What's going to happen in the future is that May will be a month of extreme electricity abundance, with a good chunk of the electricity just not being collected at all because the grid doesn't need it, and it will be cheaper to have unused electricity in May than to have too little solar in December.
Doubtful, the tradeoff is solar cost versus storage cost. Pumped hydro and gravity are waaaaaaaay too expensive compared to excess solar panels. Pumped hydro takes massive construction projects, which are very very expensive these days. Gravity storage (non-water, meaning non-hydro) never made any sense at all, the material costs are just way too high.
Iron-air storage is still being proven out, but it still requires so much material that only getting 1-2 cycles per year just won't justify it, because electricity is going to be so cheap.
It's hard to overstate how cheap solar panels are these days. Even in the US, which has costs 3x-5x the rest of the world because of failed protective tariffs.
Except the water is in short supply, so where's that magically coming from? The Great Salt Lake is shrinking and specific to Utah. Just look at Lake Meade and Hoover Dam as an example.
> In 2025, coal composes just 15 percent of U.S. electricity generation, and while 190 gigawatts (GW) of coal capacity remain online, the fleet is down 43 percent from 340 GW at its peak in 2010. This change is largely due to the fact that coal power is simply more expensive than cleaner power sources like wind, solar, batteries, and natural gas.
> Electricity demand growth and new actions by the current U.S. presidential administration may slow this decline in the short-term, but with no proposals to build new coal plants anywhere in America and worsening economic competitiveness – particularly where policymakers are strengthening air and water standards to protect their constituents – its long-term share of U.S. electricity generation will continue to decrease
can you expand? I'm not sure I get it. isn't then having a wider interconnection better for stability and to handle solar? they can share cheap power in gluts and pull in other sources at night and so on.
> Balancing authority (electric): The responsible entity that integrates resource plans ahead of time, maintains load-interchange-generation balance within a Balancing Authority Area, and supports Interconnection frequency in real time.
> Definition & Scope: A BA is a NERC-certified entity responsible for matching electricity supply and demand in real-time within a specific geographic area. An ISO is an independent, non-profit corporate entity that manages regional transmission grids and runs competitive wholesale power markets.
Also true for California for quite some time.
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/solar/california-solar-...
What's going to happen in the future is that May will be a month of extreme electricity abundance, with a good chunk of the electricity just not being collected at all because the grid doesn't need it, and it will be cheaper to have unused electricity in May than to have too little solar in December.
And eventually that arbitrage will be big enough to justify a pumped hydro/gravity/iron-air storage.
Large-scale battery storage is already expanding rapidly, and is way cheaper than pumped storage.
Doubtful, the tradeoff is solar cost versus storage cost. Pumped hydro and gravity are waaaaaaaay too expensive compared to excess solar panels. Pumped hydro takes massive construction projects, which are very very expensive these days. Gravity storage (non-water, meaning non-hydro) never made any sense at all, the material costs are just way too high.
Iron-air storage is still being proven out, but it still requires so much material that only getting 1-2 cycles per year just won't justify it, because electricity is going to be so cheap.
It's hard to overstate how cheap solar panels are these days. Even in the US, which has costs 3x-5x the rest of the world because of failed protective tariffs.
Lithium is the way, almost as cheap as sodium for a superior capability profile. Like solar, it just got cheap enough incredibly fast.
https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2026/07/27/global-battery-storag...
https://www.spglobal.com/energy/en/news-research/latest-news...
Except the water is in short supply, so where's that magically coming from? The Great Salt Lake is shrinking and specific to Utah. Just look at Lake Meade and Hoover Dam as an example.
Or possibly the return of some heavy industry?
I always wondered that - but will it be economical to have the plants not working in the months of the year that the energy isn't free?
good thing the President is pouring billions into restarting coal plants
what a freaking horror show we are living in
At least at this point solar can be driven by pure market forces, it doesn't need federal subsidies to make sense.
https://ember-energy.org/data/us-electricity-data-explorer/?...
Sad to see coal going up (?)
The chart defaults to ending at 2025. Move the right timeline marker all the way to the right (today).
> In 2025, coal composes just 15 percent of U.S. electricity generation, and while 190 gigawatts (GW) of coal capacity remain online, the fleet is down 43 percent from 340 GW at its peak in 2010. This change is largely due to the fact that coal power is simply more expensive than cleaner power sources like wind, solar, batteries, and natural gas.
> Electricity demand growth and new actions by the current U.S. presidential administration may slow this decline in the short-term, but with no proposals to build new coal plants anywhere in America and worsening economic competitiveness – particularly where policymakers are strengthening air and water standards to protect their constituents – its long-term share of U.S. electricity generation will continue to decrease
https://energyinnovation.org/expert-voice/what-is-coals-futu...
https://www.sierraclub.org/coal/coal-plant-map
https://www.energy.gov/ceser/2025-doe-202c-orders
Utah isn't a power grid.
They're on the western interconnect.
Combined solar and wind are about 25-30% of production there.
These articles about individual states are trash.
Fwiw I think Utah is the only state with legalized plugin solar (many more on the way though!)
A few more states have recently joined it. https://pluginsolarus.com/states
State plug in solar legislation tracker: https://www.brightsaver.org/legislation-tracker
(passed in 10 states, 2 awaiting signatures, as of this comment)
Okay debbie downer, it's still positive news
Utah is about half of the Pacificorp East balancing authority.
https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/US-NW-PACE/live/fif...
Nevada Power serves a substantial amount of western Utah.
https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/US-NW-NEVP/live/fif...
Cool, that's still not a grid for stability purposes.
can you expand? I'm not sure I get it. isn't then having a wider interconnection better for stability and to handle solar? they can share cheap power in gluts and pull in other sources at night and so on.
https://www.eia.gov/tools/glossary/index.php?id=Balancing%20...
> Balancing authority (electric): The responsible entity that integrates resource plans ahead of time, maintains load-interchange-generation balance within a Balancing Authority Area, and supports Interconnection frequency in real time.
https://www.nerc.com/glossary-of-terms
> Definition & Scope: A BA is a NERC-certified entity responsible for matching electricity supply and demand in real-time within a specific geographic area. An ISO is an independent, non-profit corporate entity that manages regional transmission grids and runs competitive wholesale power markets.
https://www.ferc.gov/electric-power-markets
A balancing authority is quite literally a federally certified entity for maintaining grid stability.
(Utah only has ~2.5GW of coal generation capacity remaining, as of this comment)
https://www.gem.wiki/Utah_and_coal#Existing_coal_plants
https://www.gem.wiki/Utah_and_coal
https://utahnewsdispatch.com/2025/12/05/intermountain-power-...
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=67427
I think I know what this means, but I bet you share a better explanation with us all too of the point you're making