For just a few minutes on Saturday, the entirety of California's electricity was being generated from renewable sources for the first time in history.
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The state's energy that comes onto the grid is tracked by the California Independent System Operator, Dan Kammen, Professor of Energy at UC Berkeley and Former Science Envoy for the U.S. State Department told KCBS Radio’s Megan Goldsby on Monday.
"Because we track exactly how much solar, and wind, and hydropower – we knew, for about four minutes – we were entirely powered by solar and wind," he said. "And our excess energy, our hydro that we didn't need, we actually sold to neighboring states."
This milestone is exciting not only because meeting the 100% mark is a big accomplishment, but also because the state is ahead of schedule on this goal by more than a decade, said Kammen.
The next step, the bigger challenge, is how to transition from being able to do this for only a few minutes to be able to sustain it 24/7.
"That's what California has promised to do by 2045," he said, although many have been pushing Newsom to move that goal up by a decade to 2035. "This shows that we can get that done."
In order to make that happen, not only does the state need to increase its level of solar and wind power, but its storage for this energy as well.
"So day or night, whether it is a cloudy day, whether it’s good or bad wind, we’ll have both enough renewables and enough storage so we can meet all of our energy demands," he said.
Kammen is optimistic the state can reach that goal soon, even able to sustain a full year of renewable energy before the end of the decade.
Being able to sustain renewable energy is a huge boon for California in particular, whose power grid is threatened every time the weather reaches high temperatures.
The achievement is being noticed by others as well. "Other countries from around the world are now calling California to say, 'How did you do it,'" he said.
Kammen hopes with this achievement, the goal of being 100% renewable by 2045 could be moved up as early as 2030.
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