Can solar power save the day in California this summer?

The natural gas leak that occurred at the Aliso Canyon gas storage facility (Aliso Canyon) in Southern California earlier this year means Aliso Canyon will probably not be available to meet any peak natural gas needs for the remainder of the year at a minimum. The outage may limit the ability of some gas-fired generators in the Los Angeles basin to operate during up to 16 days this summer. The California ISO (CAISO) assigns high capacity value to solar generators, and expedited deployment of new solar has been proposed as one way to help mitigate the loss of Aliso Canyon. In this Insight Wood Mackenzie provides our own analysis indicating that solar capacity value is much lower than CAISO assumes. Peak day analysis also shows that additional solar will do little to reduce peak hourly gas demand. However, new solar may help offset the Aliso Canyon outage by reducing gas-fired generation earlier in the day, thus making that gas available when hourly gas-fired generation peaks.