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News
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LCG, September 4, 2025--Puget Sound Energy (PSE) announced yesterday that phased construction has commenced on its 142-MW Appaloosa Solar Project, a utility-scale solar facility underway in southeastern Washington. The project is being built by Qcells EPC, who will serve as the module manufacturer and the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) solution provider. Construction is scheduled through 2026, and commercial operation is expected at the end of next year.
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LCG, September 3, 2025--The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and ENTRA1 Energy (ENTRA1) yesterday announced a new agreement to advance nuclear power development within TVA’s service region. Under the agreement, ENTRA1 Energy will collaborate with TVA to deploy six ENTRA1 Energy Plants™, each powered by multiple NuScale Power Modules™, to provide up to 6 GW of firm, 24/7 baseload power.
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Industry News
EIA Presents Analysis of California's Solar and Wind Power Curtailment Challenges
LCG, May 29, 2025--The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released an analysis yesterday showing that the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), the grid operator for most of the state, is increasing its curtailment of the rapidly growing solar- and wind-powered generation facilities in order to balance electricity supply and demand, which is necessary to maintain a stable electric system.
Intermittent solar- and wind-powered generation capacity has increased dramatically in California, which in turn has increased the challenge of balancing supply and demand. In 2014, a combined 9.7 GW of wind and solar photovoltaic capacity was installed. At the end of 2024, the installed capacity in California had nearly tripled to 28.2 GW.
In 2024, CAISO curtailed 3.4 million MWh of utility-scale wind and solar output, which is a 29 percent increase from the prior year curtailments. Solar accounted for 93 percent of all the energy curtailed in CAISO in 2024.
According to the EIA analysis, the curtailments of wind and solar output is primarily driven by oversupply, i.e., when generation output exceeds customer electricity demand. The solar curtailments occurred mostly in the spring, when solar output was relatively high and electricity demand was relatively low, given moderate spring temperatures and less demand for space heating or air conditioning.
The EIA's analysis states that solar energy supplies almost half of CAISO's electricity demand between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. However, demand increases in the later evening hours when people come home from work and turn up air conditioners or electric heaters and turn on lights, ovens, computers, and televisions. This increase in demand and need for non-solar power supplies is especially apparent on hot summer evenings after the sun has set and no longer produces solar power overnight.
According to EIA, CAISO is trying to reduce curtailments in several ways: (i) trading with neighboring balancing authorities to try to sell excess solar and wind power, (ii) incorporating battery storage into ancillary services, energy, and capacity markets, and (iii) including curtailment reduction in transmission planning. In addition, this year companies are planning to use excess renewable energy to make hydrogen, some of which will be stored and mixed with natural gas for summer generation at the Intermountain Power Project's new facility that is scheduled to come online in July.
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UPLAN-NPM
The Locational Marginal Price Model (LMP) Network Power Model
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UPLAN-ACE
Day Ahead and Real Time Market Simulation
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UPLAN-G
The Gas Procurement and Competitive Analysis System
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PLATO
Database of Plants, Loads, Assets, Transmission...
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