Over the past 12 months, solar power has become California’s largest source of electricity, a trend likely to continue.

“In the 12 months ending April 2025, solar generated 83.1 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity, compared to 81.6 TWh from natural gas.”

“Nationally, solar generation continues to climb. In April, solar supplied 10.64% of U.S. electricity for the month (marking the first time the country crossed the 10% mark) and contributed 7.35% of generation over the rolling 12 months. California, by comparison, produced 42% of its electricity from solar at its seasonal peak in April, with May expected to push that figure even higher.”

Good 'ol CA, long-time nation-leader.

  • Serinus@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    10 days ago

    It makes a lot of sense. More people should (have) gotten in while the getting was good.

    If

    • your roof gets sun
    • you own your house
    • you’re going to stay there ~10 years
    • you don’t have to go into debt at a bad rate to do it

    You should have really looked into it while the 30% fed discount existed. I think it dies at the end of this year. Payoff time with a battery is something like 9-14 years, but after that it’s 10-25 years of profit. And you don’t have to worry about power outages anymore.

    • m3t00🌎@lemmy.worldMEnglish
      3·
      10 days ago

      prices for solar are continuously falling. bleeding edge is expensive, as always. cheaper helps it grow. big oil wants to kill it. too late.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      10 days ago

      You should have really looked into it while the 30% fed discount existed. I

      The real return on renewables is in the industrial facilities. Your house isn’t going to have the location or the hardware to optimize sunlight collection like a multi million dollar facility.

      Economies of scale can get the price of generating solar down into the low single digits. And then there’s industrial batteries/transmission.

      That’s what is boosting utility. Not home units.

  • arin@lemmy.worldEnglish
    51·
    10 days ago

    PG&E being corrupt with the bribed government allowing the insane utility rate increases pushed us to go solar

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      10 days ago

      Same thing happened in Texas. ERCOT’s sky high wholesale electricity rate cap was an enormous windfall for gas power, but also for Wind and Solar which just got to draft behind.

      And since there’s not variable cost to Solar/Wind and you can just keep rolling your profits into new capital, we get more and more infrastructure rolled out year after year.