California reaches historic renewable energy milestone

There’s no doubt that renewables are on the rise in the Golden State. As of 2022, about 36% of California’s electricity sales come from renewable sources like solar, wind, and geothermal energy, a substantial increase from a decade earlier, when only 12% of electricity sales came from renewables.

California is committed to generating 100% of its electricity sales from carbon-free resources by 2045, a critical milestone in the state’s fight against climate change. In March and April, of 2024, the state experienced a historic look into the future when our society will run solely on clean, renewable energy sources rather than dirty fossil fuels.

What is California’s latest renewable energy milestone?

For 30 days in a 38 day stretch in March and April, California supplied 100% of its energy demand with renewable energy for time periods ranging from 15 minutes to 6 hours each day. Stanford’s Professor Mark Jacobson tracked this notable milestone, showing us that there will come a day when 100% of our energy demand will be met by renewable energy every hour of the day.

What steps can California take to reach 100% renewable energy?

Opportunities to deploy more renewable energy capacity abound in California. We can deploy more solar panels on residential rooftops, on the giant rooftops of superstores and warehouses, over our vast parking lots and on the land next to highways. Despite California’s historic leadership on rooftop solar, we’ve still only taken advantage of 10% of our rooftop solar potential.

We can tap into more wind energy by harnessing the strong, consistent winds off of California’s shores. By going big on offshore wind and meeting the state’s ambitious goals, we can supply enough energy to power over 25 million households just from offshore wind energy.

We can also make the existing electric grid more efficient so that we can transmit more clean, affordable, and reliable energy to where it’s needed. With the help of new technologies like grid enhancing technologies and advanced conductoring, which can upgrade the capacity of our existing power lines, we can better accommodate the increasing amount of renewable energy powering our society in the coming years.

In our journey to meet 100% of electricity demand with clean energy, powering the state entirely with renewable sources for such a long stretch of days, even if just for a few hours each day, is a great place to start.