California’s power grid performed largely as expected during Saturday’s solar eclipse, with no major problems affecting the power grid and partly cloudy conditions dimming solar generation across much of the state.
The California Independent System Operator (CAISO), which covers about 80% of California and parts of Nevada, said in an August bulletin that the sun would be obscured by as much as 89% in Northern California down to 68% along the Southern California coast. As a result, it expected grid-scale solar generation to fall from 6,246 MW at 8:05 am Pacific Daylight Time (PDT) to 3,240 MW at 9:30 am, then ramp up to 14,041 MW at 11:05 am.
