California is bringing on renewables so quickly that it’s not uncommon for energy prices to go negative. This means they are paying other states to take their solar and when the sun goes down and they have peak demand of the day we are back using fossil fuels.
‍
Utilities across the country will soon be facing similar challenges if they aren't already.
‍
This is not sustainable.

In order to decarbonize, we have to electrify end uses like cooking and room heating and cooling.
‍
But if we're not careful, electrification could make the problem worse by increasing consumption at the dirtiest times and making load-balancing harder.

Already, marginal carbon intensity is highly variable by time-and season. When it’s clean let’s use it and store it but when it’s dirty, let's use less of it and use the clean stored energy.

Flexible distributed energy resources (DERs) that can balance load are part of the solution to these grid management challenges, as long as they are valued consistently.
‍
Efficiency is the most plentiful of these resources, and is typically lower cost than other DERs. But efficiency only works to solve grid problems when targeted at grid needs for load management.