Talk:Solar power in California

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 21 January 2020 and 15 May 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Sabina Mahavni. Peer reviewers: Salliejohnson99, Dalanlaughlin.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 09:46, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Work Needed
I'd rank this article as "HIGH" importance as interest in California's solar energy development is of broad appeal and California is home to the three largest solar facilities in the world (at least as of July 2015). However THIS article is rather poorly organized and seems to be extremely biased towards projects being developed by Bright Source (a large solar development company). As such, it does not present a properly "neutral" view of the topic. For example, it notes a study that finds "most" people favor solar energy (I'm paraphrasing loosely), yet fails to mention the many controversies associated with siting facilities in various communities nor the actual environmental effects of solar, etc. And, in particular, there are already a lot of very well written articles on solar and this article would benefit by linking to them in the appropriate locations. (Again, I didn't have time to tackle such a thing today.)

If anyone seeking this has the ability (I don't): Please flag this article for potential sock-puppeting abuse risks or, at minimum, lack of neutrality issues. Thanks! Cynthisa (talk) 00:31, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Proposed merge from California Solar Initiative
There is a short page on the California Solar Initiative that would fit nicely into this article rather than hanging out as a stub on it's own. It would really enhance this article as well. Thoughts? AliveFreeHappy (talk) 23:21, 5 August 2015 (UTC)


 * That sounds like a good idea; rather than having the California Solar Initiative be its own article, it would probably be more coherent to have it incorporated into the main Solar power in California article, perhaps under an 'Incentives' section that covers net metering, rebates/grants, FITs, etc. Likewise, Solar power in Alameda County seems like a good candidate for consolidation as well. TimeClock871 (talk) 02:21, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Solar power in California. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20091010104535/http://online.wsj.com:80/article/BT-CO-20091006-710542.html to http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20091006-710542.html

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Top 10 needs revision
It seems like the Top 10 section should be ranked by installed capacity (or some other meaningful measure), broken down into residential and commercial categories, rather than yelp, facebook, and google+ reviews. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.183.126.119 (talk) 03:07, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I've deleted that whole section. It's full of WP:OR and doesn't cite the sources for the numbers that are gotten. Half the paragraph is explaining how the numbers in the table are calculated which is just silly. Ergzay (talk) 10:10, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Photovoltaics section timeline
These charts do not show up on my phone browser, just the final credit and reference. Can that be fixed or flagged? I was ready to delete as a format error until I saw the code. Fettlemap (talk) 22:05, 21 February 2020 (UTC)


 * The yellow graphs, right? This is the first time in Wikipedia I've seen a graph or chart rendered this way with the wiki-html, rather than uploaded as a file on commons and included. They look fine on my phone using the Wikipedia app, and in my phone browser...what phone and browser are you using that gives issue?  And I then don't know who to notify about this anyhow.  --- Avatar317 (talk) 05:35, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Didn't realize there was an app. I am very comfortable using Android Pixel phone with native browser to edit as it works with scripts like Twinkle. I will explore app. Thanks Fettlemap (talk) 06:38, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

On my screen, which is 1366 pixels wide, I only see the left edge of the Fresno chart. On a narrower screen I suspect you wouldn't even know there was a second chart off screen to the right. It seems to me this should be fixed but I don't know enough about how these images are generated to suggest a solution. Would it make sense to put in a break so they appear on top of each other rather than side-to-side? Would that ruin the experience for phone users? GA-RT-22 (talk) 19:40, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

EVs place "extra burden on the grid"
The rate of growth in EVs is about 4% a year, which is no more than the growth of the electric grid in past decades. This so-called extra burden falls within the amount of growth that the electric grid has sustained in the past, so it should not be an issue that cannot already be dealt with like it has been in the past. 2600:1700:CD40:C510:D90E:3C43:4E41:FA69 (talk) 21:17, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: CALIFORNIA DREAMING, THE GOLDEN STATE'S RHETORICAL APPEALS
— Assignment last updated by Picklenchips (talk) 19:49, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Overview / Organization of the Article
I feel the sections of this article do not accurately summarize the various sections of the actual topic 'Solar Power in California'. The history section seems redundant and covers information that should be sectioned off (such as solar facilities, government programs, and challenges facing solar). The next two sections talk various solar projects in California, and should belong within Generation. I'd prefer to have a table of the utility-scale projects, so I could sort them in order by various aspects like time, thermal or PV, scale, development company, etc. while keeping descriptions of the unique aspects of each project. Government support has no general paragraph and just delves into various solar programs chronologically - I think it should have more structure. Finally, state challenges and public opinion could be combined with a paragraph on affordability from the history section to talk about the impacts solar has on the residents of California.

I propose redistributing the content into three main sections, each beginning with an overview of the section including the most current, relevant points first. Readers should understand the most recent state of Solar in CA before delving into subsections and historical data.


 * 1) Generation: the state of current utility & distributed solar, historical generation data, large utility-scale projects history (table?), historical milestones & relevant projects.
 * 2) State Support: overview of current state of government incentives, net metering, RPS. specifics of net metering, specifics of current programs, specifics of past programs
 * 3) Impact: challenges facing solar in CA, cost of electricity / affordability, EVs / modernization, public opinion

If anyone has feedback on this structural change, let me know. I will go ahead in the next week and restructure the article like this, just moving around paragraphs and adding headings where possible. I hope to contribute new research on the last "Impact" header, as the affordability of distributed solar and impacts solar has had on electricity rates has not been addressed in this article. Picklenchips (talk) 04:33, 11 March 2023 (UTC)


 * As a generalization, most articles do have a History section first. In this article, it doesn't need to be large, and maybe a timeline or paragraphs with dates of the beginnings of certain state incentive programs and state declarations of goals would be good for that section.
 * ALL solar is Generation (we don't use any to make green hydrogen yet) so this category seems redundant to the article itself, unless you intend to add a section talking about new transmission lines created/necessary for the solar to be connected to the grid.
 * Impact: content sounds good, but maybe a different title? Challenges aren't impact, neither is public opinion.
 * Also you said: "Readers should understand the most recent state of Solar in CA before delving into subsections and historical data." - That is what the lead (WP:LEAD) is for, and could definitely use to be re-written to better summarize the article; this would be done best AFTER you restructure and add content.
 * The article could definitely use some restructuring and improvements, thanks for starting on this! --- Avatar317 (talk) 01:50, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: CALIFORNIA DREAMING, THE GOLDEN STATE'S RHETORICAL APPEALS
— Assignment last updated by Phrynefisher (talk) 00:17, 27 May 2023 (UTC)