The sun may have gone into eclipse mode Monday but the California electric grid did not.
Power system officials across the state reported no major reliability issues, even though solar power took a dramatic dip as the moon obscured a large portion of the sun Monday morning.
That provided a real challenge for California grid operators, given that Monday marked the first eclipse seen throughout the contiguous United States since 1979, when solar power represented just a blip on the nation’s energy landscape.
The California Independent System Operator oversees the operation of about 80 percent of the state’s electric power system, transmission lines and electricity market and the CAISO control room was ground zero Monday to see how the power system would react.
Ho Hum…. no surprise there. I’m miffed that my existing positions in solar energy stocks (FSLR, JKS, SEDG) all took big dips just before the eclipse for no logical reason. As if something surprising was going to happen?? You could have said I should have taken the dip to buy more, but I had as much as I wanted, and also I was ‘on the road’ and ~off line to photograph the eclipse. The bounceback so far has been mile, but then the whole market has cooled lately.
News flash – we get a “solar eclipse” by the Earth lasting not 2 minutes, but ~12 hours….. every darn day! You heard it here first!