson’s post.

“This has never happened before in history. Yes, California has briefly hit this milestone before on a few very sunny days since 2022. But never so consistently over a two week stretch,” Magruder said.

The electrification campaigner said the news was made even more impressive as California has the world’s latest grid-connected battery storage facility, which only went online in January.

This allows for the excess renewable energy to be stored up and used overnight when the solar energy cannot be used, Magruder explained.

According to the most recent data published by the California Energy Commission last year, more than 37 percent of the state’s energy was from its renewables portfolio—an increase of just three percent on the previous year.

But despite its recent clean energy success, the U.S.’s most populous state is still heavily reliant on non-renewable energy.

California was the seventh-largest producer of crude oil among U.S. states in 2022, and the third for crude oil refining capacity, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

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